Fashioning performance careers in New York, 1869--1899: How female performers negotiated changing ideas of womanhood
Item
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Title
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Fashioning performance careers in New York, 1869--1899: How female performers negotiated changing ideas of womanhood
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:45a823bdd0a6:10838
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identifier
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11133
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Creator
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Braxton, Celia,
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Contributor
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Judith Milhous
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater history | Womens studies | American studies | Biographies | Actresses-U.S.-19th century | Domestic ideology | Fanny Davenport | Gender roles | Georgia Cayvan | Louisa Eldridge
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Abstract
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Although they worked outside the home, the majority of nineteenth-century female performers built careers within, not in spite of, domestic ideology. Their choice contrasts with those of their more transgressive sisters, like Sarah Bernhardt, who flouted the ideal. This study of over seven hundred women who performed in New York City during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century examines how they created careers and public characters by combining values found within domestic ideology with changes in the notions of womanhood brought about by the experience of the Civil War.;Analysis of the database for this project reveals that after the war, there was an influx into the theatrical profession of young women from the middle classes. This changed the culture of the theatrical field, as well as the ways women from theatrical backgrounds presented themselves. The reasons women gave for entering theatre also changed, from redemptive reasons to reasons of choice.;But the collective experiences of the Civil War, combined with the need for many women to support themselves, also contributed to a new spirit of female independence exemplified by the assumption of independent agency by female stars. Cultural discomfort with the idea of independent businesswomen was played out in the press, as theatrical managers attempted to convince female performers of the folly of managing their own careers. As a group, female performers became a lightning rod for discussion of the growing independence of women generally.;The dissertation concludes by examining the careers of three lesser known performers of the late nineteenth-century who used domestic ideology to their career advantage: Georgia Cayvan, who grew from working-class roots to become the leading lady of the Lycuem Theatre; Louisa Eldridge, who used the ideals of domestic womanhood to create a public character that complimented her career as character actress; and Fanny Davenport, producer and director of one of the largest theatrical combination companies of the last twenty years of the nineteenth century.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Theatre
