The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor
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Revised Pages A PlAyer And A GentlemAn Revised Pages Carte de visite of Harry Watkins in costume (possibly as a character in Photographiana; or, Wives by Advertisement by Charles Gayler), circa 1860s. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University. Revised Pages A PLAYER AND A GENTLEMAN The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth- Century US American Actor Edited by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs Scott D. Dexter, Technology Director University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © 2018 by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs Some rights reserved This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Note to users: A Creative Commons license is only valid when it is applied by the person or entity that holds rights to the licensed work. Works may contain components (e.g., photographs, illustrations, or quotations) to which the rightsholder in the work cannot apply the license. It is ultimately your responsibility to independently evaluate the copyright status of any work or component part of a work you use, in light of your intended use. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected] Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid- free paper First published October 2018 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Watkins, Harry, 1825– 1894, author. | Hughes, Amy, editor. | Stubbs, Naomi J., 1981– editor. Title: A player and a gentleman : the diary of Harry Watkins, nineteenth- century US American actor / edited by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs. Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2018. | Includes index. | Identifiers: lccn 2018021214 (print) | lccn 2018034554 (ebook) | isbn 9780472124060 (E- book) | isbn 9780472130917 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Watkins, Harry, 1825– 1894— Diaries. | Watkins, Harry, 1825– 1894 Diaries. Selections. | Actors— United States— Diaries. | Theater— United States— History— 19th century. Classification: LCC pn2287.w453 (ebook) | LCC pn2287.w453 a3 2018 (print) | DDC 792.02/8092 [B] — dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021214 Illustrated maps created by Shane Breaux. Cover images courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. ISBN 978-0-472-90261-3 (OA) https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9290953 Revised Pages Acknowledgments This mammoth undertaking benefited from many minds, hands, eyes, and hearts. We are incredibly fortunate that Scott D. Dexter agreed to collaborate with us on the technological aspects of this project. His brilliant ideas, creativity, and expertise not only made this project feasible, but also emboldened us to do more with technology than we ever would have on our own. For all of this and more, we vastly thank him. Numerous interns and editorial assistants helped us with transcribing, encoding, and proofreading the diary and myriad other tasks. Shane Breaux has been an indefatigable and dedicated member of the team from the very beginning; his wide-rang ing contributions to this endeavor—inc luding the beautiful maps illustrating Watkins’s travels in each chapter— have been in- valuable. Elijah Akinbamidele, Sara Diaz, Danielle Pace, Christine Snyder, Me- deli Tavarez, and Esteban Toyos also spent considerable time with us during the transcription and verification phase, and we heartily thank them as well. In addition, we are indebted to our interns for their labor, fresh insights, and creative takes on this project: Irma Aguirre, Jonathan Caba, Raymond Cama- cho, Gabriella Lira- Pizano, Guilherme de A. Pedroso, Luciana Pinto, Carlos Ramos, Oliver Reyes, Asha Robinson, Aleksander Ruziyev, Trenton Voegeli, Kelly Williams, and Cathelyne Yacinthe. LeAnn Fields, our editor at University of Michigan Press, recognized the value of this project when it was little more than an idea. We are deeply grate- ful for her encouragement, vision, and support in bringing to fruition not only the printed volume, but also the digital edition. Moreover, we thank Jer- emy Morse and the dedicated caretakers of University of Michigan Libraries’ Digital Collections, who have ensured that our entire transcription of Wat- kins’s diary will be freely accessible online to you and other readers. Many scholars and documentary editors provided advice and support throughout this project’s development, especially the members of our advi- sory board: Sarah Bay- Cheng, Christopher Brick, John W. Frick, Barbara Wal- Revised Pages vi | acknowledgments lace Grossman, Beth Luey, and David Mayer. We also express heartfelt thanks to Cathy Moran Hojo, Esther Katz, Laura L. Mielke, Heather S. Nathans, and the two anonymous readers of our manuscript. All offered feedback and guid- ance at pivotal points, and this edition is much better than it would have been without their input. Our work would not have been possible without funding provided by our home institutions and a number of outside organizations. For giving us the resources we needed to acquire training and materials, compensate editorial assistants, and conduct research at various archives, we thank the American Antiquarian Society, Association for Documentary Editing, Harvard Theatre Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, Society for The- atre Research, Winterthur Museum and Library, PSC- CUNY Research Award Program, CUNY’s Collaborative Incentive Research Grant program, CUNY’s Faculty Fellows Publication Program, LaGuardia Community College’s Edu- cational Development Initiative Team; and, at Brooklyn College, the Leonard and Claire Tow Faculty Travel Fund, Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship for Out- standing Teaching in the Humanities, and Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities. Naturally, any project that relies heavily on archival materials cannot be completed without the tireless support of archivists and librarians. At the Harvard Theatre Collection (HTC), Betty Falsey was instrumental in helping locate the diary among the Skinner Family Papers in 2008, and curator Mat- thew Wittmann has been exceptionally generous, providing guidance and resources of many kinds. Mary Haegert, Micah Hoggatt, and Dale Stinch- comb also offered essential help during (and in between) visits to the HTC. At the Kresge Library at Oakland University in Michigan, Dominique Daniel and Shirley Paquette helped us access and study Watkins’s scrapbooks. Susan Taylor and Clare Thompson (Mitchell Library, Glasgow), Claire McKendrick (University of Glasgow), Michael Gallagher (Glasgow City Archives), Mal- colm Barr- Hamilton and Natasha Luck (Tower Hamlets Council), Jill Sullivan and Jo Elsworth (Mander and Mitchenson Collection), Julie Anne Lambert (Bodleian Library, Oxford), and the team at the Theatre Museum, London, all provided tremendous guidance in tracing the details of Watkins’s tour through the United Kingdom. Also, we are grateful that Ralph and Angela Thomassen and Laurie Thomassen reached out to us regarding their collec- tions of material related to the Watkins family. Their enthusiasm about this project was a welcome propulsion during our final stages of work. Revised Pages acknowledgments | vii Scores of friends, colleagues, and mentors have supported us, both pro- fessionally and personally: Daniel Ackerman, Jessie Alsop, Margaret Araneo- Reddy, Jane Barnette, Robin Bernstein, Henry Bial, Colleen Boggs, Rose Bur- nett Bonczek, Parkinson Brown, Thomas Bullard, Marvin Carlson, Chrystyna Dail, Tri Datta, Robert Davis, Alan Davison, Christine DeLucia, Mary Beth Easley, Christopher Ebert, Paul Erickson, Laura Tesman Gillette, Annasta- sia Stafford Goldberg, Michelle Granshaw, Emma Halpern, Mobina Hash- mi, Debra Hilborn, Bethany Holmstrom, Pei- Wen Huang- Shea, Sara Hymes, Mary Isbell, Stephanie Jensen- Moulton, Megan Sanborn Jones, Sascha Just, Jayashree Kamble, Marion Kanour, Danielle Kellogg, Alison Kinney, David Langkamp, Sasha Leitman, Ted Levine, Michael Lueger, Roger Manix, Chris- tine Marks, Kip Marsh, Whitney Martinko, Helen Mayer, Dwight McBride, Michael Meagher, Lisa Merrill, Judith Milhous, Derek Miller, Jen- Scott Mo- bley, Sarah Moran, Carolina Bank Muñoz, Ken Nielsen, Michelle Pacht, Greg Phelps, Rob Reddy, Helen E. Richardson, Julia Miele Rodas, Justin Rogers- Cooper, Louis Scheeder, Jesse Schwartz, Stephen Shaffer, Naomi Singer, Ja- clyn Smerling, Teresa Snider- Stein, Karl Steel, Tobie S. Stein, Jill Stevenson, Jessica Tabor- Fritch, Gordon Tapper, Lynn M. Thomson, Jolie Tong, Justin Townsend, Phyllis van Slyck, Daniel Venning, Judylee Vivier, Deserie Ward, Ross Williams, James Wilson, Jennifer Worth, and Liv Yarrow. We sincerely thank them all. And finally, we are profoundly grateful to our families. They constantly remind us of the wisdom of the Zulu proverb, “A person is a person through other people.” For their love, care, and influence, we thank Sharon Dexter; David and Maureen Hughes; Michael H. Hughes; Michael V. Hughes; Paul W. Hughes; Richard, Emily, Caroline, Lena, and Maggie Hughes; Stephen and Su- san Hughes; Katherine Hughes- Jurgens and J. Jurgens; Charles Singer; Paul, Jennifer, and Helen Stubbs; Rebecca and Richard Tregunna; and Katherine, Richard, and Mya Willis. 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