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MISSOURI Historical Review The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI THE COVER: The New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 was a factor in the slow develop ment of the Southeast Missouri Lowlands, according to Dr. Leon Parker Ogilvie in his article appearing in this issue of the REVIEW. Thirty-seven years after the earth quake, the English-born artist, Henry Lewis, sketched the community. A litho graph from Lewis' sketch of New Madrid appeared in Das Illustrirte Mississippithal, published in the 1850s. In 1923 a second printing of the book was prepared by H. Schmidt and C. Giinther of Leipzig and Otto Lange of Florence. It is from a copy of the 1923 edition that the cover illustra tion has been reproduced. MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVffiW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI RICHARD S. BROWNLEE EDITOR DOROTHY CALDWELL ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAMES W. GOODRICH ASSOCIATE EDITOR The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 201 South Eighth Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communi cations, business and editorial correspondence and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, corner of Hitt and Lowry Streets, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. VOLUME LXIV The REVIEW is sent free to all members of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $2.00 a year or $40 for an individual life membership. The Society assumes NUMBER 2 no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. JANUARY 1970 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1959, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1968-71 T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia, Second Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Third Vice President JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry, Fourth Vice President JOHN A. WINKLER, Hannibal, Fifth Vice President REV. JOHN F. BANNON, S.J., St. Louis, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society E. L. DALE, Carthage LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1970 WILLIAM AULL, III, Lexington GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton GEORGE H. SCRUTON, Sedalia ELMER ELLIS, Columbia JAMES TODD, Moberly ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1971 LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia R. I. COLBORN, Paris ROBERT A. BOWLING, Montgomery City RICHARD B. FOWLER, Kansas City FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon VICTOR A. GIERKE, Louisiana HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence ROBERT NAGEL JONES, St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1972 GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis RONALD L. SOMERVILLE, Chillicothe L. E. MEADOR, Springfield JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre ROBERT M. WHITE, Mexico EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the University of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Four members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President, who by virtue of his office constitutes the fifth member, compose the Finance Com mittee. ELMER ELLIS, Columbia, Chairman WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield nmraiTOTOffip^ffip NEW SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS The State Historical Society of Missouri is always interested in obtaining new members. For more than seventy years thousands of Missourians who have be longed to the Society have been responsible primarily for building its great research collections and libraries. They have given it the support which makes it the largest organization of its type in the United States. The quest for interested new members goes on continually, and your help is solicited in obtaining them. In every family, and in every community, there are individuals who are sincerely interested in the collection, preservation and dissemination of the his tory of Missouri. Why not nominate these people for membership? Annual dues are only $2.00, Life Memberships $40.00. Richard S. Brownlee Director and Secretary State Historical Society of Missouri Hitt and Lowry Streets Columbia, Missouri 65201 M iii CONTENTS THE GENESIS OF THE VARIETY THEATRE: The Black Crook Comes to St. Louis. By John Russell David 133 GOVERNMENTAL EFFORTS AT RECLAMATION IN THE SOUTHEAST MISSOURI LOWLANDS. By Leon Parker Ogilvie 150 THE COLUMBIA FEMALE ACADEMY: A PIONEER IN EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. By John Crighton 177 TOWN GROWTH IN CENTRAL MISSOURI. Part II. By Stuart F. Voss 197 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Society Holds Annual Meeting 218 Views from the Past: Advertisements of Yesteryear 220 News in Brief 222 Errata 224 Local Historical Societies 225 Gifts 239 Missouri History in Newspapers 242 Missouri History in Magazines 247 Graduate Theses Relating To Missouri History 249 Editorial Policy 250 In Memoriam 251 BOOK REVIEW 253 BOOK NOTES 255 "MISSOURI RAH MISSOURI" 260 ROSE WILDER LANE Inside Back Cover iv The Genesis of the Variety Theatre The Black Crook Comes to St. Louis BY JOHN RUSSELL DAVID* Early in the summer of 1866 Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer, world-famed managers and speculators, returned from Europe. They had been searching for some attraction which would gain the favor of American theatregoers. After careful consideration, they decided that a ballet troupe would be just the right drawing card. As Jarrett explained the venture sometime later: Legs are staple articles, and will never go out of fashion while the world lasts. They top the list of the Beauties of Nature, and we will father an array of them that will make even the surfeited New Yorker open his eyes and his pocket and hold his breath in astonishment.1 Upon their arrival in New York, Jarrett and Palmer made ar rangements to present their ballet troupe at New York's Academy of Music. Before the production opened, however, the Academy burned to the ground, and the ambitious managers then contacted William Wheatley, manager and lessee of Niblo's Garden in down town Manhattan. Jarrett and Palmer told Wheatley of the attraction *John Russell David is currently an instructor in American Studies at Wydown Junior High School in Clayton, Missouri. Mr. David received his B.A. from Washington University, St. Louis, and the M.A. in History from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Illinois. i Joseph Whitton, "The Naked Truth!" An Inside History of The Black Crook (Philadelphia, 1897), 1-2. 133 134 Missouri Historical Review they had secured in Europe and offered him the opportunity to join them in the production of a spectacular drama, in which their ballet troupe would be introduced using the stage of Niblo's. Once Wheatley had agreed to the proposition, the promoters planned to locate a manuscript which would satisfy their needs. Jarrett and Palmer desired a script containing a minimum amount of dialogue. The plot would simply act as "... a clothes line, as it were, on which to hang the pretty dresses, besides affording abun dant opportunities for scenic display."2 The play was found when Wheatley was contacted by Charles M. Barras. Barras, a New York journalist and dramatic critic, had recently completed a manu script entitled The Black Crook.3 Charles Barras conceived the idea of writing The Black Crook in 1865. The ideas he incorporated were not original; they repre sented a conglomerate of passages taken from operas, dramas and comedies.4 William Wheatley purchased the rights to The Black Crook from Barras for $3,000, intending that the several acts should merely form pendants for the brilliance of the ballet spectacles following each act. When the bargain was finally concluded between Jarrett, Palmer and Wheatley, the former two gentlemen agreed to supply the company; the latter, the scenery and effects, carpenters, scenic painters and costumers. The production cost $55,000, at that time an unusual amount, but the net profits of $660,000 in little more than a year easily compensated the investors for the play's initial costs. In the first few months alone, Barras garnered $60,000 in royalties from hopeful managers seeking to win fame and fortune with The Black Crook in their own hometowns.5 The plot of The Black Crook was a mixture of the melodramas of the period, Goethe's Faust, and Weber's Der Freischutz. A rich count (Wolfenstein) falls in love with a poor girl (Amina), the fiancee of a starving artist (Rudolphe), whom he throws into a dungeon. In the meantime, the Black Crook (Hertzog) makes a pact with the Arch Fiend. For every soul this aging sorcerer de livers, he is granted a year of life. Hertzog then manages to tempt the imprisoned Rudolphe with tales of buried treasure and a vision of his betrothed. Freed of bondage, Rudolphe sallies forth to ac- 2 ibid., 10. 3 Memphis Daily Bulletin, November 18, 1867. 4 Myron Matlaw, ed., The Black Crook and other Nineteenth Century Plays (New York, 1967), 321. 5 Ibid. The Genesis of the Variety Theatre 135 quire the treasure and to punish the Count. By accident he saves the metamorphosed Fairy Queen, who then becomes Rudolphe's guardian angel, helps him defeat the Count, and saves him from the Black Crook, who then loses his pact with the Devil and is borne off to hell.6 Neither the story nor the frequently trite dialogue was of much importance to the viewer.