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Title	Autograph of Edwin Booth and Ada Cavendish
Date	1878-04-24
Date era	1850-1900
Creator	Edwin Booth and Ada Cavendish
Artistic roles	Edwin Booth (Actor); Ada Cavendish (Actor)
Genre	Tragedy Comedy
Theme	Dynasties
Item description	Autographs of Edwin Booth (given on April 24th, 1878), and Ada Cavendish (given on Nov. 25th, 1880). Autographs are written in ink on an off-white sheet of paper which has been removed from the autograph album it originated from.
Object narrative	Autographs of Edwin Booth and Ada Cavendish, both 19th century actors. Edwin Booth (1833-1893) was born Edwin Thomas Booth, the fourth son of prominent tragic actor, Junius Brutus Booth, in Baltimore. He was named after another great tragic actor in Booth'; s circle, Edwin Forrest. The next son to be born to Booth would be John Wilkes. All his life Edwin had an observant, thoughtful, melancholy disposition (Winter, Biographical Sketch 9), according to William Winter, critic and biographer of the time. In 1846, Edwin'; s education came to a standstill as he was called upon to act as his father'; s companion while he was touring. The elder Booth was not capable of staying sober or taking care of himself while away from Edwin'; s mother; Edwin became a soothing and loyal chaperon to his father, and also gained his father'; s skill in playing great tragic roles. In 1849 at the age of sixteen, he first stepped on stage to relieve the stage manager of the role of Tressel in Richard III. He continued after this to play in other small and large roles alongside his father. In 1852, Junius Brutus Booth Sr. died and Edwin continued to perform in the Western states and even toured to Australia and Hawaii with Laura Keene, but his father'; s penchant for hard drinking and carousing rubbed off on him. Returning East in 1856, his experience building both farcical and tragic roles over the preceding years brought him almost immediate fame and recognition. Important and known roles in his repertoire included Hamlet, Richard III, Sir Giles Overreach (A New Way to Pay Old Debts), Richelieu, Shylock, and Lear. On April 14, 1865, he had just finished a performance of Hamlet in Boston when word reached him that his brother, John Wilkes, also an actor, had shot President Lincoln in Ford'; s Theatre in Washington D.C. Edwin retired from the stage in mortification and grief, but returned in January 1866. Winter remarked that Booth was the representative tragedian of the time and established the most magnificent theatre in America (Winter, Biographical Sketch 48), triumphing over many tragedies, disappointments, hereditary evils, and misrepresentations over the course of his career. Ada Cavendish (1839-1895) was a British actress who performed mainly in melodramas and burlesque, with some Shakespeare added to her repertoire in her later career. Some of her known roles were Juliet, Rosalind, Beatrice, Mercy Merrick in New Magdalen, and Miss Gwilt in Miss Gwilt. She toured extensively in America from 1878-1880, during which time she added her autograph to that of Edwin Booth'; s in some lucky person'; s autograph album!
Original format	Autographs
Repository	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (http://library.uncg.edu/info/depts/scua/)
Collection	MSS255 Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection
Series	6.2 Correspondence and Autographs -- Autographs
Finding aid link	http://library.uncg.edu/info/depts/scua/collections/manuscripts/ead/mss255.xml
Preferred citation	[Identification of item], Robert C. Hansen Performing Arts Collection, 1753-2006 (MSS255), Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives and Manuscripts, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA.
Copyright	http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/copyright
Object ID	MSS255_B79_024
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304
Digital collection homepage	http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/Hansen

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Autograph of Edwin Booth and Ada Cavendish

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