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Frontier Dramatizations: The James Gang
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
Jesse James was shot on April 3, 1882. By the next theatrical season three different companies were presenting the story of the James gang to New York audiences.
Drama about American frontier figures was nothing new; late nineteenth century audiences were enamoured of tales of the frontier. Frank Murdoch's Davy Crockett, in which Frank Mayo starred for over twenty years, and William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody's Wild West show, which played for over thirty years, were but the most famous and successful of the hundreds of plays, lectures, exhibitions, and demonstrations about frontier life that regaled theatre patrons.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1980
References
NOTES
1 Although unusual in being based on actual frontier events, the plays about the James boys were neither unique nor original in that regard. Seven weeks after General George A. Custer was defeated at the Little Bighorn River in 1876, Harry Seymour's Sitting Bull, or Custer's Last Charge opened in New York, followed three weeks later by a piece entitled Custer and His Avengers.
2 Edwards' role in the myth-making process is referred to frequently in Jesse James Was His Name by William A. Settle, Jr. (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1966) passim.
3 Ibid., p. 180. The Guerrillas of the West or the Life, Character, and Daring Exploits of the Younger Brothers (St. Louis: Eureka Publishing Company, 1876).
4 Letter from Lavernie accompanying copyright application, at Copyright Office, Washington, D.C.
5 The New York Times, 27 January 1883, p. 8. James H. Wallick was not a member of the Wallack theatrical family, famous in the nineteenth-century American theatre. That family included, among others, James W. Wallack, producer of the fashionable repertory at Wallack's Lyceum, and his son, Lester Wallack. At the death of James H. Wallick both the New York Sun (2 May 1908) and the New York Mirror (9 May 1908) ran obituaries asserting that he had changed his name from Patrick J. Fubbins to James H. Wallack, but had switched the “a” to an “i” after Lester Wallack obtained an injunction against his using the former spelling. The Mirror further asserted that he resumed using Wallack after Lester died in 1882. A week later the Mirror ran a correction stating that his real name had been James Henry Wallaich. Both papers noted that he had been one of the earliest actor-managers in the country. The unpaged notices are on file at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
6 The New York Clipper, 3 February 1883, pp. 746 and 747; 10 February 1883, p. 762. The New York Dramatic Mirror, 10 February 1883, p. 2.
7 The New York Times, 2 February 1883, p. 3.
8 The New York Times, 17 September 1882, p. 15.
9 The New York Clipper, 9 December 1882, p. 623.
10 Settle, , op. cit., p. 166.Google Scholar
11 Lavernie's play was copyrighted as “The James Boys, Missouri Outlaws, Jesse and Frank; or, Run to Death in five acts and sixteen tableauxs [sic].” In litigation it was referred to by the New York Times (27 January 1883, p. 8) as James Boys, Frank and Jesse; or Falsely Accused. It was advertised simply as The James Boys.
12 The France piece was copyrighted as “Frank James, the Missouri Avenger. An Entirely New and Original Drama founded on the History of the Celebrated James Boys.” The New York Clipper mentions his production of The James Boys (20 March 1886, p. 6).
13 The typed scripts, entitled “Jesse James, the American Outlaw, or the Life and Death of Jesse James. A Sensational Western Melodrama in Four Acts,” by Henry Belmer, were copyrighted 18 October 1901 by Elizabeth Belmer. Although character names differ, the New York Times 18 November 1884 review of the Belmer production (p. 5) mentions characters, such as a “slugger” and a “would-be robber,” that figure in the 1901 script.
14 The Dramatic News and Society Journal, 6 February 1883, p. 3.
15 Ibid., p. 10.
16 The Dramatic News and Society Journal, 14 August 1883, p. 7.
17 Unidentified review in the Performing Arts Library of a Holliday Street Theatre production.
18 The New York Times, 27 January 1883, p. 8.
19 The New York Times, 16 November 1884, p. 15, and 18 November 1884, p. 5. Also, a woman widely advertised as the wife of Jesse James exhibited rifle marksmanship in November 1883 at the Standard Museum in Brooklyn (The New York Clipper, 24 November 1883, p. 598, and The Brooklyn Eagle, 18 November 1882, pp. 5, 8).
20 The New York Clipper, 14 October 1882, p. 496, and 1 July 1882, p. 247.
21 Settle, , op. cit., pp. 39, 58.Google Scholar
22 The New York Sun, 2 May 1908, unpaged, Performing Arts Library.
23 Settle, , op. cit., pp. 26–27, 76–77.Google Scholar
24 Belmer script, I, i.
25 Ibid., I, iii.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., III, i.
28 The New York Times, 24 March 1885, p. 5.
29 The New York Herald, 4 February 1883, p. 17.
30 From copyrighted title page in Copyright Office, Washington, D.C.
31 See small handbill negative in play file and large poster, both at Performing Arts Library.
32 The New York Herald, 4 February 1883, p. 17. The New York Times, 9 February 1886, p. 5. Unidentified review, 22 November 1902, in Performing Arts Library files.
33 The New York Herald, 21 August 1883, p. 10; The Dramatic News and Society Journal, 14 August 1883, p. 7; and the New York Times, 9 February 1886, p. 5.
34 The New York Herald, 21 August 1883, p. 10.
35 The New York Times, 24 March 1885, p. 5.
36 Belmer script, II, iii.
37 Ibid., II, iii (the second II, iii because of misnumbering and jumbled arrangement).
38 Ibid., I, iii.
39 Ibid., III, i.
40 The Wild West, or, A History of the Wild West Shows, by Don Russell (Ft. Worth: Amon Carter Museum of Wester Art, 1970), pp. 67, 127.
41 The New York Herald, 4 February 1883, p. 17.
42 6 February 1883, p. 4.
43 The New York Herald, 19 August 1883, p. 4.
44 24 March 1885, p. 5.