Bartley Campbell's Great Play Galley Slave
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
label: date made
content: 1879
name: label: cited
content: Campbell, Bartley
label: depicted
content: Granger, Maude
label: maker
content: Strobridge and Company
label: artist
content: Morgan, Matt
notes: label: Description
content: "This black and white print is a three-quarter length portrait of the actress Maude Granger looking over her shoulder. <i> The Galley Slave’s </i> complicated plot involves the betrayal of a well-born woman by her artist husband and her ultimate vindication and revenge." <i> The Galley Slave </i> was produced in 1879 but would later become a 1915 film starring Theda Bara.
label: Description
content: Maud Granger (ca 1851-1928) was born Anna Brainerd Follen in Middletown, Connecticut. She made her New York stage debut in 1873 in <i> Without a Heart </i> and went on to perform in plays like <i> The Mighty Dollar and Fifth Avenue </i>. In her youth Granger was celebrated for her beauty, and she became a favorite of photographers. Her image even appeared on a set of trade cards titled “World’s Beauties,” distributed by Allen & Ginter Cigarettes. She appeared as Cicely Blaine in<i> The Galley Slave </i> in 1879 shortly before her popularity began to decline. She spent several years performing with small tour companies or playing supporting roles in major productions. However, Maud Granger reemerged as a character actress in the final years of her career, winning new acclaim for her performances in<i> The First Year </i> (1920) and <i> Pigs </i> (1924).
label: Description
content: The playwright Bartley T. Campbell (1843-1888), was a journalist, novelist, poet, dramatist, and theatrical manager. He was born to Irish immigrant parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and began his writing career at age 15 as a reporter for the <i> Pittsburgh Post </i>. He also worked for newspapers in Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, and founded the <i> Southern Monthly Magazine </i> in New Orleans, Louisiana. After the success of his first melodrama, <i> Through Fire </i>, in 1871, Campbell gave up journalism for playwrighting and experimented with everything from comedies to domestic dramas to military sagas. Several of his works, including <i> The White Slave </i>, focused on racial themes and the plight of mixed race characters. Another of his plays, <i> Siberia </i>, featured many prominent actors of the day and toured in England, Australia, and New Zealand. After an 1876 trip to London, Bartley Campbell began to write the western dramas for which he became especially famous, including <i> The Vigilantes </i>, or, <i> The Heart of the Sierras </i>. He has been described as America's first "first fully professional dramatist" (<i> The Oxford Companion to American Theatre </i>), and he also produced and directed plays. Later in life Bartley Campbell suffered from financial and mental problems and died at the State Hospital for the Insane in Middletown, New York.
label: Description
content: This lithograph was produced by Strobridge and Company and Matt Morgan. The Strobridge firm was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio ca 1847 by lithographer Elijah J. Middleton (cited in some sources as Elijah C. Middleton). Middleton was known as one of the pioneers of chromolithography in the United States. By 1854 another lithographer, W. R. Wallace, along with the bookseller Hines Strobridge (1823-1909), had joined the firm as partners. After the Civil War, Strobridge acquired sole ownership of the company and renamed it after himself. Strobridge and Company became especially well known for circus, theater, and movie posters. After leaving the company, Elijah Middleton established a reputation as a portrait publisher, producing prints of George and Martha Washington, Daniel Webster, and other American historical figures.
label: Description
content: Matthew Somerville Morgan (1837-1890) was a British-born artist and cartoonist. As a young man, Morgan studied scene painting in London and worked as an artist and war correspondent in Western Europe and Africa. He also established a London humor magazine, becoming especially well known for his attacks on the British royal family. He immigrated to the United States in 1870 and continued to work as a caricaturist and New York theater stage manager. His works included political cartoons drawn on behalf of liberal Republicans who opposed President Ulysses S. Grant. From 1880-1885 he was manager of the Strobridge Lithograph Company where he worked to improve theatrical lithography. In his later years he painted large panoramic scenes of the American Civil War.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Cincinnati
topic: label: Subject
content: Theater
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Advertising
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content: Art
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content: Peters Prints
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.3029
label: catalog number
content: 60.3029
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 33 1/2 in x 11 5/8 in; 85.09 cm x 29.5275 cm