Mr McKee Rankin As the old Forty Niner in "49"
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
name: label: depicted
content: Rankin, McKee
label: maker
content: unknown
notes: label: Description
content: This colored print depicts a bearded actor standing with a rifle over his shoulder and holding a skinned and gutted animal with his other hand. The date bill or label with the location and date of the performance, is pasted over the title of the print. It is for March 10th at the New Haven Opera House. The New Haven Opera House as it was commonly called, opened in 1860 as the Music Hall in New Haven Ct, but was renamed the Grand Opera House and then later called Bunnell’s New Haven Theatre. It was destroyed by fire in April 1915.
label: Description
content: Arthur "McKee" Rankin (ca 1841-1914) was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He made his theatrical debut in 1861 in Rochester, New York, using the name George Henley. He moved on to starring roles on the Philadelphia and New York stage, then headed west to California, where he established a repertory theater in San Francisco. Rankin was married to the actress Kitty Blanchard, and they became one of the nation’s most popular husband and wife acting teams. He appeared in a wide variety of roles, including Shakespearean dramas, minstrel shows, melodramas, Broadway productions and motion pictures. He was also a playwright, director, theater owner, and acting coach who became especially celebrated for his frontier dramas. An 1877 play about California miners, titled <i>The Danites, or The Heart of the Sierras</i>, featured a Mormon sect bent on avenging the death of their prophet Joseph Smith. The play has been hailed for injecting a new note of realism into American theater. A later play, 49, was inspired by an uncle who joined the California Gold Rush in the mid nineteenth century and worked in a mining camp similar to those where Rankin performed as an actor. Although hailed as a daring and innovative artist, Rankin's risky financial investments and heavy drinking left him impoverished in his later years.
label: Description
content: There is no information available about the lithographer for this print.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: World
topic: label: Subject
content: Theater
label: Subject
content: Hunting
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Clothing & Accessories
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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.60.3008
label: catalog number
content: 60.3008
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Theater Poster
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Posters
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 16 3/4 in x 10 5/8 in; 42.545 cm x 26.9875 cm