British Invasion

January 5, 2016

Americans’ obsession with everything British is nothing new, according to M. Susan Anthony, Mary Alice Braden Professor of Communication and Theatre. The British flag is a popular icon seen on T-shirts and bumper stickers, and Americans love to adopt English celebrities such as the Beatles. But it seems there is a long history that underlies the fascination with all things British.

Americans started appropriating British celebrities as early as the 1790s, when many actors and actresses made the journey to the newly independent nation to find renewed fame. Even though America had only just won its independence, its citizens were enamored with the British stage, and actors gained even more acclaim in the new world. Professor Anthony has worked for the past couple of years to bring the lives of those early actors into the spotlight once more.

At first, Anthony thought she would write another book, similar to her last one, Gothic Plays and American Society, 1794-1830, that was published in 2008. However, Anthony soon realized that she wanted the information to be as accessible as possible, and she has since created a website, Early American Actresses, to host her research.

The website highlights the careers and struggles of five early American actresses, who are often overlooked in historical surveys, most of which focus on male actors during the period. Yet these actresses were among the first celebrities on the American stage. Several of them died young from tuberculosis or yellow fever, and many of their graves are now unmarked.

Two of Professor Anthony’s favorites are Mary Ann Wrighten Pownall, a famous singer, actress and composer in Great Britain, who, after a scandalous divorce, came to the United States where she was beloved for her virtue as well as her celebrity, and Charlotte Melmoth, who, at 44, left Great Britain for New York and established a triumphant second career as “the best tragic actress that inhabitants of New York, then living, had ever seen.” 

Anthony is committed to securing recognition for these five actresses’ contributions to the American acting scene. She plans to involve students in her work and help expand the number of actresses, pushing the time span into the 1830s. She has already collaborated with vocal musicians at DePauw to recreate some of performances for which the actresses were famous, and these performances are featured on the website. Melmoth became so famous in America that newspapers across the country carried reports of her injuries and supposed death following a carriage accident. Professor Anthony features Melmoth and Pownall in an article, “Not a Whorish Actress: British Celebrity on the Early American Stage,” which is published in the December 2015 issue of Journal of American Culture.

Professor Anthony continues work on a searchable database of the actresses’ performances that will allow for further scholarly research about their most popular roles, their travels to various cities, their working conditions, their balancing of motherhood and professional duties, and their theatrical rivalries. In addition, she plans to create interactive maps of their travels. There is also a possibility of a dress-me section about costuming history. 

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