February 6, 2017 • 30 mins
He was one of the first Americans to achieve fame as a Shakespearean actor — and the first black man to do so, becoming a famous figure on the Victorian stage. But Aldridge has largely been excluded from biographies of Shakespearean actors.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
have someone I first learned about from the people of
(00:21):
Color in European art history, Tumbler also known as medieval PoCA,
which is excellent. I love that tumbler. It's excellent. It
is Irah Frederick Aldridge, who was a Shakespearean actor in
the eighteen hundreds, and you might even call him the
first famous American Shakespearean actor, although there was another American
(00:42):
named Edwin Forrest, who was popular in both the United
States and Britain at about the same time. There is
actual debate over which of them should be called the
first famous American Shakespearean actor, which amuses me. But to
return to the story, uh Aldridge has originally been excluded
from biographies of Shakespearean actors and from histories of the
(01:04):
theaters where he performed and the like. In some cases,
there were even like histories of the theater written in
in France, for example, that were then translated into English,
and in the English language versions from you know, the
late nineteenth early twentieth century, just kind of excluded from
the translated version. He's a little hard to find information
(01:27):
about there not that many books about him. But he
was one of the first Americans to achieve fame as
a Shakespearean actor, as we said, and he was definitely
the first black man to really do so. He had.
There were a couple of other black actors performing Shakespeare
at about the same time, but none of them got
nearly the international renown that he did. He became a
(01:48):
really famous figure on the Victorian Shakespeare stage. And there
is some haziness about Aldridge's parents in his early life,
and part of it is thanks to the wholes records
and documentation that come up pretty often on our show,
especially the Farther Back You Go. But complicating that was
a heavily romanticized story of his ancestry that floated around
(02:11):
as part of the publicity for his acting career, and
that kind of nebulous version was also picked up by biographers.
The most basic version of this story was just that
Aldridge was from Senegal and descended from royalty there. An
African prince newly arrived from Senegal would have been at
the time somewhat more acceptable to white theater audiences than
(02:35):
an American black man descended from slaves. So it's possible that,
however this story came to be, it was motivated at
least in part by appeasing the white theater crowds sensibilities.
Logically probably also just as a publicity move. But at
least one biographer went so far as to detail a
whole saga of Irish father whose named Daniel, being brought
(02:59):
to the United States by a missionary to be educated
and to flee a conspiracy playing out among the Senegalese nobility.
And in this story, Daniel Aldridge married while he was
in the States and then returned to Senegal with his
wife after the danger had passed, and that would be
just before IRA's birth. As this is told, this is
a very very dramatic story. It's probably also just a story,
(03:23):
although it's really unclear at this point exactly when Aldridge's
ancestors were brought to North America or how they ultimately
came to be free people living in New York. Daniel
Aldridge's birthplace was either New York or Baltimore. His death
certificate says New York, and his obituary says Baltimore. Yeah,
(03:43):
We've had a few of those where like different documents
say completely different things. Uh, And at that point all
you can kind of do is shrug. Ira himself was
born in New York on July eighteen o seven. He
had several siblings, but only one older brother, Joshua, survived.
Their mother, Laurna, was either from North Carolina or Delaware,
(04:05):
depending on which record you're looking at, and she died
in eighteen seventeen, when Ira was ten and Joshua was
approximately twelve. Although New York had passed a Gradual Emancipation
Act in seventeen ninety nine, many enslaved people born before
that year weren't freed until eighteen twenty seven, and census
records reported that about seventy five enslaved people were still
(04:28):
living in New York in eighteen thirty. So while Ira
and his family were free, there were also enslaved people
as well as people who were working out in dentures
that were required by the Gradual Emancipation Act living in
New York City at the same time. And in addition
to this stratification in terms of freedom for the black community,
(04:48):
public facilities were segregated, including the schools and the theaters
that Ira would attend as a young man. Iris early
education was at the African Free School, which had been
founded by the New York Manu Mission Society. The African
Free School was open to children up until the age
of fifteen, but it seems as though i re styed
until he was fifteen or possibly sixteen, perhaps because he
(05:12):
had enrolled when he was already a young teenager. In
about eighteen twenty, William Alexander Brown, who had previously worked
as a steward on a ship that sailed from New
York to Liverpool, opened a theater. This was the African Grove,
sometimes just called Brown's Theater or the African Theater. In
this theater, which was in Manhattan's West Side, he was
(05:34):
building on the success of an ice cream garden he
had previously opened, and this ice cream garden serves tea
and ice cream and also functioned as a performance space.
It was one of the very very few such venues
in the city that was open to black patrons, and
it was one of a string of Brown's social and
performing arts venues that he opened over the years. At first,
(05:56):
the coverage of the African Grove theater from the white
press was largely negative and dismissive, but eventually it grew
so popular that it had to designate a section for
white audience members. It was certainly not the only New
York theater that was run by and for its black residents,
but it was the most ambitious and successful. In addition
(06:16):
to other works, its stage adaptations of Shakespeare, and one
of its star performers was a man named James Hewlett.
So when Aldridge most likely both watched from the audience
and eventually acted alongside. In eighteen one or eighteen two,
Ira and Joshua Brown both landed roles at the theater.
Ira would have been fifteen or sixteen at that point,
(06:38):
but their father was not a fan of this idea.
He pulled them out of the show, possibly because he
wanted them to become ministers instead of actors. But Ira
would not be deterred. At the age of about seventeen,
he started trying to build a career as a professional
actor full time, and this was a difficult time to
be a black actor, both in New York specifically and
(07:01):
in the United States in general. The African Grove burned
down under mysterious circumstances about three years after its opening,
and that had followed a general theater closure during a
yellow fever outbreak, and even before that, the African Grove
had been the target of complaints from white neighbors about
noise and crowds, as well as sabotage attempts from a
(07:22):
rival theater company. It strikes me as so strange that
there were theater rivalries, including sabotage outside of New York.
Opportunities for black entertainers, which had not been all that
numerous in the first place, were really dwindling. In the
early mid eighteen hundreds, menstrel shows performed by white actors
(07:44):
and black face, often in a way that offensively lampooned
and caricatured black characters, were becoming more and more popular.
The stock character Jim Crow became part of menstrrel shows
by eighteen twenty eight, and the name Jim Crow would
be used as a racist slur. Within a decade, menstrel
shows performed by white people in black face started crowding
(08:07):
out opportunities for black performers, sometimes while simultaneously copying those
performers original work. With all of this going on not
long after his decision to become a professional actor. Aldridge
also decided that he would do so in Europe and
not in the United States. According to a pamphlet about
Aldridge which was published during his lifetime, one of his
(08:29):
former classmates quote was in the habit of taking Mr.
Henry Wallack's dresses to the Chatham Theater. Henry Wallack and
his brother James were both British actors who had become
a staple in New York's white theaters. At this point,
the theater scene in New York was thriving so much
that a lot of British actors are being drawn to
New York to perform there, much to the chagrin of
(08:53):
the theaters, especially in London. This was the case with
the Wallack brother. So Ira Aldridge renewed his acquaintance with
this former classmate who had been delivering the costumes to
the theater for the Wallacks, and through his friend, he
got an introduction to the two men. Both of them
(09:13):
took an interest in Aldridge in his career, and even
though his acting opportunities had been limited at this point,
he seemed to have already shown some clear talent. Henry
wrote him a letter of introduction and James, possibly by coincidence,
booked passage on the same ship to Liverpool that Aldridge
had secured employment on. He was going to work as
(09:36):
a steward basically to get across the Atlantic Ocean into
England once they were on board, though James requested aldred
does his personal assistant, and Aldredge got to Liverpool in
eighteen twenty four and in a year he would make
his debut with top billing, and we're going to talk
about that, but first we are going to pause for
a moment and uh talk about one of the sponsors
(09:57):
that keeps the show going. In the fall of eighteen
twenty five, Irah Frederick Aldridge made his London debut, starring
in West Indian and African melodramas at the Royal Coburg
Theater under the pseudonym Mr. Keene. He would have a
variety of pseudonyms, especially early in his career, and at
(10:20):
this point he was only eighteen, and we don't really
know the story of how Aldridge went from a new
arrival in London to securing top billing in his debut performance,
albeit at one of London's minor theaters. It's likely that
Henry Wallack's letter of introduction really helped, as well as
the novelty of having a black actor on the stage.
(10:41):
Aldridge was, we should be clear, certainly not the first
actor of color in Britain, but there weren't that many
before this point. Audiences seemed to love him in these
first performances at the Coburg. Newspaper reports uh talk about
really long and loud applause for his performances, and audiences
who just seemed raptured with him. Some of the reviews
(11:02):
were positive, but a lot of them, though, were frankly
just hostile. They painted a caricatured picture of his appearance,
exaggerating his facial features and his skin color, and in
one case claimed that the shape of his lips made
it impossible for him to pronounce proper English if you
read like the His biographies collect a lot of these,
(11:25):
and if you read them, they are terrible. While performing
at the cobourg Aldrich meant the woman that he would
soon marry, Margaret Gill, who was from a laboring family.
Similarly to the story that Aldridge was really descended from
African royalty, Margaret was often presented as the daughter of
a Member of Parliament, and while the faux history of
(11:46):
Aldridge's parentage made him more appealing to the audience, the
idea that she was the daughter of an MP gave
Margaret a little more social protection than she had as
the daughter of a poor family. Soon after his engagement,
it at the Coburg ended. Aldridge and his new wife
moved on to Brighton and then they went on a
tour through the UK's provinces. He took on both comedic
(12:08):
and dramatic roles, and since he could sing, he performed
in variety shows. Most of his roles were those of
black characters, who at that point had typically been played
by white actors in black face. Some of his most
common roles were Othello, which is probably the most obvious
at the time, and another was Orinoco in The Revolt
(12:29):
of Surinam. Almost immediately he was being billed as the
African Roscius, and Roscius was a Roman actor who became
sort of the go to nickname for particularly successful actors.
Later on, I wonder why that fell out of favor.
We could be using that today, I know, and I
it was one of those things where I was so
(12:51):
many people were referring to it uh in the in
you know, articles about him and things like that. I
had to go look it up because I was like,
but contextually, this is a nickname for a famous actor,
but it is not really in common use. Now, let's
bring it back. Even though his performances were well received
(13:13):
and he found work really often, he and his wife
really struggled financially at first. His engagements only gave him
a lot of the times a few days of work
at a time, and without a steady employment or a
patron at times he would go for weeks without pay,
especially in the earlier parts of his career. Aldridge falls
(13:34):
in and out of the historical record. Sometimes the only
trace we really have of him is in playbills and
theater advertisements. We do know that he returned to London
in eighteen thirty three to take over the role of
Othello at the Covent Garden Theater. He was picking up
the role from another famous actor, Edmund Keane, who had
unexpectedly died, and once again he got a generally warm
(13:56):
reception from the audience and a fairly vicious one from critics.
Before he even performed, there were articles attacking him as
being unfit for the stage because of his color. Reviews
were filled with racist descriptions of his voice and appearance,
and an outraged, pitying response to his co star Ellen
Tree and the quote indignity of being pawed about by
(14:19):
him in her role of Desdemona. Although he was at
this point still a relatively inexperienced actor, the critical response
was really just truly cruel and frequently threaded through with
very thinly veiled racism, if veiled at all. Yeah, sometimes
it was very explicit and written before he had even
performed the part. Isn't that how reviews work? They're prescient, Yeah,
(14:44):
it's It's somewhat unclear why the critical receptions his work
was somewhat kinder outside of London. I'm not suggesting that
there was none of that in the reviews from other
parts of the UK, but it seemed to at least
toned down a little bit. Also not totally clear why
(15:04):
the reviews seemed so vastly out of step with the
audience response to his performances. One theory is that in
London the critics knew that he was really an American
from New York and not a prince from Senegal. Another
is that social conditions in London, including the rise of
trade unions and class consciousness among workers, was priming working
(15:27):
class audiences to really like the idea of an actor
who was struggling against oppression in a way that journalists
weren't quite in touch with, regardless of what the causes
were for this sort of disparity between critics and theater goers.
After his run as a Fellow, Aldrich returned to acting
(15:48):
in London's minor theaters as well as in smaller British
towns and cities. He started to get more steady work,
developing a following of passionate fans and building up in
a steady income at multi popol venues. Critics wrote about
his having to basically carry along cast members who were
not as skilled in their performance or didn't even know
their lines. Eventually, he began to expand his repertoire into
(16:11):
Shakespearean roles that were typically cast with white men, including
Shylock Richard, the Third Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear. Using makeup
to lighten his skin, he basically became a Victorian era
equivalent of a movie star, complete with the legion of
adoring fans and a steady stream of female admirers, and
this was mainly a true still outside of London, he
(16:34):
never really caught on in the eye of London society,
but outside of it he was incredibly popular, including developing
a string of patrons who made his financial life a
lot more comfortable. In July of eighteen fifty two, he
started his first major European tour, including royal performances and
heads of state in the Audience, which was again incredibly
(16:55):
well received, but still did not win critics over to
his side. When he made yet another go in London.
He also started adapting works of his own, including a
complete redoing of Titus Andronicus, in which it's Moorish character
is the hero. I would love to see that, right,
I'm kind of intrigued. Apparently it was kind of uneven
(17:17):
in his execution. Uh And if you're familiar with Citus
andronics like, the Moorish character in that play is not
a hero at all, So uh yeah, I have not
I don't even know if an adapt tate, like a
copy of that adaptation even still exists, but I am
quite intrigued. This tour of the continent also came just
(17:41):
a few months after Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
had first been published, first in the United States and
then in Britain, and this book stoked anti slavery sent
sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic, and it started
to further shift the perceptions of Aldridge's performance, particularly in
the role of a fellow. While that eighteen thirty three
(18:02):
Coming Garden Theater performance had been met with pamphlets saying
that a black man was unfit to be on the
stage in Russia, in eighteen fifty eight, one review read quote,
I am firmly convinced that after Aldridge, it is impossible
to see Othello performed by a white actor, be it
Garrick himself. And that's a reference to David Garrick, who
was a famous British Shakespearean actor. Although he would briefly
(18:26):
return to Britain and even be granted British citizenship on
November seven of eighteen sixty three, his overwhelmingly positive receptions
in France and Russia meant that he spent most of
the last six years of his career there, ultimately making
a name for himself as one of history's great tragedians
and becoming a bigger draw than Russia's most famous actors. Apparently,
(18:48):
Russia in particular loved him a lot. France also, especially
especially Russia. Although shifting perceptions of race and of the
institution of slavery had also changed the way audiences and
the press were regarding him. Uh, that doesn't mean that
the racism was magically over. The later part of his
(19:10):
career was beset by unfounded rumors that on stage he
had stabbed Iago's and suffocated Desdemona's for real. This led
to his co star in Moscow refusing to take the
stage with him and her role as Desdemona. His response
was quote, I have played that role more than three
(19:31):
hundred times in my life, and in all these times,
I have suffocated possibly two maximum three Desdemonas, and I
stabbed I think one. Iago obviously was a joke. It
riled people up more. UH biographers Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock,
who wrote the first really definitive biography of him in
(19:53):
the nineteen fifties, described this whole incident as quote and
out and out case of color prejudice. It was really
a completely unfounded rumor based on nothing, because people were
scared if he had been an actor at the Glonguigo.
It would have made him more popular. Oh yeah, no,
he's really he's really smothering people. Aldredge continued to tour
(20:16):
and perform for the rest of his life, although his
wife Margaret eventually stopped accompanying him a few years before
her death on March twenty five of eighteen sixty four.
She was about a decade older than Ira, and her
health had been poor. At that point. Aldridge had been
supporting her and an illegitimate son, Ira Daniel, who had
been born in May of eighteen forty seven and who
(20:38):
Margaret raised as her own. It's also unclear whether she
knew about this, but he had been supporting a second
family as well. He'd had two more children with a
Swedish woman named Amanda Pauline von Brandt. These were Irene
laur Ana Pauline, who was born in eighteen sixty and
Ira Frederick Olaf known as Fritz, who was born in
(20:59):
eighteen six two. And similarly to how Margaret had been
described as the daughter of an MP, Amanda Pauline was
said to be a baroness, she was definitely not. She
was the daughter of a fairier. Over the course of
his life Aldridge had actually fathered several other children as well.
In eighteen fifty five, another actor, William Stothard, sued him
(21:21):
over an affair with his wife Emma, after she delivered
a biracial baby. Aldridge was found guilty of criminal conversation
and sentenced to pay a fine. Ira married Amanda Pauline
in eighteen sixty five, and after that they had two
more children, Amanda Christina Elizabeth, born in March of eighteen
sixty six, and Rachel Margaret Frederica, who was born four
(21:43):
and a half months after Aldred to the death. Ira
died in Poland on August seventh, eighteen sixty seven, and
he was buried there. Although he made specific plans to
return to the United States at various points, it seems
that he never did. When the new Memorial Theater reopened
at Stratford upon Avon in n Aldridge's name was included
(22:05):
among other great Shakespearean actors commemorated with plaques among the seats.
He is the only black actor of the thirties three included.
As I noted, Aldridge became quite successful in his career
and he developed a pretty healthy income. He started giving
a significant portion of that income to abolitionist causes, and
(22:25):
he also played a part in an abolitionist work of
art outside of the theater, which we will talk about
after another brief sponsor break. Ira Frederick Aldridge was the
subject of several works of art during his lifetime. One
was head of a Negro in the character of Othello,
(22:46):
which was painted by James Northcote in the first year
that Ira himself appeared as Othello on stage. So although
the artist didn't specifically say this is Ira Aldridge, the
widespread conclusion is that's who the paint the painting is of.
But another came back into the public eye only very recently,
(23:07):
after having been in private collections for a hundred and
eighty years. It's by John Phillip Simpson and it's called
The Captive Slave, and it was acquired by the Art
Institute of Chicago in two thousand nine. Yeah, before this,
people knew that the that it existed, and there was
a really poor quality reproduction of it, but the original
(23:27):
painting had been out of the public eye. The Captive
Slave was painted sometime in the late eighteen twenties, and
it's a painting of a young black man sitting on
a bench wearing manacles. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit and
for modern viewers it will probably immediately bring to mind
the idea of a prison jumpsuit. He's looking upward and
(23:48):
his face carries this impression of nearly tearful sorrow and lost.
This is the painting that first went on exhibition at
the Royal Academy of the Arts in eight and it's
in Tree. In the exhibition catalog included lines from Charity,
which is an anti slavery poem by William Cowper. It's
clearly meant as an anti slavery work. And the man
(24:10):
portraying the slave in the painting is Irah Frederick Aldridge.
And we're going to put a link to the whole
Medieval People of Colored Tumblers collection on Ira Ira Aldridge
because there are so many portraits that are just lovely
and that is where Tracy and thus I heard about
him for the first time. Yeah, and there's a really
(24:32):
great post in that whole collection, um from the Medieval
poc Tumbler that talks specifically about this painting and how
important it was that like, this is a painting that
he clearly actively took part in as an abolitionist statement,
not a painting of an enslaved person who had no
(24:54):
choice in the matter. So I found that to be
very interesting reading as well. That is Irah Frederick Aldridge. Um.
A lot of people don't know that there was an
incredibly famous black actor doing Shakespeare in Victorian Europe and
especially England, even though they didn't love him in London,
(25:16):
but everywhere else they super Ah, is there a listener
mail this week? Yes, there is. It is from Elizabeth,
and Elizabeth says, Dear Holly and Tracy. I've been a
listener for about two years end of late you've been
calling a siren song and both the professor of African
art history and a consulting curator of African art. And
(25:38):
I first said to myself, I really should write in
during your episode on the history of beer. You'll see why.
Then there was the Great Zimbabwe episode, and now I'm
listening as I typed the wonderful Carol Thompson. Hi, Carol,
Like Carol, I'm a Midwestern girl from Iowa instead of
Minnesota who found a path into African art. I've often
used some of the same phrases Carol expressed, and in
(25:58):
explaining my path. Why would I be interested anymore in
the art of Italians, then South Africans or Zimbabweans. It's
all amazing art. Very long story short. A study abroad
to Zimbabwe started a lifetime of study teaching writing and curation.
But I can't forget the main reason for writing is beer.
That you mentioned that there are many global beer histories,
(26:19):
which was fabulous. There was no mention of African beer.
I've spent the last fifteen years studying beer pots in
from South Africa, especially from Zulu speaking artists. My specialization
is on the way that beer pots, like the ceramics
of the Pueblos and the American Southwest, have become a
lauded and increasingly gallery sold art form, as well as
(26:41):
the continued use of ceramics and important to spiritual and
social life. Folks in Southern Africa have been drinking beer
for well centuries. I'll refer to the Zulu beer I
know best, Sorghum beer Wwala is more traditional Zulu beer
that has served to ancestors and to gatherings of people
during all sorts of life events in both rural and
(27:03):
urban places, weddings, funerals, coming of age, ceremonies, etcetera. A
black ceramic pot decorated with abstraction and geometry is the
best as it appeals to the aesthetics of the ancestors.
The great thing about Zulu ceramics and pottery in many
parts of Africa is that it's also a women's art form. Historically,
this means when you see abstract decorative motifs of African
(27:25):
vessels and art museums, which happens more and more thanks
to a range of amazing scholars, you're likely seeing women's
contributions to artistic traditions. Much of the African art that
was first collected in Europe and North America, wooden sculptures
or masks, was made by men, so women's artistic expression
was often absent from African art collections and museums. Many
(27:46):
scholars are working hard to balance both media and gender
representation in Africans collections, as well as so many other
parts of the art world. I could go on and on,
but also wanted to say keep up the good work. Um.
She also notes that if we are ever in Raleigh
(28:06):
or Greensboro, which I am, I will say pretty often, uh,
she would love to give us a tour, So I
don't know if I will be able to take her
up on that, but I'm glad to know it. So
thank you so much Elizabeth for writing to that. One
of the things, uh, that I wanted to try to
make sure to do when we talked about beer in
that episode was the touch on the fact that beer
(28:27):
is from all over the world, but we were definitely
lacking in specific examples from Africa. So I am so
glad to have that information from Elizabeth and to have
the information about how it applies to art history. Uh.
It's not often that we get email that ties so
clearly to two different episodes that were that were two
(28:50):
like I was the lead person running the beer episode
with our interview with Eric Lars Meyers, and then you
were the lead person talking to Carol about um about
art history. So that's that's It's not all that often
that the whole ven diagram is just a gigantic circle
in that way. If you would like to write to
(29:11):
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(29:33):
find all kinds of articles on just about anything your
heart desires. And you can come to our website, which
is missing history dot com. Do you find a whole
archive of everything else we have ever done on this show? Uh,
show notes for all of the episodes that Holly and
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So you can do all that and a whole lot
more at house toff works dot com or miss in
(29:55):
history dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
have someone I first learned about from the people of
(00:21):
Color in European art history, Tumbler also known as medieval PoCA,
which is excellent. I love that tumbler. It's excellent. It
is Irah Frederick Aldridge, who was a Shakespearean actor in
the eighteen hundreds, and you might even call him the
first famous American Shakespearean actor, although there was another American
(00:42):
named Edwin Forrest, who was popular in both the United
States and Britain at about the same time. There is
actual debate over which of them should be called the
first famous American Shakespearean actor, which amuses me. But to
return to the story, uh Aldridge has originally been excluded
from biographies of Shakespearean actors and from histories of the
(01:04):
theaters where he performed and the like. In some cases,
there were even like histories of the theater written in
in France, for example, that were then translated into English,
and in the English language versions from you know, the
late nineteenth early twentieth century, just kind of excluded from
the translated version. He's a little hard to find information
(01:27):
about there not that many books about him. But he
was one of the first Americans to achieve fame as
a Shakespearean actor, as we said, and he was definitely
the first black man to really do so. He had.
There were a couple of other black actors performing Shakespeare
at about the same time, but none of them got
nearly the international renown that he did. He became a
(01:48):
really famous figure on the Victorian Shakespeare stage. And there
is some haziness about Aldridge's parents in his early life,
and part of it is thanks to the wholes records
and documentation that come up pretty often on our show,
especially the Farther Back You Go. But complicating that was
a heavily romanticized story of his ancestry that floated around
(02:11):
as part of the publicity for his acting career, and
that kind of nebulous version was also picked up by biographers.
The most basic version of this story was just that
Aldridge was from Senegal and descended from royalty there. An
African prince newly arrived from Senegal would have been at
the time somewhat more acceptable to white theater audiences than
(02:35):
an American black man descended from slaves. So it's possible that,
however this story came to be, it was motivated at
least in part by appeasing the white theater crowds sensibilities.
Logically probably also just as a publicity move. But at
least one biographer went so far as to detail a
whole saga of Irish father whose named Daniel, being brought
(02:59):
to the United States by a missionary to be educated
and to flee a conspiracy playing out among the Senegalese nobility.
And in this story, Daniel Aldridge married while he was
in the States and then returned to Senegal with his
wife after the danger had passed, and that would be
just before IRA's birth. As this is told, this is
a very very dramatic story. It's probably also just a story,
(03:23):
although it's really unclear at this point exactly when Aldridge's
ancestors were brought to North America or how they ultimately
came to be free people living in New York. Daniel
Aldridge's birthplace was either New York or Baltimore. His death
certificate says New York, and his obituary says Baltimore. Yeah,
(03:43):
We've had a few of those where like different documents
say completely different things. Uh, And at that point all
you can kind of do is shrug. Ira himself was
born in New York on July eighteen o seven. He
had several siblings, but only one older brother, Joshua, survived.
Their mother, Laurna, was either from North Carolina or Delaware,
(04:05):
depending on which record you're looking at, and she died
in eighteen seventeen, when Ira was ten and Joshua was
approximately twelve. Although New York had passed a Gradual Emancipation
Act in seventeen ninety nine, many enslaved people born before
that year weren't freed until eighteen twenty seven, and census
records reported that about seventy five enslaved people were still
(04:28):
living in New York in eighteen thirty. So while Ira
and his family were free, there were also enslaved people
as well as people who were working out in dentures
that were required by the Gradual Emancipation Act living in
New York City at the same time. And in addition
to this stratification in terms of freedom for the black community,
(04:48):
public facilities were segregated, including the schools and the theaters
that Ira would attend as a young man. Iris early
education was at the African Free School, which had been
founded by the New York Manu Mission Society. The African
Free School was open to children up until the age
of fifteen, but it seems as though i re styed
until he was fifteen or possibly sixteen, perhaps because he
(05:12):
had enrolled when he was already a young teenager. In
about eighteen twenty, William Alexander Brown, who had previously worked
as a steward on a ship that sailed from New
York to Liverpool, opened a theater. This was the African Grove,
sometimes just called Brown's Theater or the African Theater. In
this theater, which was in Manhattan's West Side, he was
(05:34):
building on the success of an ice cream garden he
had previously opened, and this ice cream garden serves tea
and ice cream and also functioned as a performance space.
It was one of the very very few such venues
in the city that was open to black patrons, and
it was one of a string of Brown's social and
performing arts venues that he opened over the years. At first,
(05:56):
the coverage of the African Grove theater from the white
press was largely negative and dismissive, but eventually it grew
so popular that it had to designate a section for
white audience members. It was certainly not the only New
York theater that was run by and for its black residents,
but it was the most ambitious and successful. In addition
(06:16):
to other works, its stage adaptations of Shakespeare, and one
of its star performers was a man named James Hewlett.
So when Aldridge most likely both watched from the audience
and eventually acted alongside. In eighteen one or eighteen two,
Ira and Joshua Brown both landed roles at the theater.
Ira would have been fifteen or sixteen at that point,
(06:38):
but their father was not a fan of this idea.
He pulled them out of the show, possibly because he
wanted them to become ministers instead of actors. But Ira
would not be deterred. At the age of about seventeen,
he started trying to build a career as a professional
actor full time, and this was a difficult time to
be a black actor, both in New York specifically and
(07:01):
in the United States in general. The African Grove burned
down under mysterious circumstances about three years after its opening,
and that had followed a general theater closure during a
yellow fever outbreak, and even before that, the African Grove
had been the target of complaints from white neighbors about
noise and crowds, as well as sabotage attempts from a
(07:22):
rival theater company. It strikes me as so strange that
there were theater rivalries, including sabotage outside of New York.
Opportunities for black entertainers, which had not been all that
numerous in the first place, were really dwindling. In the
early mid eighteen hundreds, menstrel shows performed by white actors
(07:44):
and black face, often in a way that offensively lampooned
and caricatured black characters, were becoming more and more popular.
The stock character Jim Crow became part of menstrrel shows
by eighteen twenty eight, and the name Jim Crow would
be used as a racist slur. Within a decade, menstrel
shows performed by white people in black face started crowding
(08:07):
out opportunities for black performers, sometimes while simultaneously copying those
performers original work. With all of this going on not
long after his decision to become a professional actor. Aldridge
also decided that he would do so in Europe and
not in the United States. According to a pamphlet about
Aldridge which was published during his lifetime, one of his
(08:29):
former classmates quote was in the habit of taking Mr.
Henry Wallack's dresses to the Chatham Theater. Henry Wallack and
his brother James were both British actors who had become
a staple in New York's white theaters. At this point,
the theater scene in New York was thriving so much
that a lot of British actors are being drawn to
New York to perform there, much to the chagrin of
(08:53):
the theaters, especially in London. This was the case with
the Wallack brother. So Ira Aldridge renewed his acquaintance with
this former classmate who had been delivering the costumes to
the theater for the Wallacks, and through his friend, he
got an introduction to the two men. Both of them
(09:13):
took an interest in Aldridge in his career, and even
though his acting opportunities had been limited at this point,
he seemed to have already shown some clear talent. Henry
wrote him a letter of introduction and James, possibly by coincidence,
booked passage on the same ship to Liverpool that Aldridge
had secured employment on. He was going to work as
(09:36):
a steward basically to get across the Atlantic Ocean into
England once they were on board, though James requested aldred
does his personal assistant, and Aldredge got to Liverpool in
eighteen twenty four and in a year he would make
his debut with top billing, and we're going to talk
about that, but first we are going to pause for
a moment and uh talk about one of the sponsors
(09:57):
that keeps the show going. In the fall of eighteen
twenty five, Irah Frederick Aldridge made his London debut, starring
in West Indian and African melodramas at the Royal Coburg
Theater under the pseudonym Mr. Keene. He would have a
variety of pseudonyms, especially early in his career, and at
(10:20):
this point he was only eighteen, and we don't really
know the story of how Aldridge went from a new
arrival in London to securing top billing in his debut performance,
albeit at one of London's minor theaters. It's likely that
Henry Wallack's letter of introduction really helped, as well as
the novelty of having a black actor on the stage.
(10:41):
Aldridge was, we should be clear, certainly not the first
actor of color in Britain, but there weren't that many
before this point. Audiences seemed to love him in these
first performances at the Coburg. Newspaper reports uh talk about
really long and loud applause for his performances, and audiences
who just seemed raptured with him. Some of the reviews
(11:02):
were positive, but a lot of them, though, were frankly
just hostile. They painted a caricatured picture of his appearance,
exaggerating his facial features and his skin color, and in
one case claimed that the shape of his lips made
it impossible for him to pronounce proper English if you
read like the His biographies collect a lot of these,
(11:25):
and if you read them, they are terrible. While performing
at the cobourg Aldrich meant the woman that he would
soon marry, Margaret Gill, who was from a laboring family.
Similarly to the story that Aldridge was really descended from
African royalty, Margaret was often presented as the daughter of
a Member of Parliament, and while the faux history of
(11:46):
Aldridge's parentage made him more appealing to the audience, the
idea that she was the daughter of an MP gave
Margaret a little more social protection than she had as
the daughter of a poor family. Soon after his engagement,
it at the Coburg ended. Aldridge and his new wife
moved on to Brighton and then they went on a
tour through the UK's provinces. He took on both comedic
(12:08):
and dramatic roles, and since he could sing, he performed
in variety shows. Most of his roles were those of
black characters, who at that point had typically been played
by white actors in black face. Some of his most
common roles were Othello, which is probably the most obvious
at the time, and another was Orinoco in The Revolt
(12:29):
of Surinam. Almost immediately he was being billed as the
African Roscius, and Roscius was a Roman actor who became
sort of the go to nickname for particularly successful actors.
Later on, I wonder why that fell out of favor.
We could be using that today, I know, and I
it was one of those things where I was so
(12:51):
many people were referring to it uh in the in
you know, articles about him and things like that. I
had to go look it up because I was like,
but contextually, this is a nickname for a famous actor,
but it is not really in common use. Now, let's
bring it back. Even though his performances were well received
(13:13):
and he found work really often, he and his wife
really struggled financially at first. His engagements only gave him
a lot of the times a few days of work
at a time, and without a steady employment or a
patron at times he would go for weeks without pay,
especially in the earlier parts of his career. Aldridge falls
(13:34):
in and out of the historical record. Sometimes the only
trace we really have of him is in playbills and
theater advertisements. We do know that he returned to London
in eighteen thirty three to take over the role of
Othello at the Covent Garden Theater. He was picking up
the role from another famous actor, Edmund Keane, who had
unexpectedly died, and once again he got a generally warm
(13:56):
reception from the audience and a fairly vicious one from critics.
Before he even performed, there were articles attacking him as
being unfit for the stage because of his color. Reviews
were filled with racist descriptions of his voice and appearance,
and an outraged, pitying response to his co star Ellen
Tree and the quote indignity of being pawed about by
(14:19):
him in her role of Desdemona. Although he was at
this point still a relatively inexperienced actor, the critical response
was really just truly cruel and frequently threaded through with
very thinly veiled racism, if veiled at all. Yeah, sometimes
it was very explicit and written before he had even
performed the part. Isn't that how reviews work? They're prescient, Yeah,
(14:44):
it's It's somewhat unclear why the critical receptions his work
was somewhat kinder outside of London. I'm not suggesting that
there was none of that in the reviews from other
parts of the UK, but it seemed to at least
toned down a little bit. Also not totally clear why
(15:04):
the reviews seemed so vastly out of step with the
audience response to his performances. One theory is that in
London the critics knew that he was really an American
from New York and not a prince from Senegal. Another
is that social conditions in London, including the rise of
trade unions and class consciousness among workers, was priming working
(15:27):
class audiences to really like the idea of an actor
who was struggling against oppression in a way that journalists
weren't quite in touch with, regardless of what the causes
were for this sort of disparity between critics and theater goers.
After his run as a Fellow, Aldrich returned to acting
(15:48):
in London's minor theaters as well as in smaller British
towns and cities. He started to get more steady work,
developing a following of passionate fans and building up in
a steady income at multi popol venues. Critics wrote about
his having to basically carry along cast members who were
not as skilled in their performance or didn't even know
their lines. Eventually, he began to expand his repertoire into
(16:11):
Shakespearean roles that were typically cast with white men, including
Shylock Richard, the Third Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear. Using makeup
to lighten his skin, he basically became a Victorian era
equivalent of a movie star, complete with the legion of
adoring fans and a steady stream of female admirers, and
this was mainly a true still outside of London, he
(16:34):
never really caught on in the eye of London society,
but outside of it he was incredibly popular, including developing
a string of patrons who made his financial life a
lot more comfortable. In July of eighteen fifty two, he
started his first major European tour, including royal performances and
heads of state in the Audience, which was again incredibly
(16:55):
well received, but still did not win critics over to
his side. When he made yet another go in London.
He also started adapting works of his own, including a
complete redoing of Titus Andronicus, in which it's Moorish character
is the hero. I would love to see that, right,
I'm kind of intrigued. Apparently it was kind of uneven
(17:17):
in his execution. Uh And if you're familiar with Citus
andronics like, the Moorish character in that play is not
a hero at all, So uh yeah, I have not
I don't even know if an adapt tate, like a
copy of that adaptation even still exists, but I am
quite intrigued. This tour of the continent also came just
(17:41):
a few months after Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
had first been published, first in the United States and
then in Britain, and this book stoked anti slavery sent
sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic, and it started
to further shift the perceptions of Aldridge's performance, particularly in
the role of a fellow. While that eighteen thirty three
(18:02):
Coming Garden Theater performance had been met with pamphlets saying
that a black man was unfit to be on the
stage in Russia, in eighteen fifty eight, one review read quote,
I am firmly convinced that after Aldridge, it is impossible
to see Othello performed by a white actor, be it
Garrick himself. And that's a reference to David Garrick, who
was a famous British Shakespearean actor. Although he would briefly
(18:26):
return to Britain and even be granted British citizenship on
November seven of eighteen sixty three, his overwhelmingly positive receptions
in France and Russia meant that he spent most of
the last six years of his career there, ultimately making
a name for himself as one of history's great tragedians
and becoming a bigger draw than Russia's most famous actors. Apparently,
(18:48):
Russia in particular loved him a lot. France also, especially
especially Russia. Although shifting perceptions of race and of the
institution of slavery had also changed the way audiences and
the press were regarding him. Uh, that doesn't mean that
the racism was magically over. The later part of his
(19:10):
career was beset by unfounded rumors that on stage he
had stabbed Iago's and suffocated Desdemona's for real. This led
to his co star in Moscow refusing to take the
stage with him and her role as Desdemona. His response
was quote, I have played that role more than three
(19:31):
hundred times in my life, and in all these times,
I have suffocated possibly two maximum three Desdemonas, and I
stabbed I think one. Iago obviously was a joke. It
riled people up more. UH biographers Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock,
who wrote the first really definitive biography of him in
(19:53):
the nineteen fifties, described this whole incident as quote and
out and out case of color prejudice. It was really
a completely unfounded rumor based on nothing, because people were
scared if he had been an actor at the Glonguigo.
It would have made him more popular. Oh yeah, no,
he's really he's really smothering people. Aldredge continued to tour
(20:16):
and perform for the rest of his life, although his
wife Margaret eventually stopped accompanying him a few years before
her death on March twenty five of eighteen sixty four.
She was about a decade older than Ira, and her
health had been poor. At that point. Aldridge had been
supporting her and an illegitimate son, Ira Daniel, who had
been born in May of eighteen forty seven and who
(20:38):
Margaret raised as her own. It's also unclear whether she
knew about this, but he had been supporting a second
family as well. He'd had two more children with a
Swedish woman named Amanda Pauline von Brandt. These were Irene
laur Ana Pauline, who was born in eighteen sixty and
Ira Frederick Olaf known as Fritz, who was born in
(20:59):
eighteen six two. And similarly to how Margaret had been
described as the daughter of an MP, Amanda Pauline was
said to be a baroness, she was definitely not. She
was the daughter of a fairier. Over the course of
his life Aldridge had actually fathered several other children as well.
In eighteen fifty five, another actor, William Stothard, sued him
(21:21):
over an affair with his wife Emma, after she delivered
a biracial baby. Aldridge was found guilty of criminal conversation
and sentenced to pay a fine. Ira married Amanda Pauline
in eighteen sixty five, and after that they had two
more children, Amanda Christina Elizabeth, born in March of eighteen
sixty six, and Rachel Margaret Frederica, who was born four
(21:43):
and a half months after Aldred to the death. Ira
died in Poland on August seventh, eighteen sixty seven, and
he was buried there. Although he made specific plans to
return to the United States at various points, it seems
that he never did. When the new Memorial Theater reopened
at Stratford upon Avon in n Aldridge's name was included
(22:05):
among other great Shakespearean actors commemorated with plaques among the seats.
He is the only black actor of the thirties three included.
As I noted, Aldridge became quite successful in his career
and he developed a pretty healthy income. He started giving
a significant portion of that income to abolitionist causes, and
(22:25):
he also played a part in an abolitionist work of
art outside of the theater, which we will talk about
after another brief sponsor break. Ira Frederick Aldridge was the
subject of several works of art during his lifetime. One
was head of a Negro in the character of Othello,
(22:46):
which was painted by James Northcote in the first year
that Ira himself appeared as Othello on stage. So although
the artist didn't specifically say this is Ira Aldridge, the
widespread conclusion is that's who the paint the painting is of.
But another came back into the public eye only very recently,
(23:07):
after having been in private collections for a hundred and
eighty years. It's by John Phillip Simpson and it's called
The Captive Slave, and it was acquired by the Art
Institute of Chicago in two thousand nine. Yeah, before this,
people knew that the that it existed, and there was
a really poor quality reproduction of it, but the original
(23:27):
painting had been out of the public eye. The Captive
Slave was painted sometime in the late eighteen twenties, and
it's a painting of a young black man sitting on
a bench wearing manacles. He's wearing an orange jumpsuit and
for modern viewers it will probably immediately bring to mind
the idea of a prison jumpsuit. He's looking upward and
(23:48):
his face carries this impression of nearly tearful sorrow and lost.
This is the painting that first went on exhibition at
the Royal Academy of the Arts in eight and it's
in Tree. In the exhibition catalog included lines from Charity,
which is an anti slavery poem by William Cowper. It's
clearly meant as an anti slavery work. And the man
(24:10):
portraying the slave in the painting is Irah Frederick Aldridge.
And we're going to put a link to the whole
Medieval People of Colored Tumblers collection on Ira Ira Aldridge
because there are so many portraits that are just lovely
and that is where Tracy and thus I heard about
him for the first time. Yeah, and there's a really
(24:32):
great post in that whole collection, um from the Medieval
poc Tumbler that talks specifically about this painting and how
important it was that like, this is a painting that
he clearly actively took part in as an abolitionist statement,
not a painting of an enslaved person who had no
(24:54):
choice in the matter. So I found that to be
very interesting reading as well. That is Irah Frederick Aldridge. Um.
A lot of people don't know that there was an
incredibly famous black actor doing Shakespeare in Victorian Europe and
especially England, even though they didn't love him in London,
(25:16):
but everywhere else they super Ah, is there a listener
mail this week? Yes, there is. It is from Elizabeth,
and Elizabeth says, Dear Holly and Tracy. I've been a
listener for about two years end of late you've been
calling a siren song and both the professor of African
art history and a consulting curator of African art. And
(25:38):
I first said to myself, I really should write in
during your episode on the history of beer. You'll see why.
Then there was the Great Zimbabwe episode, and now I'm
listening as I typed the wonderful Carol Thompson. Hi, Carol,
Like Carol, I'm a Midwestern girl from Iowa instead of
Minnesota who found a path into African art. I've often
used some of the same phrases Carol expressed, and in
(25:58):
explaining my path. Why would I be interested anymore in
the art of Italians, then South Africans or Zimbabweans. It's
all amazing art. Very long story short. A study abroad
to Zimbabwe started a lifetime of study teaching writing and curation.
But I can't forget the main reason for writing is beer.
That you mentioned that there are many global beer histories,
(26:19):
which was fabulous. There was no mention of African beer.
I've spent the last fifteen years studying beer pots in
from South Africa, especially from Zulu speaking artists. My specialization
is on the way that beer pots, like the ceramics
of the Pueblos and the American Southwest, have become a
lauded and increasingly gallery sold art form, as well as
(26:41):
the continued use of ceramics and important to spiritual and
social life. Folks in Southern Africa have been drinking beer
for well centuries. I'll refer to the Zulu beer I
know best, Sorghum beer Wwala is more traditional Zulu beer
that has served to ancestors and to gatherings of people
during all sorts of life events in both rural and
(27:03):
urban places, weddings, funerals, coming of age, ceremonies, etcetera. A
black ceramic pot decorated with abstraction and geometry is the
best as it appeals to the aesthetics of the ancestors.
The great thing about Zulu ceramics and pottery in many
parts of Africa is that it's also a women's art form. Historically,
this means when you see abstract decorative motifs of African
(27:25):
vessels and art museums, which happens more and more thanks
to a range of amazing scholars, you're likely seeing women's
contributions to artistic traditions. Much of the African art that
was first collected in Europe and North America, wooden sculptures
or masks, was made by men, so women's artistic expression
was often absent from African art collections and museums. Many
(27:46):
scholars are working hard to balance both media and gender
representation in Africans collections, as well as so many other
parts of the art world. I could go on and on,
but also wanted to say keep up the good work. Um.
She also notes that if we are ever in Raleigh
(28:06):
or Greensboro, which I am, I will say pretty often, uh,
she would love to give us a tour, So I
don't know if I will be able to take her
up on that, but I'm glad to know it. So
thank you so much Elizabeth for writing to that. One
of the things, uh, that I wanted to try to
make sure to do when we talked about beer in
that episode was the touch on the fact that beer
(28:27):
is from all over the world, but we were definitely
lacking in specific examples from Africa. So I am so
glad to have that information from Elizabeth and to have
the information about how it applies to art history. Uh.
It's not often that we get email that ties so
clearly to two different episodes that were that were two
(28:50):
like I was the lead person running the beer episode
with our interview with Eric Lars Meyers, and then you
were the lead person talking to Carol about um about
art history. So that's that's It's not all that often
that the whole ven diagram is just a gigantic circle
in that way. If you would like to write to
(29:11):
us about this or any other podcast, we're a history
podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. We're also on
Facebook at facebook dot com slash missed in history and
on Twitter at miss in History. Are tumbler is missing
History dot tumbler dot com, and we are on Pinterest
at pinterest dot com, slash miss in History our Instagram
also miss in History. You can come to our parent
company's website, which is how stuff Works dot com to
(29:33):
find all kinds of articles on just about anything your
heart desires. And you can come to our website, which
is missing history dot com. Do you find a whole
archive of everything else we have ever done on this show? Uh,
show notes for all of the episodes that Holly and
I have worked on together, lots of other cool stuff,
So you can do all that and a whole lot
more at house toff works dot com or miss in
(29:55):
history dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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Tracy Wilson
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