Forgotten leading ladies of the American theatre : lives of eight female players, playwrights, directors, managers, and activists of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries /

A series of sketches of the lives and careers of eight women whom the author calls "the first female playwrights, managers, actresses, and activists in the American theater." There are always problems with naming "firsts," and here much that is speculation is made to stand for fact. The writing is generally straightforward but is heavily dependent on secondary sources, some more trustworthy than others. There are typos and spelling errors in both text and bibliography. Playwrights Susanna Haswell Rowson (1762-1824) and Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) are quite well documented; but Rowson's Slaves of Algiers, which may be read in manuscript at Brown University, is not in the bibliography. The two actresses are Sophia Turner (1785?-1852) here called "the First Actress of the Frontier" (but the documentation is shaky), and the better-known Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876). Managers are Laura Keene (1826-1873) and Louisa Lane Drew (1820-1897). Keene is more interesting than Turner suggests (see the new biographical dictionary Notable Women in the American Theater, ed. by A.M. Robinson et al., CH, May'90). Activists are Fanny Kemble (1809-1893) and Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865-1932). Kemble opposed slavery, Fiske the Theater Syndicate. Their fights for justice are well told. Sources are better used in the last chapter, but on balance, a disappointing book. -D. E. Abramson, emeritus, University of Massachusetts at Amherst