Positive Press

 

Evansville Journal, 16 June 1885

By mid-June 1885, young actress Agnes Atherton was performing at the Apollo Theater in Evansville, Indiana. She received positive press for her excellent singing, acting and "remarkably quick [costume] changes."

Evansville Journal, 17 June 1885.

Another writer from the Evansville Daily Courier was captivated by her performance, and wrote about Agnes' beauty, voice and graceful dancing.

Evansville Daily Courier, 16 June 1885.

After concluding the Evansville shows, Agnes returned to St. Paul, Minnesota for a three week run at the Theater Comique.

St. Paul Globe, 23 June 1885

By the end of August, the Theatre Comique show had gone on the road to Richmond, Virginia, where Agnes was announced as a new face for 31 August 1885. In mid-September, she had returned to Chicago to perform at Stanhope & Epstean's Museum.

Early 1886 took Agnes to Kansas City, Missouri, where she performed with Eva Lester and the Gillett Brothers, followed by Chicago, then Louisville, Kentucky by August 1886. In early September, she performed for several shows in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Daily Wabash Express, 9 Sep 1886.

Daily Wabash Express, 12 Sep 1886.

November took Agnes back to Minnesota for a multi-week run of shows at Sackett & Wiggin's Mammoth Dime Museum (early November through Thanksgiving 1886).

Star-Tribune, 7 Nov 1886.

Agnes closed out December 1886 in a vaudeville show featuring live kangaroos in Cleveland, Ohio (Drew's Dime Museum, mentioned in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on 14 December 1886). She opened January 1887 in St. Louis at the Standard Theater.

Sackett & Wiggin's show reopened in Detroit in February 1887, Agnes joined as a vocalist. A news clipping from the Detroit Free Press mentions A. M. Gillette (Agnes' second husband) as a "ceiling walker". It is not clear when Agnes remarried, but she had been performing in shows with Gillette from as early as 1884.

Detroit Free Press, 8 Feb 1887

By the beginning of March, Agnes and the Gillettes had joined Kohl & Middleton's show in Cincinnati. The company closed 1887 at the Casino Theatre in St. Louis.

Agnes appeared in an advertisement for Alfred M. Gillette's Gillett Family act in January 1888.

New York Clipper, 28 Jan 1888.

She appeared in the trade paper New York Clipper as "Mrs. Agnes Gillett", and sustained a severe injury, fracturing an arm while performing a bicycle trick as part of the Gillett Family act in Louisville, Kentucky.

New York Clipper, 19 May 1888.

Agnes had recovered from her injuries to perform with Gillett's World of Wheels in Chicago (April and mid-September 1889), Evansville (late September), Grand Rapids and Detroit, Michigan (October), Pittsburgh (late October), Rochester and Buffalo (early November).

Evansville Daily Journal, 28 Sep 1889.

Agnes may have celebrated her birthday at the end of the Buffalo shows, as well as a decade in traveling theater. My next post will look her travels and performances during at the 1890s.

Pittsburgh Dispatch, 27 Oct 1889.