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Archiver > NYC-ROOTS > 1999-03 > 0920429838


From: "Elizabeth W. Knowlton" <>
Subject: [NYC] Re: vaudeville performers
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 21:57:18 -0500


Leslie wrote: <Your best bet, if you can get to NYC, is the Performing
Arts Library, part of
the NYPL, which is now located on West 43 St in the Annex until renovations
are complete at Lincoln Center.>

Thanks, Leslie, for the great description. I came across a site
for the American Vaudeville museum on the web [do not have url--try a
search]. Although they do not have the resources to search for us, they
offer quite a bit of information right there on the web. There were so
many theaters in vaudeville's heyday that they estimate that 1/10th of the
population must have been involved in their production in some way.
My problem [and I have thought this before when I have noticed
programs printed here] is that the performers in my family "acted under
assumed names." If this is so, how can I hope to identify even one of the
six different people I know to have been active in vaudeville? About the
nearest thing I have to a clue is a statement that Carrie Griffin attended
her father's funeral in Dec 1914 because she happened to have an engagement
in town [NYC] at that time. There were an awful lot of theaters to check
out for a month around Christmas. And how would I know her even if I saw
her listed?
Anyone else having this problem? Elizabeth W. Knowlton

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