Return to the introduction of Harry B. Thearle.
You could say that Harry’s life was book-ended by fire.
He was born in 1858 in southwest Wisconsin, the son of an English minister who had come to the lead-mining region to start a newspaper years before (rest assured, there will more to come from me about his father, F.G. Thearle, in a later narrative). His middle name, Bishop, is likely in honor of Eliza Bishopp (sic), the aunt who had raised his father in London. He may not have recalled much about his early years, moving from town to town, but by the time the family settled in Chicago at age 12, his memories would have been heavily marked by the famous Great Fire that same year. Dramatic fiery spectacle, as a genre, would become the most famous aspect of his long show-business career.
It certainly didn’t start that way. They lived in the rapidly expanding neighborhood of Englewood, next to Hyde Park, untouched by the Fire. He took a job as office boy for an insurance company, and then cashier for his father’s American Baptist Publication Society.
It was probably through his father’s position with the Baptist Church and the Englewood Church choir that Harry became acquainted with “jubilee singing”, a form of black spiritual choral music from the American South.
At the age of 25, he discovered his real calling, and was able to combine his interests, when he became a booking agent for the Redpath Lyceum Bureau. This was a top-notch talent management firm that had set up shop in Chicago the year of the Fire. In the days before the internet, television, or even radio, the hottest thing going was the Lyceum Movement, and it’s summertime outdoor counterpart, the Chautauqua. This massive network of live information and entertainment programs appeared on stages in every corner of America for over 50 years. People flocked to them to see and hear everything imaginable, including humorists such as Mark Twain, science lectures, every kind of musical performance, public addresses, and inspirational orations of all kinds.
Harry’s first major accomplishment with the Lyceum was to organize and promote a jubilee singing ensemble called “Thearle’s Original Nashville Students”. They were actually neither students, nor from Nashville (Thearle organized the group in Chicago), but the group capitalized on the growing popularity of jubilee singing in white America. Eight or nine African-American singers, accompanied by piano, sang beautifully arranged “spirituals” such as “Dat’s a Jubilee” and “Day’s Light a Breaking”, as well as popular songs of the day. Promoted by Thearle as “a record of a people whose former characteristics are fast dying away”, these should not be confused with the famous racist minstrel shows. They were considered high art and in fact were the first “respectable” black popular music to be embraced by white audiences in America. This does not mean that the staging was not rife with demeaning stereotypes about plantation life. In some skits, the singers appeared in “rustic garb” such as overalls, calico dresses, and bandannas.
As the years went on, Thearle was to manage some of the most well known performers of the day. He arranged the U.S. performances of the world-famous composer and violin composer, Hungarian émigré Edouard Remenyi, admired by Franz Liszt and a mentor to Brahms.
He also represented the humorist Edgar “Bill” Nye on the lecture circuit, a household name in America, whose column was carried in virtually every newspaper.
Another well-known client was “Professor” William B. Patty, who dramatically showed the future to amazed audiences after the turn of the century. With great solemnity he brought out a small piece of radium, which the public had become fixated on before understanding it’s highly toxic nature. Patty exuberantly played it up as:
…a dynamo which throws off high-power electricity without any engine or machinery to enforce it…our steamships could cross the ocean by using the energy of a single stick of it.
He then gave a demonstration of “liquid air”, a small amount of which could “melt steel pens” and readily handle all home heating and cooling needs and possibly allow a car to run for a thousand miles. In reality, super-cooled air is very difficult to produce, but the hyperbolic claims did not get in the way of promoting the pseudo-science in dramatic exhibitions.
The most realistic of the new marvels was “wireless telegraphy” (a precursor to radio) by which machines could be used to “…send and receive messages thru space in the presence of the audience”. The wonders of instant messaging!
This “act” remained popular for so many years, that eventually “Professor” Thearle was able to give the demonstration personally when the need arose.
Go on to read about how Harry evolved as a music and events producer.
Sources
- Mentioned in will of John Davis Thearle and Maria Elizabeth Leake of Christ-church, London. Bishopp and husband George owned a brewery that still has a pub on the same site. Thanks to Robin McWilliams for research. Available at http://pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/WestminsterStJohn/BarleyMow.shtml on 20 July 2015
- “Chicago in Flames”, By Currier and Ives – Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-23436), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62278069 on 28 March 2020
- “Original Nashville Students”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Nashville_Students on 20 April 2020
- “Harry B. Thearle”, The Book of Chicagoans, edited by John W. Leonard, pp 565, A.N. Marquis & Company, Chicago, 1905, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=OyV4vWP7aG4C on 5 January 2014
- Maxwell, Jeffrey Scott, The Complete Chautauquan – The Lyceum Movement, available at http://www.crackerjackcollectors.com/Jeffrey_Maxwell/alphachautauquan/lyceum.html on 27 June 2013
- “Chautauqua” available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua on 10 January 2014
- Abbott, Lynn, and Seroff, Doug. Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895, Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2003, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=kPJZTJtz1IwC on 29 December 2013
- “Professor Patty Will Make Interesting Experiments at the Chautauqua”, Ft. Dodge Messenger, 16 July 1904, available at http://inoldfortdodge.com/2011/07/give-scientific-demonstrations/ on 2 January 2014
- “Liquid Air”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_air on 4 April 2020
- “Wireless Telegraphy” available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_telegraphy on 10 January 2014
- “Program of State Teachers’ Association December 26-28, 1901”, The Educator-Journal, Vol. 2, D.M. Geeting, Editor, Indianapolis, 1901, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=STMLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA190 on 20 June 2014
