"A Child of the State" by George Hoey

Description:

This colored theater print depicts a scene from a play A Child of the State in which a young woman stands outside a doorway at the top of the stairs. She is surrounded by nuns, and men in plain dress stand guard on each side of the doorway. Four men and three women in elaborate clothing are in the foreground. The play was adapted by George Curtis Hoey (1852-1907), New York City playright/actor, from French melodrama called Les Orphelines de la Charite. There is a datebill or pasted on label indicating the play was performed: Park Theater, Dec 28, 29, & 30. The year is not included bit it was circa 1880, and George Hoey played the part of the character Gros- Rene.

The Park Theater was built in 1798 on Park Row in Manhattan and was New York City’s premiere performance space in the early 19th Century. It attracted a diverse audience with each class sitting in its preferred section. Working class men sat in the pit; members of the upper class and women in the boxes, while the less affluent including immigrants, people of color, and prostitutes sat in the balcony.

This chromolithograph was produced by the Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company. The Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company was founded by William H. Forbes (ca 1836-1915), who immigrated to the United States from Liverpool, England in 1848. Forbes became an apprentice in the lithography business while still a boy and established William H. Forbes and Company in Boston in 1861. The firm expanded to become Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company in 1875 with hundreds of employees and offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, and London. During World War II the company became a major printer of allied military currency but went out of business later in the twentieth century.