The Telephone Girl

 

She's a professional entertainer.
You can tell just by looking at her dress.

Those specks on her gown are not dust motes.
They're dozens and dozens of sequins,
and like the engraving on her brilliant cornet,
designed to capture the stage lights
and dazzle the eyes of an audience.
 

 

 

Her photograph is mounted on a large boudoir-size matte that has a very greenish texture that was an unflattering choice for such a dark photo. On the back is a note written in pencil.
    

To my dear Maygret (?)
with love of
                            Amy
Telephone Girl Co.  1901

 

 

 

It's a nice dedication between familiar friends or relations, and since they knew each other, first names were all that was needed. I read the recipient's name as Maygret as it's possibly a rare spelling variation of Majgret or Majgret, but I welcome offers of alternatives. The writer, Amy, is surely the young woman pictured, and though she leaves no surname, there are two extra clues: a date, 1901, and a curious phrase, Telephone Girl Co. What could that mean?

 

There is a photographer's imprint on the lower right corner of the card stock, C. M. Hayes & Co., Detroit.  So my initial thought was that Amy must be from the Detroit area, or maybe from Michigan or Ontario, Canada.

 

 

Her fancy gown seemed the best clue as it looked more appropriate for a theatre stage than a college graduation. With that idea and using the year, it didn't take long to find the answer as to what the Telephone Girl Co. meant. In 1901 it was a touring theatrical show from New York City.

That Great Big City Success,
The Telephone Girl
Bigger, Better Than Ever. A Very
Costly Cast!   Elegant Scenery!
Gorgeous Costumes!
40–Expensive People–40

 

Little Rock AR Democrat
7 January 1901

 

The Telephone Girl was a musical composed by Gustave Kerker, (1857–1923), with a script by Hugh Morton, a.k.a. Charles Morton Stewart McLellan, (1865–1916), an American playwright based in London. It first opened in New York City on 27 December 1897 at the Casino Theatre at Broadway and West 39th Street. The composer, Gustave Kerker, was born in Herford, Westphalia, Germany but in 1867 at the age of ten emigrated with his family to Louisville, Kentucky. Trained as a cellist, Kerker's first employment as a teenager was with Louisville's German Opera Company where he began composing too. In 1879 he had some success with his first operetta, so he moved to New York where he became the principal conductor of the Casino Theatre. It was there that Kerker's musical career flourished, eventually earning him credits for 27 musicals and operettas. 

 

 

 

In 1897, The Telephone Girl was Kerker and Morton's fourth show produced that year at the Casino Theater. Since the previous December, the pair had presented An American Beauty, The Whirl of the Town, and The Belle of New York, which opened on 28 September 1897 but closed after just 64 performances having received mixed reviews from New York's critics. Despite this snub the producers moved The Belle of New York to another New York theater and in the following spring chose to take the entire Broadway production to London where it opened in April 1898. At the time its cast of sixty-three persons was considered the largest American ensemble to play London's West End. It ran for over a year to great success with an unprecedented 674 performances. 

 

 

Kansas City MO Star
6 January 1898

Like many operettas and musical comedies, The Telephone Girl was adapted from a French farce. Its plot revolved around a misunderstanding between Estelle Cookoo, a young French telephone operator, who overhears a phone conversation between her boyfriend, Hans Nix, a telephone inspector, as he makes an appointment with a music hall actress. The "telephone girl" Estelle decides to take the place of the actress at the engagement producing much confusion and silliness. Reviewers in New York and London thought the trite play was daringly risque if not indecent but because it was a musical, the story is explained with lots of songs, dances, and choruses. Here is a YouTube video of the piano version of music from The Telephone Girl. There's no animation, so I recommend readers listen to it as they follow the rest of Amy's story.

 

By 1901, The Telephone Girl had already played many times in London, Berlin, and New York again, so the producers put together a touring company for the American theater circuit. The novelty in the show's premise was that since in this era a telephone switchboard operator was strictly a female occupation, the musical had a large all-female chorus. Two of the "telephone girls" were featured in a musical number playing a cornet duet. I'm not certain if it was part of the original show, but by 1901, a noted female cornet soloist, Bessie Gilbert, was listed as part of The Telephone Girl company as it toured the country.

 

Typical of most touring productions the cast of The Telephone Girl changed to suit the schedule of the lead actors and the inevitable turnover that occurred between each season. In the summer of 1901, Bessie Gilbert left the show and a new cornetist was hired. Her name was Miss Amy Thompson and her hometown was Waterbury, Connecticut. So of course the local newspaper was proud to mention her name when The Telephone Girl was set to play Waterbury in December that year. 

 

 

 

 

Waterbury CT Democrat
9 December 1901

 

Two days later the theater critic of the Waterbury Democrat gave his review of the show.

Waterbury CT Democrat
11 December 1901

The merry musical jingle, "The Telephone Girl," n which Louis Mann and Clara Lipman formerly starred was presented at Poll's theater last night before a large audience. The play was written by Hugh Morton and the music composed by GustavKerker. A light vein of comedy circulates throughout the two acts. The musical numbers form the chief feature of the entertainment. The selections were rather catchy and the music was light and airy.  Irving Brooks played the part of Hans Nix, inspector of telephones, the character made famous by Louis Mann. He played the role in a pleasing manner. Ethel Robinson as Estelle Coocoo, the telephone girl, was clever and made a decided hit with the audience. All the other characters in the play were incapable hands and the chorus was somewhat better than the ordinary. The play was rather nicely staged.

 

A special feature of the second act was a cornet solo by a Waterbury young lady, Miss Amy Thompson, a stepdaughter of Peter F. Malone of this city. Miss Thompson received a flattering reception when she appeared before the footlights in connection with another young lady, a cornet player.  The solos were finely rendered and the the young ladies had to respond to several encores. A large crowd was present at the matinee this afternoon and another good audience is expected to be present at the performance to-night.

 

 

_ _ _

 

According to the 1900 census for Waterbury, Connecticut, Amy Thompson lived in the home of her mother, Joanne, and step-father, Peter F. Malone, a printer.  Amy was the eldest of six children: three younger school-age step-sisters, Elizabeth, Minnie, and Rose Malone; and two sisters, Louisa Thompson, 22, who worked as a Milliner, and Ada, 19, who was a Dressmaker.  Amy Thompson, born in July 1875, age 25, and single, listed her occupation as Musician. So when her photo was taken in 1901 she was 26 years old.

 

The idea of a female brass instrumentalist was not unusual in this era, as readers of this blog will know from the many photos I've featured here of female musicians and musical ensembles. By 1901 many women were recognized cornet soloists. Bessie Gilbert, as an example, was recognized across America by her advertisements and promotional postcards promoting cornets made by the C. G. Conn Musical Instrument Company. However, despite their proven talent, female musicians were not accepted as equals of male musicians in the professional world of music, and most had to resort to performing in all-female groups or working independent solo acts in vaudeville to make a carreer. This is what makes Amy Thompson one of the many forgotten pioneers of the early feminist movement for women's equality. 

In her small way
perhaps Amy thought she could help
turn things upside down.

 

 

Princeton IL Bureau County Tribune
11 April 1902

A few months after Miss Amy Thompson joined The Telephone Girl troupe, newspapers around the country reported on her unusual romance with another cast member, Mr. John J. MaGee. The two had formed a close relationship during the tour and mutually agreed that they should marry. The question was when and where, which was difficult to do as the show was constantly on the move. No sooner had they finished a performance than the troupe was boarding a train bound for the next town. Finally en route from Denver to Chicago, the couple decided to get hitched in Kewanee, Illinois during a spare moment before the evening concert. 

 

What made this newsworthy is that in order to settle a wager they chose to perform the ceremony standing on their heads. The parson at first objected, but the groom insisted that it was perfectly legal. So side by side they said their vows while upside down against a chapel wall. When they returned the manager reprimanded them for delaying the show. 

"We've got married," smiled Amy as she went up to the manager and showed her new diamond. "Don't scold. We had to do it to keep from quarreling all the time."

"Well, all right," said he, "we'll let it go this time, but don't let this occur again."

That was the story reported as in the Princeton Bureau County Tribune. In other papers there was a different slant that focused on a misplaced affection between John J. Magee and another member of the cast, a married woman, Mrs. Nadine Sydney. When she started a row, he quickly defused it when he announced his marriage to Miss Thompson. But in those reports Amy and John were married in Crescent, Iowa  and not upside down on their heads. Like most tabloid-type stories it occupied the attention of the nation for a few weeks and then it was gone. Was it true? Or maybe a publicity stunt?

What makes it special is the way Amy Thompson is clearly identified as a cornetist and a member of The Telephone Girl company. It seems clear that this is the same young woman in my photograph. So did she and John J. Magee live happily ever after?

Amy continued with The Telephone Girl troupe for at least another two seasons until the fall of 1903. John J. Magee did not. The reports never gave his age or background except to say he was from New York. With such a common Irish surname, there is no way to find him in the usual archives so he seems to have disappeared in connection to Amy Thompson. I suspect this was more likely a clever attempt at selling tickets to a show that was losing the interest of a fickle public.

Amy seems to have had some success on the vaudeville circuit. During the last stages of The Telephone Girl tour, Amy's cornet partner in her duo act was Ruby Marion Kendall. The two stayed together and played in a number of touring revue shows, usually headlined by a female entertainer. From 1904 to 1915 the names of cornetists Ruby Marion (dropping the Kendall) and Amy Thompson were found in vaudeville theater listings from San Francisco to Chicago to Boston and beyond. By 1909 they were describes as a "refined musical act" and played duets on French horns, trombones, and trumpets as well as cornets.

 

In the 1910 census, Amy C. Thompson was back in Waterbury but living alone as a lodger. Now with a middle initial, she was age 35 and single. There was no mark for widowed or divorced. She listed her occupation as Actress, Vaudeville, which suggests that she was doing more theater work than just playing the cornet. Under the employment column, Number of weeks out of work during year 1909, she answered 0. 

 

Ironically the last report I could find of Amy's career as an entertainer was a review of her performance with Ruby Marion in April 1915 published by the Detroiter Abend-Post, a German language newspaper in Detroit, Michigan. After that, any news of Amy Thompson, cornet player, seems to have vanished. Unfortunately the Waterbury newspapers after 1908 are not digitized which would be the most reliable source of information on her divorce,  marriage, (real or invented), or death. One distant family relation included her on a family tree that is connected to her step-father, Peter F. Malone, but there was nothing added for a spouse, children, or a date of death.

All that she left behind
is a dark photo a cornet player
surrounded by a faint gleam of sequins.
But it's just enough
to tell her story
in show business.

 

UPDATE:
31 May 2022

 

  Sometimes I can't let an open question stop the research.
Today as I was checking a different archive,
Old Fulton New York Postcards,
I found the answer.

The New York Clipper
23 May 1917

In the pages of The New York Clipper, a weekly newspaper for the entertainment world, the name of Amy Thompson appeared in its regular column, Deaths in the Profession.

Amy Thompson, of the Ruby Marion and Amy Thompson musical act, died May 8 at her sister's home, Providence, R. I., from heart failure. Miss Thompson was taken ill New Years while playing upon the stage at Leyman, Ind. These ladies have been together for sixteen years and were well known in the musical comedy, vaudeville and burlesque. Burial took place in family plot in Waterbury, Conn.

 

Amy Thompson was age 41,
just two months from her 42nd birthday.

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone is phoning it in this weekend.