20-2, 015-10, 1890s, Cabinet Card, Chauncey Olcott (1858-1932) The Irish Tenor

Family Tree (see last image). Chauncey Olcott, born John Chancellor Olcott (July 21, 1858 - March 18, 1932), was an American stage actor, songwriter and singer of Irish descent.

He was born in Buffalo, New York. His mother, Margaret (née Doyle), was a native of Killeagh, County Cork.

In the early years of his career Olcott sang in minstrel shows, before studying singing in London during the 1880s. Lillian Russell played a major role in helping make him a Broadway star. When the producer Augustus Pitou approached him in 1893 to succeed William J.

Scanlan as the leading tenor in sentimental operettas on Irish themes, Olcott accepted and performed pseudo-Irish roles for the remainder of his career. Olcott combined the roles of tenor, actor, lyricist and composer in many productions.

He wrote the complete scores to Irish musicals such as Sweet Inniscara (1897), A Romance of Athlone (1899), Garrett O'Magh (1901), and Old Limerick Town (1902). For other productions he collaborated with Ernest R. Ball and George Graff in works such as The Irish Artist (1894), Barry of Ballymore (1910), Macushla (1912), and The Isle o' Dreams (1913). There are some 20 such works between 1894 and 1920. He was a good songwriter who captured the mood of his Irish-American audience by combining melodic and rhythmic phrases from traditional Irish music with melancholy sentiment. Some numbers from his musicals became popular, such as "My Wild Irish Rose" from A Romance of Athlone, "Mother Machree" from Barry of Ballymore, and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" from The Isle o' Dreams.

Sometimes he used tunes from others, such as that of the title song from Macushla from Irish composer Dermot Macmurrough pseudonym of Harold R. White or "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" by James Royce Shannon for his production Shameen Dhu (1914). In 1925, a serious illness forced him to retire, and he moved to Monte Carlo where he died of pernicious anemia in 1932.

His body was brought home and interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. Olcott's life story was told in the 1947 Warner Bros. Motion picture My Wild Irish Rose starring Dennis Morgan as Olcott. The film's plot was based on the biography by Olcott's widow, Rita Olcott, Song in His Heart (1939). In 1970, Olcott was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

A nationally known graphic artist and publisher of lithographs, he had retired from active participation in Sarony & Major in 1858. He departed for Europe craving artistic stimulation. He visited the ateliers of Paris and Brussels, haunted the studios of London. Yet what most galvanized his imagination was photography, an art practiced by his brother, Oliver, in Scarborough. After a thorough grounding in the chemistry of wet plate developing and enlarging, and instruction in optics, he opened his studio in Birmingham, England, specializing in carte de visite portraits, and occasional celebrity pictures.

Sarony's business plan in 1866 was to establish a photographic supply office in New York City with portraiture as an ancillary concern. To this end he brought with him from England the ingenious Alfred S. Campbell, holder of several photographic equipment patents. Sarony also brought his brother's studio rest (Napoleon Sarony patented an improvement in 1868), a retouching frame, and albumin paper. Having witnessed the success of E.

Anthony as suppliers of the trade, Sarony dreamt of equivalent wealth and influence. Sarony & Company located at 680 Broadway.

Card size: 4.25" x 6.5". Was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870.

It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 108 by 165 mm (4+1? The carte de visite was displaced by the larger cabinet card in the 1880s. In the early 1860s, both types of photographs were essentially the same in process and design. Both were most often albumen prints, the primary difference being the cabinet card was larger and usually included extensive logos and information on the reverse side of the card to advertise the photographer's services.

However, later into its popularity, other types of papers began to replace the albumen process. Despite the similarity, the cabinet card format was initially used for landscape views before it was adopted for portraiture. Some cabinet card images from the 1890s have the appearance of a black-and-white photograph in contrast to the distinctive sepia toning notable in the albumen print process.

These photographs have a neutral image tone and were most likely produced on a matte collodion, gelatin or gelatin bromide paper. Sometimes images from this period can be identified by a greenish cast. Gelatin papers were introduced in the 1870s and started gaining acceptance in the 1880s and 1890s as the gelatin bromide papers became popular. Matte collodion was used in the same period. A true black-and-white image on a cabinet card is likely to have been produced in the 1890s or after 1900. The last cabinet cards were produced in the 1920s, even as late as 1924. Owing to the larger image size, the cabinet card steadily increased in popularity during the second half of the 1860s and into the 1870s, replacing the carte de visite as the most popular form of portraiture. The cabinet card was large enough to be easily viewed from across the room when typically displayed on a cabinet, which is probably why they became known as such in the vernacular. Whatever the name, the popular print format joined the photograph album as a fixture in the late 19th-century Victorian parlor. Please see scans for actual condition. (images 3,4 & 5 are for reference only). This Cabinet Card would make a great addition to your collection or as a Gift (nice for Framing). Newest Collections with FREE S&H.

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