The Anna Cora Mowatt Bicentennial

Born 200 years ago today, an important figure in early American theatrical history, Anna Cora Mowatt(1819-1870). Mowatt was best known for having written the 1845 play Fashion, arguably America’s first significant natively generated play. Certainly other plays preceded it, but most were either bad, or merely adaptations of existing foreign plays. In addition to her success as a playwright, Mowatt was also a successful literary author, actress, platform speaker, and a key player in the preservation of the George Washington estate Mount Vernon.

Mowatt (nee Ogden) was from an important New York family; one of her great grandfathers was Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. She was born in Bordeaux, France during a period when her father was employed as a wine merchant (basically he was the principal agent facilitating the export of French wines to the U.S.) The family returned to the U.S. when Anna was about five. Scarcely a decade later she married lawyer James Mowatt. They lived on an estate in Flatbush, Brooklyn, which was at the time very much way out in the country.

Mowatt began writing for magazines in the mid 1830, and her first book, the long-form poem Pelayo, or The Cavern of Covadonga, was published in 1836. She often wrote under aliases, and her literary productions varied greatly in subject and style. Other works included Gulzara, or The Persian Slave; a Drama in Five Acts (1841); the aforementioned Fashion, or Life in New York (1845); Armand; or the Peer and the Peasant (1851, her last play); The Fortune Hunter; The Adventures of a Man About Town, a Novel of New York Society (1844); The Memoirs of Madame D’Arbla (1844); Life of Goëthe: from his autobiographical papers and the contributions of his contemporaries (1844); Evelyn; or a Heart Unmasked, a Tale of Domestic Life (1845); Autobiography of an Actress; or Eight Years on the Stage (1854); Mimic Life; or Before and Behind the Curtain (1856); Twin Roses, a Narrative (1857); Fairy Fingers; a Novel (1865); The Mute Singer; a Novel (1866); The Clergyman’s Daughter and Other Sketches; a Collection of Pen Portraits and Paintings (1867); and Italian Life and Legends (1870).

Th tremendous success of her comedy of manners Fashion at New York’s Park Theatre inspired Mowatt to go upon the stage herself, and for many years she acted in Shakespeare and contemporary melodramas and comedies to great acclaim. James Mowatt died in 1851. Two years later his widow married a son of the important newspaper publisher Thomas Ritchie.President Franklin Pierce and his entire cabinet attended their wedding. She retired from the stage shortly thereafter. This was the period when she spearheaded the campaign to preserve Mount Vernon, making her one of the earlier participants in America’s historical preservation movement. In 1860 she separated from William Ritchie and moved to Europe, settling in England five years later.

Below my copy of The Lady of Fashion: The Life and The Theatre of Anna Cora Mowatt (1954) by Eric Wollencott Barnes, and the Applause anthology Nineteenth Century American Plays, which contains Fashion.

The play is affectionately satirical about the tendency of Americans to sign off on couture imported from France, while disregarding anything domestic perforce. Amusingly the same has also been true of wines (her father’s line) until quite recently, and was certainly true of stage plays in her own day. So it accrues a little additional meaning that way. It was a domestic product that was actually approved of by New Yorkers. Even Edgar Allan Poe liked it!

There is a TERRIFIC website containing everything you’ll ever want to know about Anna Cora Mowatt here, courtesy Dr. Kelly S. Taylor, formerly of the University of North Texas. Thank you, Dr. Taylor!