Michael Burden - Touring the Antebellum South with an English Opera Company

TOURING THE
ANTEBELLUM SOUTH
WITH AN
ENGLISH OPERA COMPANY

THE HILL COLLECTION

Holdings of the LSU Libraries

Anton Reiff Jr. in 1862.
The engraving was made during his tenure as director of the opera in Australia.

TOURING THE
ANTEBELLUM SOUTH
WITH AN
ENGLISH OPERA COMPANY

Anton Reiffs Riverboat Travel Journal

Edited, with an Introduction, by

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BATON ROUGE

Published by Louisiana State University Press

www.lsupress.org

Copyright 2020 by Louisiana State University Press

All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any format or by any means without written permission of Louisiana State University Press.

Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason

Typeface: Minion Pro

COVER IMAGE: Scene on the Upper Mississippi ( Am Ober-Mississipp i ), courtesy Library of Congress.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Reiff, Anthony, Jr., 1830?1916, author. | Burden, Michael, 1960 editor, writer of introduction.

Title: Touring the antebellum South with an English opera company : Anton Reiffs riverboat travel journal / edited, with an introduction, by Michael Burden.

Other titles: Hill collection.

Description: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2020] | Series: The Hill collection : holdings of the LSU Libraries | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020009421 (print) | LCCN 2020009422 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7395-4 (cloth) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7445-6 (pdf) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7446-3 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Reiff, Anthony, Jr., 1830?1916Diaries. | Reiff, Anthony, Jr., 1830?1916TravelSouthern States. | Pyne and Harrison English Opera CompanyTravelSouthern States. | Opera companiesSouthern StatesHistory19th century. | Opera companiesEnglandHistory19th century. | River boatsMississippi RiverHistory19th century. | LCGFT: Diaries.

Classification: LCC ML1711.4 .R45 2020 (print) | LCC ML1711.4 (ebook) | DDC 792.50975dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009421

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009422

Illustrations and Credits

Figures

Samuel Calvert, Anthony Reiff, 1862, appeared in the Illustrated Melbourne Post and was included in Wood Engravings Published in Victoria, Australia, Exhibited by the Commissioners of the International Exhibition (Melbourne, 1873), wood engraving. State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

FRANKLIN BRINSMADE BOUDINOT

Anonymous amateur photograph, albumen print, before 1864. Collection of the Gunn Historical Museum, Washington, Connecticut.

WILLIAM HARRISON

Daniel J. Pound, after a photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, 1861, engraving published in The Drawing-Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages, 1861. Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.

GEORGE STRETTON

Jrmie Graf, after Richard James Lane, George Stretton as Paul Pasta, 1839, hand-colored lithograph. National Portrait Gallery, London.

SUSAN PYNE

Photograph by Horatio Nelson King, ca. 1860. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

LOUISA PYNE

Photograph by Moira & Haigh, ca. 1863. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Marie Adrien Persac, Interior of the Main Cabin of the Steamboat Princess, 1861, gouache and collage on paper, 17 x 22.5 inches. Gift of Mrs. Mamie Persac Lusk; Conservation with funds provided by Linda and Robert Bowsher. LSU Museum of Art 75.8. Photo David Humphreys.

Anonymous, after Henry Lewis , Cairo. Mouth of the Ohio. Cairo an der Mndung des Ohio, 18541857 , lithograph , published by Arnz and Co ., Dusseldorf, used in Henry Lewis, Das Illustrirte Mississippthal (Dusseldorf: Arnz and Co ., 1857 ), opposite page . The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library .

George F. Mungier, St. Charles Hotel, stereoscope from New Orleans and Vicinity, albumen print, ca. 1860. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.

Alfred Rudolph Waud, Noon on Sunday at the French Market in New Orleans, ca. 1866, drawing, used as a basis for the illustration published in Harpers Weekly, 16 August 1866, 9.75 x 13.75 inches. The Historic New Orleans Collection, The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection, 1965.13.

Anonymous, Inauguration of the Jackson Statue, New Orleans, 1856, wood engraving, from Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, 1856. Private Collection.

J. Wells Champney, Bank of Mobile and Odd Fellows HallMobile, Alabama, 1875?, wood engraving, from Edward King, The Southern States of North America (London: Blackie and Son, 1875), 323. Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Anonymous, Husbands, wives, and families sold indiscriminately to different purchasers, are violently separated; probably never to meet again, wood engraving, from Wilson Armistead, Sales by Auction of Men, Women and Children (London: W & F Cash, 1853). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.

Frances F. Palmer, Wooding Up on the Mississippi, 1863, after an oil painting by the same artist, lithograph, 12.2 x 9.1 inches. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Adolphus F. Forbriger, Burnet House, Htel Burnet, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1850, lithograph by Onkens Lithography, 8.3 x 6.7 inches. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

View of Eastern End of the Great Kingwood Tunnel, from William Prescott Smith, The Book of the Great Railway Celebrations (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858), plate opposite 163. Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Washington Monument at 154 feet! Anonymous photographer, stereoscope from American Scenery, Washington DC, ca. 1860, albumen print. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.

William James Bennett, after George Cooke, Richmond, from the Hill above the Waterworks, 1834, aquatint, 17.8 x 25 inches. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.

14. MOUNT VERNON

Mount Vernon in the 1850s. Anonymous photographer, stereoscope, from an unknown collection, albumen print, 1850s. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.

Map

Map by Mary Lee Eggart.

Acknowledgments

As usual with a project such as this, there are many organizations and individuals who provided assistance toward its completion. My first thanks go to the Hill Memorial Library of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, where the original manuscript of Anton Reiffs diary is housed, and whose staff gave their support to this edition. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, awarded me the Mayers Fellowship, during which the bulk of the editing was done and the commentary shaped, while the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the British Library, the New York Public Library, the State Library of Louisiana, the State Library of Victoria, and the Barr-Smith Library at the University of Adelaide all provided workspace at different times during the project. The staffs of all these institutions, plus George Washingtons Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens; the Historic New Orleans Collection; the Indiana Historical Society; the Kentucky Historical Society; the McCracken County Public Library; the Mobile Public Library Local History & Genealogy Department; and in particular, Readers Services at the Huntington were all generous with their time and their resources.