Charlotte Cushman: Boston's Lady Romeo

By Noah Good, Marketing Manager and History Program Educator

William Page, Charlotte Cushman, oil on canvas, 1853, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

On the morning of February 18, 1876, in a hotel room on the third floor of the Parker House, Charlotte Cushman trembled and coughed.
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For several years, Cushman had been suffering from a recurrence of breast cancer. She returned home to Boston to receive medical treatment and stayed at the Parker House, just across the street from King’s Chapel. Emma Stebbins, her friend and former partner, tended to her. 
Days earlier, she took a walk through the city and caught a cold, which soon turned into pneumonia.

In her final hours, she was surrounded by people who loved her: her maid, her nephew and his wife, and Emma.

Cushman died that morning at the age of fifty-nine.

​Most people today have never heard the name “Charlotte Cushman.” But in 1876, you would be hard-pressed to find a newspaper that wasn’t running her obituary. To many, she was the greatest American actress. Cushman was, according to writer and educator Tana Wojczuk, “America’s first celebrity.” 

Charlotte Cushman, daguerreotype, ca. 1855. Library of Congress.

Of her impact, Wojczuk writes: “She was the first to prove that an American could interpret Shakespeare onstage. She resurrected the original text of Romeo and Juliet, and her interpretations of many of Shakespeare’s characters survive today.”  

Born in Boston in 1816, Charlotte Cushman grew up in Charlestown, MA. At nineteen, she made her debut at the Tremont Theatre playing Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro. Now demolished, the original Tremont Theatre stood just a short walk away from King’s Chapel.

Tremont Street, Boston by Philip Harry, c. 1843. Tremont Theatre is visible on the right side. A few buildings behind the theatre is King’s Chapel with its distinctive stone silhouette.

Lydia Molander, photograph, 1872

A celebrated actress, Cushman was most well-known for her Shakespearean roles. She played both male and female roles, captivating audiences as Hamlet and Romeo as well as Lady Macbeth.

“Breeches roles”—women playing men onstage—had been around since at least the late seventeenth century. Women playing men onstage usually wore breeches, or tight knee-length pants. In a time when women’s legs were hidden under their skirts (especially so in the mid-nineteenth century with its hoopskirts and crinolines), seeing women in public in these costumes was a novelty. As such, breeches roles were largely a way of appealing to male audience members who were thrilled to get a glimpse of an actress’s legs.

Cushman, however, leaned into the masculinity of her characters. She truly sought to embody each of her roles, rather than using breeches parts to appeal to male spectators. Using her tall stature and husky voice, she could play male roles convincingly. This twist on breeches roles—and her conspicuous lack of male dalliances—meant that she was deemed respectable at a time when actresses were seen as morally corrupt.

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Cushman in costume as Romeo, c. 1850. From The New York Public Library

John Tallis & Company, Charlotte and Susan Cushman as Romeo and Juliet, engraving ca. 1860. Library of Congress.

Playing Romeo as a woman meant that Cushman could be more passionate onstage than her male counterparts would have been able to get away with. In fact, one British critic wrote that an actress playing Romeo was ideal: “females together give us an image of the desire of the lovers of Verona, without suggesting a thought of vice.” At the time, intense romantic friendships between women–even long-term partnerships that closely resembled marriage–were seen as normal. Lesbianism had not yet been articulated as a medical concept (though queer women certainly existed). It wasn’t until the 1880s and 1890s that lesbianism was defined in scientific literature, long after Cushman had left the stage. 

Cushman had several relationships with women throughout her life. To her partner Matilda Hays, she pledged “celibacy and eternal attachment.” Emma Stebbins, mentioned above, was Cushman’s partner for two decades. Although they ended their romantic relationship, they remained close friends. In 1852, Cushman moved to Rome with a group of women artists. They called themselves the “Jolly Bachelors” and the group was filled with romantic drama. Historian Faye Dudden writes, “Even though these friendships were not generally regarded with suspicion, Cushman felt obliged to be discreet, and most of her public audience probably knew little of this lifestyle.”

As her illness wore on, Cushman began making end-of-life preparations. She chose King’s Chapel as the site of her funeral, a building she could see from her window at the Parker House.

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The Parker House (right) in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

In a letter written February 4, Charlotte described her view, remarking upon the chapel’s “steep slate roof and a projecting semicircular bit at the end, with a sloping roof of its own, where our pigeons sit and sun and plume themselves, and where they apparently belong.” Taking in the wintry scene, she wrote, “All over the wall are vines, now leafless, where the sparrows haunt and keep up an endless twitter.”

​Her funeral was held days after her death. On February 21, her body lay in state at the Parker House before being moved across the street to King’s Chapel for the service. 

King’s Chapel, Tremont Street. Photograph. Ca. 1889-1900. Boston Public Library, Arts Department.

Flowers filled the space, adorning the casket, altar, and pulpit. Family and friends filled the pews on the ground level while the gallery above (“reserved for ladies”) was packed. Reporters from around the world attended to record the event.

Reverend Henry W. Foote led the service, which was, “according to the ritual of King’s Chapel Society, brief but impressive.” John W. Tufts led the music, which included both the traditional burial chant as well as the then-recent hymn “Abide With Me.”

Emma Stebbins wrote that the funeral was “simple and sweet and touching with the heartfelt feeling which surrounded her always, and found deeper and more spontaneous expression after her death. The flowers that she loved covered her,—children's hands laid them upon her coffin.”

An 1856 photograph of Emma Stebbins. Smithsonian Libraries.

Midnightdreary. Charlotte Cushman’s grave. Photograph. 2008.

After the service at King’s Chapel, carriages took mourners to Mount Auburn Cemetery. They gathered at the very plot Cushman had chosen for herself two years earlier. Looking out onto the Charles River, she had remarked, “This is a delightful spot; See yonder lies dear old Boston.”

Though a worldwide icon, Cushman belonged uniquely to Boston, her home and her final resting place. At King’s Chapel, we celebrate our connection to Charlotte Cushman, a fascinating figure who changed American theatre forever.

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Bibliography

Boston Post. “CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. The Funeral Yesterday-Services at the Church-The Attendance-At the Grave, Etc., Etc.” February 22, 1876. Newspapers.com.

Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. “Home of Charlotte Cushman.” Accessed December 14, 2024. https://www.bwht.org/explore/home-of-charlotte-cushman/.

“Breeches Role.” In The Companion to Theatre and Performance. Oxford University Press, 2010. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199574193.
001.0001/acref-9780199574193-e-548.

​Carte de Visite Portrait of Emma Stebbins (1815-1882). 1856. Photograph. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. https://library.si.edu/image-gallery/69478.

Charlotte Cushman, daguerreotype, ca. 1855. Library of Congress.

"Charlotte Cushman in costume as Romeo.” Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 20, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/403679b0-6eff-0134-39a3-00505686a51c. 

“CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. Preparations for Her Funeral To-Day--Tribute of Respect from Her Professional Friends, Etc., Etc.” February 21, 1876.

Halliday, William H. “Photograph of King’s Chapel.” In Halliday’s Collection of Photographs of Colonial and Provincial Houses, 1628-1775, 96. William H. Halliday, 1894. http://archive.org/details/hallidayscollect01hall.

Harry, Philip. Tremont Street, Boston. c 1843. Oil on panel, 34.92 x 40.96 cm. MFA Boston. http://collections.mfa.org/objects/33027/tremont-street-boston;jsessionid=09FBEFBB9C8BCC7480A3AB034AE8EF07.

Hymnary.org. “Abide With Me.” Accessed December 14, 2024. https://hymnary.org/text/abide_with_me_fast_falls_the_eventide.

John Tallis & Company, Charlotte and Susan Cushman as Romeo and Juliet, engraving ca. 1860. Library of Congress.

King’s Chapel, Tremont Street. Photograph. Ca. 1889-1900. Boston Public Library, Arts Department. https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/37720m84b. 

Lydia Molander, photograph, 1872. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Molander#/
media/File:Lydia_Wessler_1872.jpg  

Midnightdreary. Charlotte Cushman’s grave. Photograph. 2008. https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CharlotteCushmanGrave.jpg. 

​Page, William. Charlotte Cushman. Oil on canvas. 1853. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. https://www.si.edu/object/charlotte-cushman%3Anpg_NPG.72.15.  

"Parker House." The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 20, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/
510d47e0-89df-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. 

Sheir, Rebecca. “Charlotte Cushman: When Romeo Was a Woman.” Shakespeare Unlimited, n.d. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/romeo-charlotte-cushman/.

Stebbins, Emma. Charlotte Cushman: Her Letters and Memories of Her Life. Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879. http://archive.org/details/
charlottecushman00stebrich.

Wojczuk, Tana. Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity. Simon and Schuster, 2020.