Walter Washington Foster Glass Plate Negatives Collection
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Miss Fern Kirksmith
Accession number: 1991.1.28572
Part of the Kirksmith sisters' appeal might have been their physical appearance on stage, their youth and beauty being enhanced by fashionable gowns and the latest of coiffures.
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Miss Gladys Kirksmith
Accession number: 1991.1.28570
A contemporary account from one of their appearances relates a travel/style crisis: "Their baggage had not arrived . . . and they had on the worst they had. They seemed so ashamed of their attire that two of the best lookin, with their hair fixed puff-iest laughed so they could hardly play."
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Miss Agnes Kirksmith
Accession number: 1991.1.28573
As circuit Chautauqua and vaudeville came to an end, the orchestra eventually broke up, with some sisters finding employment in other fields. No doubt fellow employees were regularly regaled with stories of the six sisters Kirksmiths' adventures as they conspired in presenting "masterful music rendered without the aid of a man."
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Sources
• Rogers, Will, and Arthur Frank Wertheim. The Papers of Will Rogers: From Vaudeville to Broadway September 1908 – August 1915. Norman [u.a.]: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2001: p. 220.
• Bearss, Sara B. "The Eye of the Master: Foster's View of Richmond, 1900–1925." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 98.4 (1990): p. [641]–643.
• Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly. Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, 2 volumes. New York: Routledge, 2006: p. 612.
• Tapia, John E. Circuit Chautauqua: From Rural Education to Popular Entertainment in Early Twentieth Century America. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2008: p. 64, 63.
• Search for books, manuscripts, sheet music, maps, and broadsides in the VHS Online Catalog.
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