Emily Wakeman Hartley Collection

Collection

Identifier: A.1980.190

Scope and Contents

This collection is primarily comprised of addressed envelopes to various members of the Wakeman family, including Emily, her sister Clara, her father T.B. Wakeman, and occasionally her mother addressed as Mrs. T.B. Wakeman. There are also photographs, although mostly unidentified, newspaper clippings, miscellaneous ephemera and printed matter, a July 1900 copy of McClure's Magazine, and two pages of rather beautiful small watercolors by Emily's sister Clara.

Dates

Creation: 1870-1956

Conditions Governing Access

There are no conditions governing access to this material.

Biographical / Historical

Emily Wakeman Hartley was the daughter of Thaddeus Burr Wakeman, noted political philosopher and freethinker. Emily herself founded and managed the Stamford Theatre, an early pre-broadway tryout house through which many famous actors and playwrights or composers came through, including Gershwin's first broadway musical La-La Lucille, which played at the Stamford Theatre in 1919.

"Ms. Hartley [was] a member of the Stamford Yacht Club, women's Club, vice-president of the Alumni Association of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts of New York. She [was] a strong believer in woman suffrage, having meen early taught the right of women to cote. Her parents were intimate friends of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Standon, and other pioneers in this movement." - Reproduced from "Encyclopedia of Connecticut Biography, Genealogical-Memorial" (1917)