Florence Foster Jenkins
Page 23
My final thanks to Nicholas Martin, whose enthusiasm for Florence’s story was infectious, to James Gill of United Agents, and to Georgina Morley and Jamie Coleman at Macmillan.
* * *
I tracked the movements of the book’s dramatis personae via a number of online newspaper archives: the New York Times archive, the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America archive, the British Newspaper Archive, Newspapers.com, the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive and the National Library of New Zealand’s Papers Past archive. For information relating to the census in both the US and UK, as well as records of birth, marriage, death and ocean-going travel, I consulted the genealogy websites ancestry.com/co.uk and findagrave.com. There is also an excellent page on Florence’s ancestry on wargs.com.
The primary sources I consulted were the St Clair Bayfield archive in the New York Public Library, the New York Surrogates’ Court documents relating to the Florence Foster Jenkins estate, the transcript of Bruce Hungerford’s unpublished conversation in 1970 with Kathleen Bayfield, Florence Malcolm Darnault and Adolf Pollitz, and Gregor Benko’s account of his 2006 interview with Bill Brady.
Other key sources include:
Bendiner, Milton: ‘Florence Foster Jenkins: An Appreciation’ (New York: Melotone, 1946).
Collup, Donald: Florence Foster Jenkins: A World of Her Own (Video Artists International, 2008).
Dixon, Daniel: ‘Florence Foster Jenkins: The Diva of Din’, Coronet (December 1957).
Moorsteen, Betty: ‘Around Town: St Clair Bayfield Vs 15 2d Cousins’, PM (1945).
Robinson, Francis: ‘The Glory (????) of the Human Voice’ (RCA, 1962).
Stevenson, Florence: ‘An Angel of Mirth’, Opera News (1963).
For background research I consulted the following books and articles:
Anon: 100 Years of Marriage and Divorce Statistics, United States, 1867–1967 (US Department of Health, Education and Welfare Publication, 1973).
___ Historical Sketch: Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies (Bethlehem, Pa: Moravian Publication Office, 1876).
___ ‘The Position of Women’, North American Review (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1909).
___ Zeckwer-Hahn Philadelphia Musical Academy School Catalogue (1905–6).
Bibby, Emily Katherine: Making the American Aristocracy: Women, Cultural Capital, and High Society in New York City, 1870–1900 (PhD Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2009).
Bordman, Gerald and Norton, Richard: American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Bradsby, H. C. (ed.): History of Luzerne County Pennsylvania (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: S. B. Nelson & Co., 1893).
Brokaw, Clare Boothe: ‘American Society and Near Society’, America (1932).
Burns, Debra Brubaker, Jackson, Anita and Sturm, Connie Arrau: ‘Contributions of Selected British and American Women to Piano Pedagogy and Performance’, IAWM Journal (2002).
Callan, Jim: America in the 1900s and 1910s (New York: Stonesong Press, 2006).
Crouse, Joan M.: The Homeless Transient in the Great Depression: New York State, 1929–1941 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986).
Diehl, Lorraine B.: Over Here! New York City During World War II (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
Ellis, John: One Day in a Very Long War: Wednesday 25th October 1944 (London: Random House, 1998).
Fine, Mark A. and Harvey, John H. (eds): Handbook of Divorce and Relationship Dissolution (New York: Routledge, 2006).
Goldsmith, Barbara: Little Gloria … Happy at Last (London: Macmillan, 1981).
Hahm, Dorothea A. and Sheldon, Robert E.: ‘The Virgil Practice Clavier’, The Piano: An Encyclopedia (Palmieri, Robert, ed.) (New York: Routledge, 2003).
Harvey, Oscar Jewell: A History of Wilkes-Barre (Wilkes-Barre, Pa: Raeder Press, 1931).
Hayden, Deborah: Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
Jabbour, Nicholas: ‘Syphilis from 1880 to 1920: A Public Health Nightmare and the First Challenge to Medical Ethics’, Essays in History (University of Virginia, 2000).
Jackson, Kenneth T.: WWII & NYC (New York: Scala, 2012).
Kisseloff, Jeff: You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
Kludas, Arnold: Record Breakers of the North Atlantic: Blue Riband Liners 1838–1952 (London: Chatham Publishing, 2000).
Kulp, George B.: Families of the Wyoming Valley (Wilkes-Barre, Pa: George Brubaker, 1885).
Leavitt, Judith Walzer and Numbers, Ronald L. (eds): Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978).
McGee, Isaiah R: The Origin and Historical Development of Prominent Professional Black Choirs in the United States (Florida State University, 2007).
Montgomery, Maureen E.: ‘The Fruit that Hangs Highest: Courtship and Chaperonage in New York High Society, 1880–1920’, Journal of Family History, Vol. 21 (1996).
Morris, Lloyd: Incredible New York: 1850–1950 (New York: Random House, 1951).
Quetel, Claude (trans. Braddock, Judith and Pike, Brian): History of Syphilis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).
Roberts, Ina B. (ed.): Club Women of New York, 1910–11, 6th ed. (New York: Club Women of New York Company, 1910).
Stokes, John H.: The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People (Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1917).
Taylor, Frank Hamilton: The City of Philadelphia as it Appears in the Year 1894: A Compilation of Facts Supplied by Distinguished Citizens for the Information of Business Men, Travelers, and the World at Large (Philadelphia: G. S. Harris & sons, 1894).
Tomes, Robert: The Bazar Book of Decorum (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1870).
Trapper, Emma Louise: The Musical Blue Book of America (New York: Musical Blue Book Corporation, 1915).
Van Rensselaer, Mrs John King: The Social Ladder (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1924).
Vanderbilt Balsan, Consuelo: The Glitter and the Gold (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1953).
Varicchio, Mario: ‘The Wasteful Few: Upton Sinclair’s Portrait of New York’s High Society’, Public Space, Private Lives (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2004).
White, Annie Randall: Polite Society at Home and Abroad: A Complete Compendium of Information Upon All Topics Classified Under the Head of Etiquette (Chicago: Monarch Book Company, 1891).
Wilson, Ross J.: New York and the First World War: Shaping an American City (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2014).
Young, Anthony: New York Café Society: The Elite Meet to See and Be Seen, 1920s–1940s (North Carolina: McFarland & Co. Inc., 2015).
About the Authors
NICHOLAS MARTIN has worked as a croupier, a laborer, a bouncer, and a barman. In his early twenties, he worked at sea as a deckhand and later as a yacht captain. He then worked as a journalist and travel writer, contributing to The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and various magazines, before becoming a screenwriter, graduating from the National Film and Television School in 1992. He lives in London. You can sign up for email updates here.
JASPER REES has been a journalist since 1988. He has written over the years for most broadsheets and is the author of two books, Bred of Heaven: One Man’s Quest to Reclaim His Welsh Roots and I Found My Horn: One Man’s Struggle with the Orchestra’s Most Difficult Instrument. He lives in London. You can sign up for email updates here.
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e.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
1: Wilkes-Barre, Pa
2: Mrs Dr Jenkins
3: Philadelphian
4: Chairman of Music
5: Mrs St Clair Bayfield
6: Legatee
7: Club Woman
8: The Singing President
9: Lady Florence
10: Queen of the Night
11: Prima Donna of Carnegie Hall
12: Like Father, Like Daughter
Epilogue
Photographs
Acknowledgements and Bibliography
About the Authors
Copyright
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS. Copyright © 2016 by Big Hat Stories Ltd and Jasper Rees. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Florence Foster Jenkins film artwork and photographs © Pathé Productions Limited, 2016
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reproduce the images herein: The Library of Congress; Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library; Museum of the City of New York; Byron Collection; Getty Images; Margaret Bourke-White; The LIFE Picture Collection; Gregor Benko; NYC Municipal Archives; Carnegie Hall Archives.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First published in Great Britain by Pan Books, an imprint of Pan Macmillan
First U.S. Edition: July 2016
eISBN 9781250115966
First eBook edition: July 2016