Photograph: Portrait of Lottie Rice, performer dressed in men's attire

From Barnum Museum

1890 – 1895 (Date manufactured/created)

Cabinet card photograph of a female performer dressed in men's attire, and identified on the back as Lottie Rice, and she was probably a vaudeville performer.  (Her name is rubber-stamped in red, suggesting this image was a souvenir photograph.)  The young woman, whose hair is parted in the center with short bangs included in the part, is dressed in a man's three-piece suit, holding a bowler hat, glove, and walking stick or swagger stick in her proper right hand.  Her left hand is gloved and she is wears a rose in her lapel buttonhole. The photograph most likely dates to the 1890s, when men's fashionable hairstyles featured the parted bangs.  This woman's figure is hardly disguised by the men's clothing.  She has a curvy figure, small feet, and her facial features are decidedly feminine, with fine eyebrows and large, dark eyes, coyly looking off to one side.  She is seated in a carved chair, next to a very elaborate stand with marble top.  The photographer is identified as Eisenmann of New York City.  

This cabinet card is part of a group of photos exchanged by fellow performers with the Smith/Sharpe family, given to Fritz Smith and/or his wife Kitty Sharpe.

Gift of Susan Crozier Fairchild

Accession/ID Number MS-0027-503-001