Show L i Little Eva J I CORDELIA HOWARD the original little 5 Eva who played in the first stage p performance performance per per- r- r of Uncle Toms Tom's Cabin is is discovered discovered dis dis- dis covered still living in Cambridge Mass She is 75 years old now but to her it probably seems but yesterday since as a charming I little girl of 4 she tripped before the footlights footlights foot foot- I lights and frolicked with the original Uncle Tom She was hand billed by a wise old time I trouper as The Youthful Wonder Wonder Little Little 1 Cordelia Howard Howard Generally Generally Called the Child of Nature Her part partS as Eva was made the he star because the man who dramatized Harriet Beecher Stowe's fa famous famois no s book was her father who conducted a dime museum in Troy N. N Y The Tile first performance o of Uncle Toms Tom's Cabin was in that thit city September 27 27 18 1852 2 Troy at that time had only people but Uncle Toms Tom's Cabin ran for nights straight No other play ever w written could duplicate that r record cord in a town of the same sime size From Troy the show jumped t to New NewYork NewYork York City where it ran performances be- be fote fofe going on the road Sev Seventy one one nty years have have passed but at least a dozen Tom shows still are traveling about the country and doing good business business- sometimes hanging em on the chandeliers Twelve mind you Ou not counting wagon shows What play written and produced within the thelast thelast thelast last ten years will ill have one comp company ny playing ng ngit it let alone twelve wh when n se seventy one years have passed t Although gh crudely written and nd ridiculous in spots Uncle tUncIe Toms Tom's Cabin stands out as the most powerful play ever written in Am America rica It was was propaganda that fed the flames that thit precipitated the Civil war It It stirred and aroused the passions of more millions of people people peo peo- pie than any other three things ever penned by Americans Its Ib power was in its book form Literary tastes and sense of humor have changed since then and the b book ok has been eclipsed by the dramatized version n. n As a literary curiosity there is nothing in existence that compares with Uncle Toms Tom's Cabin It It is an uncut diamond a roughly fashioned masterpiece of dramatic art art in ia sh short rt the Per Perfect Play as far as arousing the populace ver heat and nd making them plank down the their shekels at the box office |