[Broadside]: Going Fine Since 1889 / Ellen E. Armstrong / Magician and Cartoonist Extraordinary

[No place: circa early 1940s].

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Broadside poster with portrait photograph. Measuring 21” x 26.5” on cardboard mount measuring 22” x 28”. Modest toning to the edges of the cardboard mount, near fine. A large broadside advertisement with a halftone letterpress photograph of Armstrong and two silk screened borders printed in red. Ellen Armstrong was the daughter of J. Hartford and Lille Belle Armstrong, one of America’s most famous African-American magic acts of the early 20th Century. Ellen began performing with them at the age of six, and eventually developed her own act that included mind reading, sleight of hand, and card tricks. They were lauded by one newspaper reporter “as being the most royal colored entertainers of the century, as magicians, - artists of the highest type.” After her father’s death in 1939, Ellen Armstrong took over and continued to perform, making her the first and only African-American woman at the time to run an independent touring magic show.

A scarce, well-preserved broadside poster, most likely dating from the early 1940s.


Item #423045

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Item #423045 [Broadside]: Going Fine Since 1889 / Ellen E. Armstrong / Magician and Cartoonist Extraordinary. Ellen E. ARMSTRONG.