"Everything Bright and Sparkling":The Lost History of Miss Victoria North

This little ad, placed in the New York Clipper in April 1884, caught my eye right away. I wondered who Victoria North was, and what the Rentz-Santley Company was, and whether she had ever recovered. I'm not sure how she managed to place this ad if she was truly destitute and ill, but perhaps someone in the troupe helped her before they moved on.

She was probably the Victoria North living with her parents in Brooklyn in 1880, rather than either of the other two Victoria Norths in the census of that year - one a 21 year old farm girl in Tennessee, the other a 32 year old wife in Pennsylvania. Victoria Alexandra North was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1863, one of the six children of James, a hardware dealer, and Mary Ann (Beggs) North.

I am also inclined to think that she was the Brooklyn Victoria, because the Eagle took notice of her joining the Rentz Santley troupe in 1882: "Miss Victoria North has engaged with the Rentz-Santley Novelty company. Rehearsals for the coming season begin at Paster's Theater August 21." This indicates that she was a local girl whom some of their readers would have known.

The Rentz Santley Burlesque Company woul also have been familiar to them. By 1882, it had been a famous burlesque troupe for more than ten years. It was managed by Michael B. Leavitt (1843-1935). Leavitt was a theatrical producer who liked the idea of the all-female group. In the Rentz Santley he created one of the first and most successful burlesque troupes. To the right is part of an 1881 ad for the troupe, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

The troupe was loosely based upon a European group originally known as Rentz's Circus. Mabel Santley - whom historian Irving Zeidman calls "a typical Amazon of the period" - joined the troupe as its star in the early 1870s, hired by Leavitt to pep things up. As indeed she did. In March 1879, Santley was arrested in San Francisco for "indecent exposure." She had lifted her skirts and showed her ankles during a dance routine on stage, which had caused pandemonium in the audience. At the far left you can see Santley exposing far more than her ankles, and next to her is Madame Rentz, looking more decorous, circa 1868.

The burlesque show was usually divided into three parts. In act one, the women - dressed in one-piece leotards, leggings and corsets, adorned with sparkling tunics and jewels - came onstage and sang together. The songs were interspersed with jokes.In part two, known as the olio, individual acts performed. Finally, there was a farce (brief comic play) or something similar to the songs and jokes of the opening.

Burlesque shows were at their most successful and popular in the period from about 1870-90. And indeed our heroine Victoria North - who had recovered after all - was still part of the theater world in 1889. In that year, she was performing at the Gaiety in Brooklyn on a program that included "farces, sketches, songs, dances, boxing, stone breaking [!!] and gymnastics."

Sometime during the 1890s Victoria gave up the stage and became a public school teacher in Brooklyn. She taught for many years, at least until 1910 when she was enumerated as living with her sister, also a teacher. She remained single and died in 1962, age 99, in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. She was buried in Brooklyn.

The photograph of Madame Rentz (circa 1868) is from Picture History, and the Mabel Santley cigarette card from the Library of Congress.

SOURCES

"Dramatic and Musical," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 16, 1882, p. 3.
"Theaters and Music," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 20, 1889, p. 6.

Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman and Donald McNeilly. Vaudeville, Old and New. (Routledge, 2007), p. 163.

Montanarelli, Lisa and Ann Harrison, Strange But True San Francisco. (Globe Pequot, 2005), p. 108.

Shteir, Rachel, Striptease. (Oxford University Press US, 2005), p. 32.

Zeidman, Irving. The American Burlesque Show. (Hawthorn 1967), pp. 33-4.

At FamilySearch.org, there is information about Victoria North here.

Census Records:

James North household, 1870 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 21, Kings, NY; p. 492, #623/579, Series M593, Roll 961. [Victoria is age 8, b Ireland]
James North household, 1880 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 25, Kings, NY; FHL #1254856, T9-0856, p. 49C. [Victoria is age 17, b Ireland, At School]
James R. North household, 1900 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 23, Kings, NY; p. 228, #48/53, Series T623, Roll 1061. [Victoria is age 34, b Ireland, no occupation listed]
Victoria A. North household, 1910 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 23, Kings, NY; p. 28, #204/301, Series T23, Roll 972. [Victoria is age 46, b New York (sic), occ. Teacher, Public School]