Mary Garland Shaw (January 25, 1854 – May 18, 1929) was a prominent American actress, playwright, suffragist, and early feminist.Queer Places:
Hotel Wellington, 871 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019
Mary Garland Shaw (January 25, 1854 – May 18, 1929) was a prominent American actress, playwright, suffragist, and early feminist.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Shaw initially worked as a school teacher. When constant talking strained her voice, she took elocution lessons, which ultimately led her toward a career in the theater.
She joined the Boston Museum stock company in 1880 and later toured with Helena Modjeska’s company for several seasons. She became widely recognized as one of the leading emotional and dramatic actresses of her era.
Shaw was a pioneer in bringing the controversial social-reform plays of Henrik Ibsen to the American stage, notably portraying Mrs. Alving in Ghosts and starring in Hedda Gabler. She also acted in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren's Profession and Elizabeth Robins's suffrage play Votes for Women.
Shaw was deeply dedicated to the women's rights movement, lecturing widely across the country and representing American women at the International Women's Congress in London in 1899.
She wrote feminist plays, most notably The Parrot Cage—an allegorical fable featuring characters dressed as parrots critiquing anti-suffrage arguments.
She was a member of the Professional Women's League and later founded The Gamut Club in New York to provide professional women from diverse fields with a supportive community space. She also helped establish the Players Equal Suffrage League.
Mary Shaw was a member of Heterodoxy, a famous, fiercely independent feminist debating club established in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1912 by Marie Jenney Howe. The club brought together a diverse group of prominent professional women, suffragists, socialists, artists, and freethinkers.
Later in life and during her active years in New York's theatrical and feminist circles, Mary Shaw resided at the Hotel Wellington, located at 7th Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan.
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