Edwin Booth Monument

Edwin Thomas Booth was born in Maryland on November 13, 1833. His father, Junius Brutus Booth, was a famous British-born Shakespearean actor who had come to the United States in the 1820s. After receiving some formal education, at the age of thirteen, Booth began accompanying his father on theatrical tours. His job was to not only keep his father company on the road, but also keep him sober and meeting his professional obligations. During this time, Booth received an invaluable theatrical education as he watched and learned from his talented father.

Booth commenced his long and storied acting career in 1849 when he made his stage debut at the Boston Museum playing a minor (and mute) role in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III in which his father starred as the evil, deformed king. Two years later, when his father refused to take the stage one night, Booth stepped in and played the role of Richard III. In 1852, father and son moved to California. The following year, his father died. Booth, however, continued acting and traveling across California. His performances received rave reviews in the press. In 1854 and 1855, Booth toured Australia and Hawaii with actress Laura Keene. A few years later, he returned to the East Coast, where he made his first significant appearances as a star in Boston and New York City. Following a series of stellar performances in New York City in 1860, Booth eclipsed his namesake, Edwin Forrest, as the most popular actor in the United States. 

The 1860s proved to be a tumultuous decade for Booth, both personally and professionally. In 1860, he married actress Mary Devlin, with whom he had a daughter. Three years later, Mary died. Booth, however, failed to make it to her bedside and comfort her during her final moments because he was too drunk. Booth’s guilt motivated him to confront his drinking problem and practice moderation in the future. The following year, he became co-manager of the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City, where on November 25, he and his two brothers, John Wilkes Booth and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., appeared on stage together for the first and only time to raise funds for the erection of a statue of William Shakespeare in Central Park. Beginning the next night, Booth played Hamlet at the theatre for one hundred consecutive nights, a feat which helped to inextricably link him to the role. On April 14, 1865, his younger brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. The assassination shook Booth, who decided to retire from acting. He, however, returned to the stage in January 1866 to a hero’s welcome. 

In the 1880s, Booth embarked on a series of successful theatrical tours of Europe. Additionally, a few years after returning to the United States, he founded a social club in New York City that still exists to this day. In 1880 and 1882, Booth performed in London. The following year, he toured Germany. In 1888, Booth established a social club, the Players Club, and dedicated most of the space in his newly-purchased residence at 16 Gramercy Park South in New York City for its use, maintaining only a small apartment for himself. Originally formed with the intent of bringing together actors and distinguished men from other artistic professions, the club continues to meet at Booth’s former residence in New York City today. 

Three years later, in 1891, Booth made his final stage appearance at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn. Fittingly, he played the role of Hamlet. On June 7, 1893, Booth died of natural causes at his residence in New York City at the age of fifty-nine. His remains were buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Soon after Booth’s death, members of the Players Club formed the Edwin Booth Memorial Committee with the goal of raising funds for the creation of a monument in honor of the famous actor and club’s founder. Doing so proved difficult as the nation struggled in the wake of the Panic of 1893. The committee eventually raised the necessary amount of money and hired sculptor Edmond T. Quinn and architect Edwin S. Dodge to design a statue and pedestal, respectively. With the cooperation of the trustees of Gramercy Park, the committee dedicated the monument at a ceremony in the park on November 13, 1918, what would have been Booth’s eighty-fifth birthday. Booth’s grandson, Edwin Booth Grossman, unveiled the monument—an over-life-sized bronze statue of the actor on a granite pedestal—during the ceremony. The statue depicts Booth in the role of Hamlet, rising from a chair to recite the famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. To this day, members of the club still place a wreath at the monument on November 13 of each year.

"Booth Statue Unveiled." The New York Times, November 14, 1918.

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Pommer, Alfred and Joyce Pommer. Exploring Gramercy Park and Union Square. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2015.

"The Edwin Booth Memorial." The Art World and Arts & Decoration (January 1919): 147 and 188.

Ruggles, Eleanor. "Edwin Booth." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web. 21 December 2020 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Booth>.