Adelaide Herrmann

She was forty-three when her husband died suddenly on a train between engagements. The company remained, and so did the booked dates. Adelaide Herrmann did not fold it. Her own thirty years begin there.

Key achievements

1. Born Adelaide Scarcez in London; her Belgian-born father is said to have had a hand in establishing the Egyptian Hall.
2. Came to the United States in 1868 as one of the Kiralfy company of dancers; she also performed as a trick cyclist.
3. Married Alexander Herrmann in 1875 and performed alongside him thereafter.
4. After her husband's death in 1896 she took over the company as a solo performer and worked for roughly thirty more years.
5. She was among the very few women to take on the bullet-catch routine.
6. A warehouse fire in New York in 1926 destroyed her props and killed some of her animals; she had retired by 1928.

Crossing the Atlantic as a dancer

She was born in London in 1853 as Adelaide Scarcez, a name also spelled Scarsia.

Her Belgian-born father is said to have had a hand in establishing the Egyptian Hall in London — the theatre where Maskelyne would run his show for thirty-one years. She was born close to this world.

In 1868, at around fifteen, she came to the United States as one of the Kiralfy company of dancers. Her starting point was not conjuring but dance. She also appeared as a trick cyclist.

A young woman making her living with her body would later come to lead a magic company. That history is not unconnected to the fact that her own show came to be called Magic, Grace and Music.

1875, a marriage

In 1875 she married Alexander Herrmann. The ceremony took place at New York City Hall, with the mayor of the day, William H. Wickham, officiating.

The two performed together thereafter and became one of the most successful acts of the period. What matters is that she appeared as a performer, not an assistant. She also took on the bullet-catch routine, which very few women of the era attempted.

December 1896, a sudden gap

In December 1896, Alexander suffered a heart attack on a train bound for Pennsylvania and died.

What remained was a very large company, a great deal of apparatus, and a tour still under contract.

She first tried to carry the “Herrmann the Great” name in partnership with Alexander’s nephew Leon, who had been groomed as successor. Tensions ran high and the collaboration was short-lived.

And then she chose to stand on stage alone.

Thirty years

For roughly thirty years afterwards, Adelaide Herrmann toured under her own name. It was in this period that she came to be called the Queen of Magic.

Quite how exceptional it was for a woman to head a touring company across America at the turn of the twentieth century is clear from any roster of the period. The lists of conjurers of that era are almost entirely male.

She was still performing into her seventies.

The fire of 1926

The end came through an accident rather than any decline in her work.

In 1926 a warehouse fire in New York destroyed her apparatus, and some of her animals were killed. Thirty years of accumulated equipment went in a night.

She did not stop at once. She toured a reduced show called Magic, Grace and Music — a title that reads like a summary of a life that had begun in dance.

In 1928 she retired.

A memoir lost for 79 years

In 1932 she wrote a memoir titled Sixty-Five Years of Magic, covering her beginnings as a dancer and trick cyclist, her marriage to Alexander, and their tours of the United States, Mexico, South America and Europe.

The manuscript then went missing for seventy-nine years. It was eventually found and published in an edited edition.

She died in 1932, the year she finished writing it.

Thirty years of a woman who inherited a company became readable in her own words after nearly a century of silence.

Notable works

• Her inheritance of the Herrmann show and thirty years of solo touring
• The bullet-catch routine
• The memoir Sixty-Five Years of Magic, written in 1932, lost for 79 years and later published

Chronology

Only years that could be verified are listed.

1. 1853 Born Adelaide Scarcez in London
2. 1868 Travels to the United States with the Kiralfy company of dancers
3. 1875 Marries Alexander Herrmann at New York City Hall
4. 1896 Alexander dies; she takes over the company
5. 1926 A New York warehouse fire destroys her props and kills some of her animals; she tours a reduced show, Magic, Grace and Music
6. 1928 Retires
7. 1932 Dies, having written her memoir Sixty-Five Years of Magic that year