‘That will allow me to be my own woman’: Margaret Anglin, Modernity and Transnational Stages, 1890s–1940s

Abstract

In Henry Morgan’s 1912 biographical collection, The Canadian Man and Woman of the Time, Canadianborn actor Margaret Anglin — then aged 36 — was presented to the English-Canadian reading public as having created a ‘veritable sensation in the dramatic world’. Morgan cited theatre critics who compared her to Sarah Bernhardt; Bernhardt herself was quoted as speaking enthusiastically of Anglin’s work; and the American press hailed her as ‘one of the few great actresses the American stage possesses’. But Anglin’s reputation was not limited to US theatre circles for, as Morgan declared, she had also made very successful tours of Canada and Australia.2 Anglin, it seemed, was destined to assume a significant place in cultural history, in the country of her birth and internationally.