Episode 37: Examining the Diary of Nineteenth Century Actor Harry Watkins with Dr. Amy Hughes, Dr. Naomi Stubbs, and Dr. Scott D. Dexter

What was it like to be a working actor in the United States in the nineteenth century? The diary of Harry Watkins—who made a living acting, playwriting, and stage managing in the antebellum era—provides us with some insight into the way in which life in the theatre has and hasn’t changed over the last century and a half. Dr. Amy Hughes, Dr. Naomi Stubbs, and Dr. Scott D. Dexter are our guests this week, and they’ve been working on producing both scholarly and digitized versions of Watkins’s diary.