c.1903 Craddock's Medicated Blue Soap Playing Cards featuring Theatrical Players, Photo ID Guide as submitted by Diana Savage

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c.1903 Eureka/Craddock's Medicated Blue Soap
Playing Cards
All text and images on this page were submitted by Diana Savage. This deck of cards features theatre stars of the turn of the century, it's included here because many of these early stage stars went on to work in early film. Diana has provided many images from her deck which appear at the bottom of this page in slide show format. I have also included a chart she submitted which includes every card in the set along with her research detailing each featured player's dates of birth and death, stage debut and last appearance, and film debut and last appearance. Very special thanks to Diana for this valuable information, now I turn the page over to her:

These are advertising cards produced by the Eureka Soap Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. They feature stage stars from the early 1900s. Each card features a different star similar to the better known MJ Moriarty playing cards of 1916. The Craddock cards, unlike the Moriarty cards, are theater memorabilia not movie memorabilia. However, the early films made extensive use of theater stars and 22 of the featured individuals are credited by IMDb as having made films. As such these cards are one of the few places that very early stars of films can be found.

I have done my best to date these cards. They most certainly were published between 1898 when Bertha Galland first appeared on stage (Rusche) and within a few years of 1903 when Clare Lipman was forced to retire from the stage due to a hurt arm (Adler & Vizetelly). Using a rule of thumb that assumed that few of the actress’s would have been become famous enough to appear on cards before their 15^th birthday, a age approximate to the age of Blanch Sweet’s and Mary Pickford’s when they first become known, I was able to narrow this down the earliest probable publication date to 1902 or 1903. These dates could easily be a few years off and more conservative estimate places the publication of these cards as being between 1900 and 1905.

Below is a list of the cards and some basic biographical data on the represented stars:

Table of Cards

Card	Star	Birth	Stage Début	1st Film	Last Film	Last on Stage	Death
2D	Ritchie, Adele	1874		N/A	N/A		1930
3D	Magin, Bonnie			N/A	N/A
4D	Martinot, Sadie	1861		N/A	N/A		1923
5D	Collier, Lizzie Hudson	c. 1864		N/A	N/A		1924
6D	Henderson, Grace	1860		1909	1919		1944
7D	Blackburn, Vivian			1914	1915
8D	Campbell, Miss Patrick	1865	1888	1920	1935		1940
9D	Hopper, Edna Wallace (Took the name Hopper before 1913)	1874		1916	1916		1959
10D	Douglas, Byron	c. 1865		1919	1929		1935
JD	Powers, James			N/A	N/A
QD	Held, Anna	1872		1910	1916		1918
KD	Goodwin, Nat C.	1859	1874	1912	1916		1919
AD	Spong, Hilda	1875		1915	1919		1955
2S	Davis, Phobe			N/A	N/A
3S	LeMoyne, Mrs Sarah Cowell Took the name Cowell in 1888	1859		N/A	N/A		1915
4S	Robson, Eleanor	1879		N/A	N/A	1910	1979
5S	Galland, Bertha	1876	1898	N/A	N/A	1909	1932
6S	Dolores, Angela			1914	1914
7S	Lipman, Clare	1869	1888	N/A	N/A	1903	1952
8S	Morton, Dorothy			N/A	N/A
9S	Shattuck, Truly	1876		1915	1927		1954
10S	Reynold, Thos. M.
JS	Rogers, Max			N/A	N/A

QS	Marlowe, Julia	1866	1877	N/A	N/A	1916	1950
KS	Lackaye, Wilton	1862		1914	1925		1932
AS	Dresser, Marcia Van	1880		N/A	N/A		1937
2C	Rogers, Gus
3C	George, Grace	1879		1915	1943		1961
4C	Rush, Isadore			N/A	N/A
5C	Connelly, Edward J.	1859	1884	1914	1929		1928
6C	Angelis, Jefferson De	1859		1915	1928		1933
7C	Mantell, Robert B.	1854		1915	1923		1928
8C	Graham, R. E.	1858		1913	1914		1916
9C	Morgan, Edward J.			N/A	N/A		1906
10C	Bellew, Kyrle (H.Kyrel Bellow) Or (Cosmo Kyrle Bellew)	1855 1885		1905 1902	1905 1935		1911 1948
JC	Faversham, William	1868	1885	1915	1937		1940
QC	Elliott, Maxine	1868	1889	1913	1919		1940
KC	Sothern, E. H.	1859		1915	1917		1933
AC	Duse, Eleanore	1858		1916	1916		1924
2H	Kingsley, Julia			N/A	N/A
3H	Gilman, Mabelle	1880	1896	N/A	N/A		Unk
4H	Butterfield, Caroline			N/A	N/A
5H	O'Neill, Nellie			N/A	N/A
6H	Walker, Charlotte	1876		1915	1941		1958
7H	Robinson, Belle S.			N/A	N/A
8H	Bouvier, Adine			N/A	N/A
9H	Rockwell, Florence	1887		1915	1916		1964
10H	O'Neill, James	1847	1883	1913	1920		1920
JH	Mann, Louis	1865	1871	1933	1910		1931
QH	Allen, Viola	1869	1882	1914	1919		1948
KH	Skinner, Otis	1859		1930	1919		1942
AH	Glaser, Lulu	1872	1889	1915	1916	1917	1958
Joker	Hopper, De Wolf	1858	1899	1915	1933		1935

Table of Cards

References: Kuhl & Chitty. (2005). E J Phillips 1830-1904 People family and theatrical colleagues. Online at http://mysite.verizon.net/vze85s68/people.htm. Downloaded 4/17/2005.

References:
Kuhl & Chitty. (2005). E J Phillips 1830-1904 People family and theatrical colleagues. Online at http://mysite.verizon.net/vze85s68/people.htm. Downloaded 4/17/2005.