Text from The North American Article shown above:

SOME SURVIVORS OF WHEATLEY DRAMATIC ASSOCIATION, ITS FOUNDER, ITS THEATRE AND AN OLD PROGRAMME

From 1860 to 1880 this club was famous throughout Pennsylvania and the surrounding States. Its theatre was at Fifth and Gaskill streets. Last night, at Dooner’Äôs Hotel, the survivors’Äîthere are only twenty-one of them now’Äîheld their annual dinner. True to the dramatic instinct to the last, the association has resolved itself into a ’ÄúLast Man’Äôs Club,’Äù and outsiders are not even permitted to look in at their feast. One of the old members has died within the last year. ’Äúthe stage has changed since our day,’Äù said E.E. Hulfish’Äîhe who played Simon Legree in the performance of ’ÄúUncle Tom’Äôs Cabin,’Äù a programme of which appears above. ’ÄúThen we used to give shows that improved the public mind and morals. Now it is worth a manager’Äôs reputation to advertise anything that is not sensational and, perhaps, immoral.’Äù Most of these photographs were taken years ago, when the dramatic association was in its glory.

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