ABBOTT, Emma (Dec. 9, 1850-Jan. 5, 1891), opera singer, was born into an impecunious, modestly musical family whose roots were in rural New England. Her grandfather, Dyer Abbott, kept a tavern and conducted a church choir in Boscawen, N.H. Her father, Seth, after learning several trades, became an itinerant musician. With his wife, Almira Palmer of Woodstock, Vt., he moved west, living in various towns along the Rock River in northwestern Illinois and in Chicago, where Emma was born, before settling as a music teacher in Peoria. Emma—the first daughter and, apparently, fourth of six children—attended the public schools in Peoria. There she probably also gave her first public performance, singing and playing the guitar. Although her early poverty was perhaps exaggerated by the press in later years, she did during her girlhood supplement the meager family income by singing locally on various occasions, her audiences leaving voluntary contributions. In her teens she began to perform farther afield, gaining some renown; about 1867 the famous CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG heard her sing in Toledo and subsequently encouraged her to go to New York to study with Achille Errani. . . .
Despite a fairly enthusiastic initial reception, however, Emma Abbott never achieved great popularity in New York. Critics objected to her freedom with scores, finding her interpolations—such as "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in the midst of La Sonnambula—in poor taste; her voice, a lyric soprano of considerable carrying power, was of good but not extraordinary quality.
With the formation of the Emma Abbott English Opera Company in 1878 the singer found her element. Managed by her husband, Eugene Wetherell, a New York druggist whom she had secretly married while abroad, the company toured the country, primarily in the West, for thirteen consecutive seasons, presenting abridged versions of contemporary operas. . . . Miss Abbott maintained a good company of up to sixty members, frequently young artists, who received steady employment over a full season. Without in any way relinquishing her position as star, she supervised every department of her business. She began preparing a new work by studying the wardrobe, often commissioning lavishly extravagant costumes from leading Paris design-ers, and ended with the choice of conductor. The resulting productions were good to look at, interesting to follow, and tolerable to hear. Although in many ways unorthodox, and disdained by sophisticated Eastern operagoers, the Abbott Company gave its less cosmopolitan audiences an introduction to opera, receiving in return affectionate loyalty and profits that reached $10,000 in one week. Rather large of feature and inclined to plumpness, "the people's prima donna," as Emma Abbott was sometimes called, was amiable in expression and had an appealing manner doubtless enhanced by the fact that she was artlessly American and sang in English.
Miss Abbott's company opened thirty-five new opera houses, beginning in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1878 and concluding in Ogden, Utah, in December 1890. In Ogden an unheated dressing room caused the singer to contract pneumonia. She died shortly thereafter in Salt Lake City at the age of forty. Skilled in the handling of funds, investing in bonds and in real estate, she and her husband, who had died in 1889, had amassed an estate estimated at half a million to a million dollars. Her will provided for foundling homes and other charities and left $5,000 each to twelve churches of several denominations which she had enjoyed attending. (She was herself a Congregationalist.) In a life untouched by scandal, Miss Abbott was an eager defender of the stage professional, sometimes taking issue with clerical critics. After a public funeral in Central Music Hall, Chicago (the boxes were reserved for newspaper reporters, with whom she had always been on friendly terms), her ashes were buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Gloucester, Mass., her husband's early home. She had no children. A hardworking, dedicated woman in a calling often marked by temperament and instability, Emma Abbott was important primarily as a popularizer rather than as an artist.
-Janet Wilson James, (Ed.), Notable American Women, 1607-1950
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