March is Women’s History Month and National Athletic Training Month.
The Fine Arts Library has a collection of Portraits of boxers and other athletes that include over 350 portrait prints and photographs of American, British, and Irish boxers, along with some promotional broadsides, newspaper clippings, and illustrations of championship boxing matches from the mid-18th to early 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, most of the subjects were men. One of a few female athletes in the collection is Dolly Adams.
According to the University of South Carolina’s Broadway Photographs website, Dolly Adams was born Ellen Callahan (1860?-1888). She was known as "Water Queen," one of the most notable of the theatrical mermaids who appeared on U.S. stages in the in the wake of the Civil War. Adams "for several years appeared before the public in scaly tights and floated in a tank of water while she smoked cigarettes and ate all sorts of things."
How did she train for smoking cigarettes and eating underwater? We want to know!
Dolly Adams, the Water Queen Dolly Adams, theatrical mermaid, born Ellen Callahan. 17cmx11cm Part of Portraits of boxers and other athletes HOLLIS number: olvwork732180