Kennedy, Harry | A large, striking poster for the Brooklyn ventriloquist

Kennedy, Harry

Tricks! By the Great Ventriloquist. [New York]: N.p., n.d.

Letterpress poster (813 x 565 mm). Large woodcut vignette depicting travelers at a train station, printed in large type; marginal closed tears, some repaired, dampstaining to margins at head and foot, old folds, a few tears along folds, some repaired. Mounted on linen.

An advertisement for Harry Kennedy's article "Tricks, or Traveling With a Verity Show" published in the New York Boys Weekly. The article seemingly recounted stories of deception and trickery from a cast of characters on the road. Kennedy was a popular New York-based, English ventriloquist, minstrel performer, and songwriter; he lived in Brooklyn, where he ran a small theatre in Coney Island. We can only locate one reference to this article, in a 1892 volume by Harry Enton titled Frank Reade and His Steam Horse, archived in Project Gutenberg. Rare.

REFERENCE:

"Song-Writer Kennedy Dead," The New York Times, 5 January, 1894; Enton, Harry, Frank Reade and His Steam Horse, Project Gutenberg