The Hyers Sisters, Anna Madah (ca. 1855 – 1929) and Emma Louise (ca. 1857 – 1901), were singers and pioneers of black musical theater. With Joseph Bradford and

Pauline Hopkins Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859 – August 13, 1930) was an American novelist, journalist, playwright, historian, and editor. She is considered a pioneer in her use of the romantic novel to explore social and racial themes, as demonstrated ...

, the Hyers Sisters produced the "first full-fledged musical plays... in which

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s themselves comment on the plight of the slaves and the relief of

Emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranch ...

without the disguises of

minstrel A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...

comedy." Their first play was ''Out of Bondage'' (also known as ''Out of the Wilderness'').

Life

Their father, Samuel B. Hyers, came west to

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

with their mother, Annie E. Hyers (née Cryer), after the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

. He made sure his daughters received both piano lessons and vocal training with German professor Hugo Sank and later opera singer Josephine D'Ormy and they performed for private parties before making their professional stage debut on April 22, 1867 at Sacramento’s Metropolitan Theater. Anna was a soprano and Emma a

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...

. Under their father’s management, they embarked on their first transcontinental tour in 1871. On August 12, 1871, they performed in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

to much acclaim.See also: https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=11619782 They were later called "a rare musical treat" by Saint Joseph, Missouri’s ''Daily Herald'' and earned equal praise in Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City. Their tour reached

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

and Springfield, Massachusetts, as well as

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and Providence. They visited Boston, which was known to be extremely critical of new acts, and were also well-received, performing in the 1872 World Peace Jubilee which was one of, if not, the first integrated major musical production in the country. The Hyers’ family organized a theater company, where they produced musical dramas starring Anna and Emma, including ''Out of Bondage'', written by Joseph Bradford and premiered in 1876, ''Urlina, the African Princess'' written by E. S. Getchell and premiered in 1879, ''The Underground Railway'', by Pauline Hopkins in July 1880, and Hopkin’s stage version of ''

Uncle Tom’s Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U. ...

'' in March 1880. Additionally, they performed ''Colored Aristocracy'' by Hopkins. Overall, they had at least six shows between the late 1870s and 1880s. They set the path for black musical theater and performance in the years that followed. They traveled until the mid-1880s with their own shows and continued to appear on stage into the 1890s. Though Emma Louise had died, in 1901, Anna Madah continued to travel with a show of John Isham.

References

Sources

* * * {{authority control 1850s births Sister duos 19th-century American actresses American stage actresses African-American actresses 1929 deaths 1901 deaths