{"id":72,"date":"2008-09-22T16:21:10","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T16:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phillyhistory.org\/wordpress\/?p=72"},"modified":"2010-10-07T09:46:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T13:46:59","slug":"dewolf-hopper-sesquicentennial-actor-and-the-voice-of-casey-at-the-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2008\/09\/dewolf-hopper-sesquicentennial-actor-and-the-voice-of-casey-at-the-bat\/","title":{"rendered":"DeWolf Hopper: Sesquicentennial Actor and the Voice of \u201cCasey at the Bat\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"Purchase <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In an attempt to draw large crowds to the Sesquicentennial, organizers of the event allocated funds for a pageant entitled \u201cFreedom\u201d to be held at the Stadium near the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. Although the pageant was to open on July 3, 1926 and be performed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings until October 2, heavy rains caused the cancellation of many performances and the decision was made to hold the final staging of the pageant on Saturday, September 11.[1]<\/sup><\/p>\n

While \u201cFreedom\u201d would not be the financial success hoped for by the Sesquicentennial administrators, it did provide viewers with an opportunity to see a major actor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. R.H. Burnside, a producer from New York formerly in charge of the New York Hippodrome, was contracted by Sesquicentennial officials to stage the pageant. Immediately upon accepting the contract in the spring of 1926, he began gathering together a cast of 1500 participants from a variety of theatrical companies.[2]<\/sup> One of those actors was DeWolf Hopper, a well-known performer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who was given the role of William Penn in the production and also appeared in several scenes depicting ancient Rome.[3]<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Born on March 30, 1858 in New York City, DeWolf Hopper pursued a career in theater and became known for his comic timing and loud bass singing voice, two traits that led to many musical theater roles. He performed in dozens of Broadway musicals including Lorraine<\/em> in 1887, H.M.S. Pinafore<\/em> in 1911, The Mikado<\/em> in 1912, Erminie<\/em> in 1921, and White Lilacs<\/em> in 1928.[4]<\/sup> By the time he appeared at the Sesquicentennial, Hopper had a reputation as a comic musical actor, a baseball fanatic, and a man with five divorces who would marry his sixth wife that year.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"Purchase <\/a> \"View<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Early in his career, Hopper became well-known for his recitation of the famous baseball poem \u201cCasey at the Bat\u201d by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner<\/em> on June 3, 1888, the poem tells the story of the hero of Mudville and his crucial time at bat. On August 14, 1888, DeWolf Hopper would bring wide-spread attention to the poem when he recited it at the Warrick Theater in New York in front of an audience that included baseball players from the New York Giants and Chicago White Stockings teams.[5]<\/sup> The crowd reacted enthusiastically to both the poem and the recitation, and DeWolf Hopper became for many people the unofficial voice of \u201cCasey at the Bat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopper estimated that he recited the poem over 10,000 times at various events. The advent of radio allowed Hopper\u2019s recitation to reach even greater audiences, who had apparently not tired of the poem. The New York Times<\/em> on May 18, 1926 advertises an hour long radio special with DeWolf Hopper during which he would talk about his musical career, sing songs from various musicals, and \u201cdelight with one of his inimitable curtain speeches and \u2018Casey at the Bat.\u2019\u201d[6]<\/sup> In 1922, a film recording using an early sound-on-film process was made showing Hopper standing and reciting the poem.<\/p>\n

The documentation on the Sesquicentennial does not give further details regarding Hopper\u2019s involvement in the \u201cFreedom\u201d pageant, perhaps because of the many performances canceled due to the weather. After his appearance in \u201cFreedom\u201d in 1926, Hopper acted on Broadway in White Lilacs<\/em> in 1928 and The Monster <\/em>in 1933. He died on September 23, 1935 at age 77.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/sup> Austin, E.L. and Odell Hauser, Editors.\u00a0The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition: A Record Based on Official Data and Departmental Reports<\/em>.\u00a0Philadelphia: Current Publications, Inc., 1929, p. 240-244.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[2]<\/sup> Ibid., p. 241-243.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup> The New York Times<\/em>, \u201cTheatrical Notes.\u201d\u00a0June 15, 1926.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup> \u201cDeWolf Hopper.\u201d Internet Broadway Database. http:\/\/www.ibdb.com\/person.php?id=67842<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/sup> Okrent, Daniel and Steve Wulf.\u00a0Baseball Anecdotes<\/em>.\u00a0New York: Oxford University Press, US, 1989, p. 23-24.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/sup> The New York Times<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cDeWolf Hopper- Himself Tonight.\u201d May 18, 1926.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an attempt to draw large crowds to the Sesquicentennial, organizers of the event allocated funds for a pageant entitled \u201cFreedom\u201d to be held at the Stadium near the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. Although the pageant was to open on July 3, 1926 and be performed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-and-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}