Title: Laura Case Sherry Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1853-1947

Creator:

• Sherry, Laura Case, 1879-1947

Call Number: Wis Mss UQ

Quantity: 2.4 c.f. (3 archives boxes, 8 separate volumes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Laura Case Sherry, an actress who was organizer, director, and chief financial backer of the Wisconsin Players of Milwaukee, an amateur theatrical group. Correspondence includes many letters written in France while Mrs. Sherry was entertainment director for the YMCA for soldiers serving overseas during World War I. There are also 14 scrapbooks containing clippings, playbills, publicity, and financial records for the Wisconsin Players, 1899-1940, and the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, 1911-1940, which Mrs. Sherry founded with Zona Gale and Thomas L. Dickinson. Several journals relate to her international travels.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-wis000uq

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Laura Case Sherry was descended from one of the oldest families of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and was a playmate of Virginia and Violet Dousman. Her father was Lawrence Case, a well-known merchant of Prairie du Chien.

She attended the University of Wisconsin and graduated from the Northwestern University School of Speech and the Empire Theatre Dramatic School in New York. Between 1897 and 1899 Laura Case traveled with the Richard Mansfield Stock Company as an ingenue. In 1902 she married Edward Paddock Sherry. They had one son, Avery.

Laura Sherry was a schoolmate of Rachel Crowthers; became a friend of Zona Gale, Lew Sarett, Harriet Monroe, and Robert Sherwood; and was a patron of Carl Sandburg early in the century. In 1909 Professor Thomas H. Dickinson, of the University of Wisconsin, Zona Gale, and Laura Sherry organized the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, the first experimental theatre group in this country. Out of this came The Wisconsin Players of Milwaukee, a small company of theatrical amateurs of which Mrs. Sherry was the moving spirit and chief financial backer. The “Players” of Milwaukee became a workshop in the Little Theatre movement, and served as the training ground for future stage and radio stars.

From November 1918 to June 1919, through the YMCA, Mrs. Sherry served as director of plays for the entertainment of soldiers in France, acting as well as directing. Through the twenties and thirties she was active in the Wisconsin Players organization of Milwaukee, part of the time as its director. She lectured frequently in Wisconsin cities and those of neighboring states; and wrote plays and pantomime ballets. Mrs. Sherry once took The Wisconsin Players to New York for an engagement.

Mrs. Sherry was widely traveled, and made many trips abroad, especially to Paris and once to Moscow, to study the theatre. In 1935 she helped Wolfson produce an English stage version of Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. Her book of poems, Old Prairie du Chien, published in a limited edition in 1931, was distinctive in that she “captured the humor of the early French settlers by using the picturesque dialect” she had learned as a child.

During World War II Mrs. Sherry worked in a canteen for merchant marines in New York City. In later years she usually wintered in New York and spent the summer in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. She died April 19, 1947 at her apartment in the Beverly Hotel, New York.

The collection consists of correspondence, photographs, manuscripts and resource materials, theatre programs, travel journals, and scrapbooks. Of the correspondence, Mrs. Sherry's letters of 1918 and 1919, written from France, are most useful. Typed copies made of these letters may be more complete than the originals. Although Mrs. Sherry was in Europe many times there is practically no correspondence from her except from the World War I period. There are a few interesting letters and travel accounts in the correspondence prior to 1900, but they are disconnected and sometimes unidentifiable.

The Manuscripts include several pantomime ballets, written by Mrs. Sherry.

Of the seventeen volumes, one is an interesting journal giving the account of a journey via Panama (probably by Lawrence Case, Mrs. Sherry's father) to San Francisco and return, 1853-1855. This includes descriptions of his work as a merchant in San Francisco. The other volumes are chiefly press clippings relating to The Wisconsin Players and the theatre work of Mrs. Sherry.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mrs. Avery Sherry, Milwaukee, September 12, 1957.

	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1	1862-1864, 1870-1872, 1883-1903
Box   1 Folder   2	1917-1919
Box   1 Folder   3	1920-1947; undated
Box   1 Folder   4	Postcards, 1918-1937?
Box   1 Folder   5	Photographs (primarily of Laura Sherry and of performers)
Box   1 Folder   6	Unbound Clippings re: Sherry and The Wisconsin Players
Box   2 Folder   1	Manuscripts and Resource Materials Scope and Content Note: Includes Paris articles, radio broadcasts on poetry, and letters of a World War I soldier.
Box   2 Folder   2	Manuscripts--Poetry and Ballet
Box   2 Folder   3	Theater Programs
Box   2 Folder   4	Miscellaneous Memoranda, Cards, Certificates, etc.
Box   2 Folder   5	Wisconsin Players: Unbound Miscellany
	Travel Journals
Box   2 Volume   1	Journal of Laura Case's first trip abroad, 1898
Box   2 Volume   2	Journal of Laura Case Sherry's impressions of France, undated
Box   3 Volume   5	Lawrence Case's account of a trip, New York to San Francisco via Panama, 1853-1855
	Scrapbooks
Box   2 Volume   3	Laura Sherry Clippings, 1919-1920
Volume   4	Laura Sherry Clippings and News Articles, 1933-1935
Box   3 Volume   6	The Wisconsin Dramatic Society Clippings and Playbills, 1911-1914
	The Wisconsin Players
Volume   7	Press Book, 1899, 1913, 1933, 1938-1940
Volume   8	“A Theatre Goer's Record,” 1913-1927
Volume   9	Clippings (The Wisconsin Players and Laura Sherry), 1913-1936
Box   2 Volume   11	Clippings, 1921-1922
Box   3 Volume   10	Clippings, 1927-1929
Box   2 Volume   12	Clippings, 1929
Volume   13	Publicity, 1929-1930
Volume   14	Press Book, 1931-1932
Volume   15	Press Book, 1933-1934
Volume   16	Press Book, 1934-1935
Box   2 Volume   17	Ledger, advertising, dues, members, undated