Aida Overton Walker slide show, gallery, and links

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page originally published on 29 June 2012: latest edit: 29 November 2021

(below) Excerpts from A History of African American Theatre by Errol G. Hill, James Vernon Hatch (2003), in Chapter 5, “New vistas: plays, spectacles, musicals, and operas,” by Errol G. Hill, p. 166:

    Sometime during 1899 George Walker married Ada Overton (who subsequently change her first name to Aida) at a home ceremony. Born in New York City on 14 February 1880, Ms. Walker was an exquisite nymph-like performer who had studied dance from an early age. She spent a short time in the Black Patti Troubadours but left the troupe over the controversy with Bob Cole. She became the resident choreographer and dancer for the Williams and Walker productions and was considered the third most important company member after the principals. “During her lifetime,” say Eric Ledell Smith, “she was regarded as the best black female dancer in the United States,” and as well she was the first black female choreographer.⁶⁷ Ms. Walker was a soloist and became a tolerably good actor, who played leading roles in Cole and Johnson’s The Red Moon (1908) and in S. H. Dudley’s His Honor the Barber (1911). After her husband’s death in 1911, Ms. Walker plunged into work in vaudeville and engaged in social events to benefit Blacks…She did not long survive her husband, being but 34 years old when she died in New York in 1914.

 

Aida Overton Walker theatrical photos by White Studio, NY, c. 1900-1912*

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c. 1900-1904, White Studio

W1 (possibly by White Studio)

W2a

W2b

W3a

W3b

W4

W5

W6

W7

1907, White Studio

W8a

W8b

W8c

W8d

c. 1908-1912, White Studio

W9a

W9b

W10a

W10b

W10c

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as Rosetta Lightfoot in In Dahomey, by Cavendish Morton, 1903, (CM 1-3 © National Portrait Gallery, London)

CM 1

CM 2

CM 3

from CM 1 (trading card)

trading card

possibly by Cavendish Morton

Abyssinia, 1906

Aida Overton Walker — all images, c. 1892-1912, including sheet music covers

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W1 (possibly by White Studio)

George Walker, Bert Williams, and Aida Overton Walker, date unknown

CM 1

from CM 1 (trading card)

CM 2

CM 3

trading card

possibly by Cavendish Morton

In Dahomey, c. 1902-1903

George Walker, Aida Overton Walker, and Bert Williams, In Dahomey, c. 1902-1903

W2a

W2b

W3a

W3b

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8a

W8b

W8c

W8d

W9a

W9b

W10c

W10a

W10b

from Porto Rico (Ford Dabney) sheet cover, 1910

ad in The New York Age, 31 August 1911

Sons of Ham, 1900-1901

In Dahomey, 1902

1904

1904

Bandanna Land, 1908

Bandanna Land, 1908

Bandanna Land, 1908

1909

Porto Rico (rag intermezzo) by Ford Dabney, 1910

from revue His Honor, the Barber, 1909-1911, which debuted off-Broadway in 1909; 15 performances on B’way, May 1911

1911

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Aida Overton Walker biography and article:

• Wikipedia
• WikiVisually
• Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History by Constance Valis Hill (2009), pp. 36ff
• “The Later Years of Aida Overton Walker; 1911-1914“ by Wells Thorne, archived from the defunct (as of December 2018) blackacts.commons.yale.edu
• “The Brightest Star”: Aida Overton Walker in the Age of Ragtime and Cakewalk by Richard Newman, published in Prospects, Vol. 18, October 1993, pp. 465-481 (abstract at zotero.org)
• book
  • Moving Performances: Divas, Iconicity, and Remembering the Modern Stage by Jeanne Scheper (2016), Chapter 1: “The Color Line is Always Moving: Aida Overton Walker,” pp. 22-60
• “Black Salome: Exoticism, Dance and Racial Myths” by David Krasner, which appears as chapter 10 (in part III) of the book African American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader, edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr., David Krasner (2001), pp. 192ff.

Williams and Walker Company:

• Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America’s First Black Star by Camille F. Forbes (2008)
  • Chapter 2: The Williams and Walker Years, pp. 37-163

On In Dahomey: Williams and Walker Company pioneers new territory for African-American theater; Aida Overton Walker elevates the cakewalk and teaches her interpretation of the dance to society in New York and Great Britain

• The Guide to Musical Theatre — synopsis of In Dahomey and Dahomey (earlier version)

• In Dahomey: A Negro Musical Comedy — music by Will Marion Cook, lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar, book by Jesse A. Shipp; edition published in London by Keith, Prowse & Company Ltd., c. 1903 — The Google eBooks preview evidently includes the whole score, including lyrics, of the musical as “[p]roduced at the Shaftesbury Theatre May 16th 1903.” The script is not included (see the next link).
  • I only checked each page carefully to about halfway through and noticed no pages missing, though there are two extra copies each of pages 12 and 13, one of the page 13 copies partially obscured by a ruler, and one duplicate each of pages 60 and 61.

• The Music and Scripts of ‘In Dahomey’ — Will Marion Cook, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Jesse Shipp, edited by Thomas L. Riis (1996) — Google eBooks preview: Presently available in the preview are 1. An introductory chapter by the editor titled “In Dahomey in Text and Performance” (33 pages) and 2. the first two acts (of three) of one of the extant versions of the script, by Jesse Shipp.

• Rewriting the Body: Aida Overton Walker and the Social Formation of Cakewalking by David Krasner, published in Theatre Survey, Volume 37, Issue 02, November 1996, pp. 67-92 (abstract, Cambridge Journals Online)

• Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America’s First Black Star by Camille F. Forbes (2008)
  • Chapter 2: The Williams and Walker Years, p. 100ff. (link added, 27 April 2017)

• Bodies in Dissent by Daphne Brooks (2006), Chapter 4: Alien/Nation — Re-Imagining the Black Body (Politic) in Williams and Walker’s “In Dahomey”, pp. 207ff.

• The Real Thing, essay by David Krasner, pp. 99-123 of the book Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage (2011)

• “In Dahomey” portraits photographed by Cavendish Morton, 1903 @ digital collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London (https://www.npg.org.uk)

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(above) The Paradise Roof Garden of Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre, from the article “New York’s Incredible Lost Rooftop Theatres,” by Messy Nessy, 17 March 2017 — This is where Aida Overton Walker performed her Salome dance in 1912.

Excerpt from the book Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America by Karen Sotiropoulos, pub. 2006, pp. 176-177 (Page 176 is missing from the Google eBooks preview.):

Although Walker won praise for her classic performance of “Salome” as part of a black musical comedy, when she performed the same dance as a solo dancer at Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater in 1912, she was ridiculed. “Salomania” had, in effect, “domesticated” Salome, earning the “Dance of the Seven Veils” designation as a classical dance and opening the doors of Oscar Hammerstein’s opera house to a revival of the Strauss opera in the spring of 1909. Hammerstein and his son, Willie, had seen Walker perform the dance in Bandana Land [sic], and invited her to perform this newly ordained classical dance at their theater. Although white critics had praised Walker’s performance on the all-black stage, most of them rejected her inclusion as part of a “higher class” attraction. One critic announced that “a Salome of color” was “a direct smash in the face of convention.” Of Walker’s 1912 performance at Hammerstein’s, another critic wrote, “Ada Overton Walker’s single-handed ‘Salome’ was funny,” and that the music was “all wrong.” Instead of the “heavy classic stuff … the bunch should have been playing Robert E. Lee.”³⁴ These white critics missed the irony that the dance had earned more legitimate status because of the vaudeville-induced “Salomania,” and arguably, because of Walker’s magnificent performance in Bandana Land.

Ever conscious of the gaze of whites, Aida Walker, and the Williams and Walker Company, had carefully orchestrated her performance in Bandana Land so that it would not upset white patrons. Bert Williams followed her performance with a burlesque of the dance, one incorporating enough racial stereotype to distract white audiences from Walker’s serious performance.

From the book Moving Performances: Divas, Iconicity, and Remembering the Modern Stage by Jeanne Scheper (2016), Chapter 1: “The Color Line is Always Moving: Aida Overton Walker,” p. 55:

When Aida Overton Walker chose to perform the Salome dance as a serious piece of choreography on its own, removed from a revue context of blackface vaudeville productions like Bandanna Land, she was featured at the famous Hammerstein’s Roof Garden theater in New York in 1912. William Hammerstein [manager of the theater for the owner, his father the theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein] did not miss the opportunity to use the racial identity of the dance as the key ingredient for a publicity stunt. We learn from a clipping, with its not so subtle word play, “Salome was a Dark Secret,” that Hammerstein kept the identity of the new dance undisclosed as a stunt to draw attention to his venue. “The identity of the Salome Dance so carefully concealed for many weeks turns out to have been a dark secret which William Hammerstein decided yesterday he had kept long enough,” the review reads.

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Aida Overton Walker’s male impersonation for the number “That’s Why They Call Me Shine” in the revue His Honor, the Barber (1909-1911) inspired a tribute by Florence Mills in 1924 (image, above right). From the book Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen by Bill Egan (2004), p. 110:

Florence’s third scene [in Dixie to Broadway, 1924] introduced one of her most successful songs, “Mandy, Make Up Your Mind.” To the audience’s surprise she appeared in male formal dress as the groom, with chorus girl Alma Smith the tardy bride. All the company got into the act, either as bridesmaids, maids of honor or groomsmen. Florence’s male attire was her tribute to Aida Overton Walker‘s famous “That’s Why They Call Me Shine” routine.

Multiple instrumental versions of the song “That’s Why They Call Me Shine” were released in 1924, under the title “Shine.” SecondHandSongs.com indicates that an 18 April 1924 recording by The California Ramblers was the first recording of the song under that title. “Shine” eventually became both a pop and jazz standard, with some recordings featuring a new lyric by Lew Brown that was first incorporated, according to SecondHandSongs.com, on a 1929 recording.

On the “Friends and Associates” page of Bill Egan’s website FlorenceMills.com, the author suggests that Florence Mills had paid tribute to Walker much earlier in her career, at age 7:

Florence’s first professional engagement came in 1903 when, as “Baby Florence,” she featured in a guest spot singing Aida Overton Walker’s specialty number “Miss Hannah from Savannah” in the Avery and Hart production of the Williams and Walker show The Sons of Ham [sic].

Egan also indicates, on the “Friends and Associates” page, that Florence’s sister Olivia Mills (later Wiltshire) had been known to impersonate Aida Overton Walker, before her retirement in 1915 to raise a family. This claim is partly corroborated in a paragraph on Egan, page 17, which quotes from a 1914 annual stage review in The Freeman (an African-American newspaper of Indianapolis, Indiana, published from 1884-1927): “Olivia succeeds nicely in her male impersonation.” Such impersonations, suggests Egan, “followed the tradition of Aida Overton Walker in her That’s Why They Call Me Shine routine.”

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On several gallery additions, 2013-2017:

(below, top row) The image on the left was added to my Aida Overton Walker slide show and gallery in October 2013. It appears to be a displayed clipping from the front page of the August 10, 1929 issue of the newspaper The Chicago Whip. I dated this image and the second of the three images after discovering that AOW evidently wears in each of them the same necklaces, earrings, and hair accessory — perhaps a comb or a band of some kind — as is worn in the third, which I’ve cropped from an image that appears on covers of sheet music, dated 1906, for the song “Build a Nest for Birdie” (see below). The same garments (loose-fitting blouse and dress or skirt) are worn in the second and third of the three images. The inscription on the third, partially lost in cropping, appears to have originally included the notation “Abyssinia — 06.” Note that AOW’s married surname “Walker” has also evidently been cropped off the third image. The second image was added to the page c. 2012-13. The third image was added on 11 September 2017, after I cropped it from the “Build a Nest for Birdie” sheet music cover, which had been added to the page in February 2014.

(above, bottom row) These two edits of images from a photograph, c. 1906, of Aida Overton Walker in costume for Abyssinia, were added to the page on 13 February 2016.* In the photo, Aida wears the same costume worn in the second and third images in the top row immediately above, including blouse, necklaces, earrings, and hair accessory.

The same hair accessory worn in the group of five images immediately above, seems to be worn by Walker in the image used on the cover of the sheet music for the song “I’ll Keep a Warm Spot In My Heart for You” below left, from the 1906 show Abyssinia, and in the photo of a scene from the show below right. The “Warm Spot” sheet music cover was added to the AOW gallery in March 2013; the scene from Abyssinia photo has been in the gallery since October 2012, though it was replaced with an image of better quality on 16 December 2015.

(above left) images of George Walker and Aida Overton Walker in costume for the 1906 Williams & Walker show Abyssinia, on the cover of sheet music for the song “I’ll Keep a Warm Spot In My Heart for You”

(above right, l. to r.) unknown, Aida Overton Walker, and (in blackface) Bert Williams in a scene from Abyssinia

I’ve found no evidence that Aida Overton Walker ever performed the song “Build a Nest For Birdie,” though ordinarily the use of her image on a sheet music cover would indicate that she performed the title song in a show.  In this instance, however, it appears that her image may have been used on the cover to hint at the presence of advertisements for sheet music for songs from Williams & Walker shows within the pages that follow. Two cases illustrate:

1. The sheet cover at left is from an edition of early sheet music for “Build a Nest For Birdie” that is available in the digital collections of the Performing Arts Encyclopedia at the Library of Congress website. The back page of this edition contains the notice “NOW READY: Our Williams & Walker Dance Folio, Containing All Their Recent Successes.” The page also contains small copies of the first pages of the sheet music for four songs. Among the four is “Why Adam Sinned,” which had been featured by Aida Overton Walker (AOW) in the Williams & Walker show In Dahomey, which opened on Broadway in February 1903.

2. Another early edition (dated c. 1906) of “Build a Nest For Birdie” sheet music, available at the Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Popular Sheet Music of the Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections, featuring the same cover, has a few bars of the Bert Williams song “Let It Alone” on page 2, followed by the music for the title song on pages 3 to 5. The back, page 6, has advertisements for “Six Song Successes from Williams & Walker’s New Musical Creation Abyssinia,” providing the titles and three to four bars of notation for each. The songs included, each with music by Bert Williams, are: “Here It Comes Again,” “The Tale of the Monkey Maid (or, Die Trying),” “Rastus Johnson, U.S.A.,” “Where My Forefathers Died,” “It’s Hard to Find a King Like Me,” and “The Jolly Jungle Boys.” According to IBDb, “Let It Alone” was not among the songs included in the score of Abyssinia on opening night. However, various sources describe it as a song from the show, suggesting that it was added later. See, for example, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919, by Tim Brooks (2004) 2010 edition, p. 118.

Note also that directly above AOW’s photo on the cover of the “Build a Nest For Birdie” (m. James T. Brymn, w. R. C. McPherson) sheet music is a reference to a previous song by the same songwriting team, “Josephine, My Jo,” which had been a late addition to an earlier Williams & Walker show, Sons of Ham (1900-1902), though evidently not sung by Aida.

(above, left) Image from an undated, signed photograph of AOW by White Studio of N.Y., added to my AOW gallery on 9 February 2014, replaced by a different edit, this one, on 13 February 2014. Aida’s married surname “Walker” in the signature is difficult to read against the dark background and partially truncated. Aida wears the same dress and necklace as in the photo above right, which had been published at my AOW slide show and gallery page in June 2012. The hairstyle also appears to be virtually identical, though the hair is topped with an elaborately decorated headdress or hat in the left image. Both images are by White Studio of New York.

On 9 February 2017 I noticed that the headdress or hat worn in the center photo (added to the page in March 2013), also by White Studio of N.Y., appears to be the same one worn in the photo at the left. Also, the hairstyle in the center photo seems very similar to that in the other two. I’m still working on dating these. See also the similar hairstyle in the portrait by White Studio of N.Y (below left), which was used on the 1904 sheet music for the song “Why Adam Sinned,” from In Dahomey (below right).

(below) Sheet music for two songs from the 1908 Williams & Walker show Bandanna Land (added to the site on 9 and 12 February 2014, respectively) each containing a photographic image of AOW, and crediting her for performing the song in the show. The cover of “I’m Just Crazy ‘Bout You” indicates that it is “The Hit of Bandana Land” [sic] and that it had been “sung with great success by Aida Overton Walker.” The cover of “It’s Hard to Love Somebody (Who’s Loving Somebody Else)” notes that it was “introduced by Aida Overton Walker in Williams and Walkers [sic] latest success Bandanna Land.”

The image of AOW used on the cover of the sheet music for “It’s Hard to Love Somebody” shows her in costume as Rosetta Lightfoot for the show In Dahomey. The image is evidently derived from the photograph at right, which I added to the AOW gallery in March 2013. The photo was probably taken in the period 1903-1904, during which the runs of several productions of In Dahomey occurred.

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See also the following related Songbook pages on Bert Williams and George Walker, during the Walker & Williams years, 1896-1909:

• Bert Williams & George Walker: selections from their first Victor recording session, 11 October 1901
• Bert Williams and George Walker: selected sheet music slide show and gallery, 1896-1908
• Bert Williams and George Walker slide show and gallery, 1896-1909

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* Identifying and dating the White Studio, NY, images, including arguments for the most likely year of creation:

Note: In January 2021 I found other copies of images W3a,b, W4, W6, and W7 in a collection that includes numerous undated photos of members of Williams & Walker Company in costumes that may have been worn in Sons of Ham. There were two Broadway productions of Sons of Ham, the original production which opened on 15 October 1900 and a revival which opened on 29 April 1901. Each run lasted just eight performances. The same collection contains other photos of Aida in the costumes seen in images W3a,b, W4, and W7. If my conclusion (at the bottom of this footnote) that images W1-W7 might have all been created at or about the same time is correct, then it follows that if one of the images was created during the years 1900-1901, then they all might have been created during that period.

• W1
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1902 — The image was used on the cover of the sheet music for “I’d like to be a Real Lady.” The song was copyrighted in 1902, and according to the Library of Congress, the sheet music featuring image W1 was created and published in 1902.
• W2a,b — Image 2b was added to my main Aida Overton Walker page in 2016. Image W2a is a new edit of that image created on 3 March 2019.
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1902 – The hairstyle or wig resembles that worn in image W1, which was used on the cover of the sheet music for “I’d like to be a Real Lady,” published in 1902.
  • 1904 — The image was used on the cover of the sheet music for “Why Adam Sinned,” published in 1904.
• W3a, b — White Studio #84 — I recently found the image that I’ve labeled W3a at the Beinecke Digital Collections of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Image W3b (source unknown) is a smaller copy of the same photograph, which I’ve had on this page since June 2012.
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1902 – The hairstyle or wig resembles that worn in image W1, which was created no later than 1902.
  • 1904 — The hairstyle or wig resembles that on the 1904 “Why Adam Sinned” sheet music cover.
• W4
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1902 – The hairstyle or wig resembles that worn in image W1, which was created no later than 1902.
  • 1904 — The dress, pearl necklace, hairstyle/wig, and earrings worn by Aida each appear to be the same worn in images W3a and W3b. The hairstyle seems to be the same as that in the photo used on the 1904 “Why Adam Sinned” sheet music cover. The hat/headdress appears to be the same as that worn in images W5 and W6.
• W5 — White Studio #63 – source unknown; added to this page in March 2013
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1901 — The luxurious, ruffle adorned, white dress worn in images W5 and W6 somewhat resembles the dress worn in the illustration on the cover of the sheet music for “Miss Hannah from Savannah,” published in 1901.
  • 1902 – The hairstyle or wig resembles that worn in image W1, which was created no later than 1902.
  • 1904 — The hairstyle seems to be the same as that in the photo used on the 1904 “Why Adam Sinned” sheet music cover. Also, the elaborately decorated hat or headdress seems to be the same one worn in image W4, which is one of the three “pearl necklace” photos (images W3a, W3b, W4, and W7), all of which I’ve tentatively dated 1904 because the hairstyle in each seems to the same as that in the photo used on the 1904 “Why Adam Sinned” sheet music cover.
• W6 — White Studio #64 — I recently found this image, which I’ve labeled W6, at the Beinecke Digital Collections of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
  • 1901-1904 — See Note, above, and image W5.
• W7 — This image is an edit by me of an image found in the Flickr photo stream of Bluesy Daye on about 1 March 2019.
  • 1900-1901 — See Note, above.
  • 1902 — The hat looks like it might be the same one worn in image W1, which was created no later than 1902, and the hairstyle/wig also resembles that worn in image W1.
  • 1904 — The hairstyle or wig appears to be the same as that in images W2-W6, which may have been created in 1904.
• W8a,b,c,d — Images W8a,b, and d are my own edits of images recently found in Yale University’s Beinecke Digital Collections.
  • 1907 – One of the two inscribed photos in the cardboard photo holders is dated 1907, the other 1908. I’m guessing that the photo was taken around 1907. It certainly was no later than that year.
    • W8a – inscribed “To Mr. & Mrs. [Nora] Holt with love, Aida Overton Walker 1907.”
    • W8b – inscribed “Yours from Bandana Land Aida Overton Walker 1908.”
    • W8c – uninscribed edit from unknown source, posted on my main AOW page years ago
    • W8d – evidently cropped from the image used for W8a
• W9a,b — Image 9a was recently found in the NYPL Digital Collections, where it is dated 1911. Image 9b is an edit by me of that image, made by simply removing the brown tint.
  • 1908 — In the article “Black Salome: Exoticism, Dance and Racial Myths,” by David Krasner, which appears as chapter 10 (in part III) of the book African American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader, edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr., David Krasner (2001), pp. 192ff., on pp. 203-205, the author claims that what I’ve labeled image W9 shows Overton Walker in the costume that she wore in the Salome dance that she performed with Bert Williams in the 1908 musical revue Bandanna Land, and that for her more modern interpretation of the dance in 1912, she wore a loose-fitting gown, similar to those commonly worn by Isadora Duncan. If Krasner is correct in dating image W9 1908, then image W10 is also from 1908.
  • The biography of Ada [sic] Overton Walker in the online Performing Arts Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress says:
    • In 1908 Overton Walker was featured in Williams and Walker’s Bandanna Land, and her dancing continued to draw attention for its gracefulness. Soon after Bandanna Land opened, a new solo, “[T]he Dancing of Salome,” was added for her.
      
  • This explains why IBDb does not list that number among the opening night songs of Bandanna Land, which had a run of 89 performances on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre from 2/03/1908 to 4/18/1908.
  • The book Incidental and Dance Music in the American Theatre from 1786 to 1923 Volume 1 by John Franceschina (2017?), on p. 1907, says that the music for the Bandanna Land number “The Dancing of Salome” was composed and arranged by Joe Jordan.
    • The Wikipedia page on Joe Jordan says: “In New York, Jordan wrote a couple of songs for Ada Overton Walker, first “Salome’s Dance” and then in 1909 “That Teasin’ Rag”.”
  • 1911 — The date 1911 attached to image 9a at the New York Public Library Digital Collections may be incorrect.
  • 1912 — Overton Walker performed her latest interpretation of the dance of Salome at the Paradise Roof Garden of Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in a production that opened in August 1912.
• W10a,b,c — I’ve had these images, source unknown, in my main AOW page since 2012, though a couple of them were updated in 2017.
  • 1908 — See the explanation regarding this date for image W9.
  • 1910 — The date 1910 attached to the image at NYPL Digital Collections may be incorrect.
  • 1912 — Overton Walker performed her latest interpretation of the dance of Salome at the Paradise Roof Garden of Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in a production that opened in August 1912.

Factors which, in combination, suggest that W1-W7 may have each been created in or before 1902, and likely during the period 1900-1901:

• See Note, above, near the top of this footnote, which suggests that images W3a,b, W4, W6, and W7 may have been created during the years 1900-1901.
• The same hairstyle or wig seems to be worn in each of the images.
• Image W1 was used on the cover of the sheet music for “I’d like to be a Real Lady.” The song was copyrighted in 1902, and, according to the Library of Congress, the sheet music featuring image W1 was created and published in 1902.
• In images W3(a,b), W4, and W7, Aida appears to be wearing the same set of pearls.
• The hat worn in W1 appears to be the same one worn in W7.

If the hat is the same in W1 and W7, and the pearls are the same in W3(a,b) W4, and W7, then W1,3,4, and 7 were likely shot at or around the same time. Further, since the same hat or headdress is worn in W4, W5, and W6, and given that W1 was created in or before 1902, it follows that W1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 may have all been created on or around the same date, in 1902 or earlier. The chronological connection of W2(a,b) to the others in this group of images is suggested in part by the presence of a hairstyle or wig that closely resembles that found in each of the others. Also, W2 was created no later than 1904, when it was used on the cover of the sheet music for “Why Adam Sinned.”