Podcast Summary – New Books Network

Episode: Amy Hughes, "An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Amy Hughes
Date: November 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth discussion with Dr. Amy Hughes about her open-access book An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States. The conversation uses the overlooked diary and career of nineteenth-century actor Harry Watkins to examine broader themes in U.S. theater culture—race, gender, meritocracy, industry mythologies, and ordinary lives—while revealing how the past shapes the realities and narratives of today’s performing arts.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Harry Watkins? The Importance of Ordinary Lives

• [03:25] Dr. Hughes introduces herself as a theater historian and explains her motivation for writing the book: the under-researched diary of Harry Watkins, a non-celebrity actor whose experiences represent the “ordinary” professional in nineteenth-century U.S. theater.
• Research Origin: Many historians cited One Man in His Time, a heavily edited and incomplete version of Watkins’ diary, without consulting original manuscripts.
• Archival Eureka: The uncatalogued Watkins diary was tracked down at Harvard, showing that “his ordinariness might be the subject of my research…in general, people who are ordinary don’t tend to be the subject of a book in my field.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 05:12)
• Personal Reflection: Hughes’s own discomfort with Watkins (white, male, nativist, not a progressive hero) mirrored anxieties about celebrating ordinariness in a culture obsessed with excellence.
  • “I became more comfortable with my own ordinariness…almost everyone I know…will never be famous, just like Harry Watkins.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 11:03)

2. Harry Watkins in Context

• [06:32] Born 1825, Lower East Side NYC, humble beginnings; son of a seamstress, no known father.
• Early Hardship: Joined the U.S. Army at 13 as a “music boy,” performed, ran errands, and acted in amateur theatricals. After two enlistments, pursued acting professionally.
• Significance: Though unremarkable in fame, Watkins’ diary stands as the only document of its density and length from a mid-nineteenth-century U.S. actor.
• Perspective: Hughes notes her initial reluctance and eventual acceptance of studying such an “unexciting” figure, showing how ordinary stories can unlock suppressed or ignored historical trends.

3. Theater Culture, Race, Meritocracy, and Mythmaking

• [12:52] The hosts discuss how Watkins’s world and diary shed light on deeper patterns in American theater—and American culture at large.

Industry Progressivism vs. Conservatism

• “Art and artists…the arts industry…committed to progressive ideals…but at the same time…there is a conservatism that is often denied or hidden.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 13:51)
• Financial imperatives drove conservatism over radical change, both then and now.

Whiteness, Mediocrity, and Institutional Myths

• Drawing on the work of Karitha Mitchell and Ijeoma Oluo, Hughes unpacks the systemic privileges of white men, arguing that “meritocracy” and myths like the self-made man and American Dream were used to perpetuate white male dominance—even (perhaps especially) among “unexceptional” men like Watkins.
  • “...there's different thresholds of excellence depending on whether or not you are part of a dominant group or you're part of a marginalized group.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 15:40)
• These myths, she contends, still harm everyone, including those who benefit from privilege: “They really are, in many ways, lies perpetuated through time…” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 18:59)

4. Inside the Archive: Diary and What It Conceals

• [19:52] The Watkins diary: begun as a travel diary (Texas, 1845, with actors performing for troops), evolved into a record of career, colleagues, and places over 15+ years.
• “He didn’t write about information that could have been scandalous or embarrassing…there’s a lot that’s missing.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 22:21)
  • Missing years correspond with periods of marital scandal, a trip to England, and likely other indiscretions; evidence of redacted or destroyed volumes.
• The gaps are as telling as the contents: “It’s the absences that made me really curious and caused me to dive in more deeply…” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 23:46)

5. Objects as Evidence: Cast Books and Swords

• Cast Books
  [25:51] Cast books—ledgers tracking which actor had the right to perform each role—illuminate how “merit” in theater was actually a matter of seniority, entitlement, and negotiation, not innate talent.

  • “Roles were in essence, a form of property…merit was actually not about who was best at something, but rather who owned something, who had been given the entitlement.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 29:39)
  • This system reinforced exclusion, privilege, and the myth of meritocracy.

• The Sword as Award
  [31:52] In 1853, Watkins is gifted a ceremonial sword by fellow actors—a custom not unique, but ubiquitous.

  • Moments of “gift presentations” (cups, swords, purses of money) served both as tangible recognition and career marketing, but were sometimes staged or faked.
  • “Approval or approbation itself is not something that happens in a vacuum. It is shaped by individual people, habits, and cultural privilege that continue to shape awards ceremonies and other kinds of approval even today.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 37:22)
  • Connects historical practice to contemporary awards and social media attention, noting persistent exclusion (e.g., #OscarsSoWhite).

6. Labor, Specialization, and the Word 'Playwright'

• [39:25] In the 1840s–1850s, actors like Watkins were “polymaths”—acting, managing, writing, producing—because it offered added value in a seasonal, repertory employment world.
• By the late 1800s, increased specialization meant Watkins styled himself as a “dramatist,” reflecting copyright changes, the rise of touring “combination companies,” and industry corporatization.
  • “By the time we see…specialization and corporatization…everyone did a little bit of everything…and we still see this form of specialization today.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 44:20)
• A seemingly small shift in self-description thus offers a lens to track big industrial changes.

7. Myths of Meritocracy, the Self-Made Man, and the American Dream

• [45:50]–[52:12] Hughes critiques the entanglement of individual aspiration and structural myth:
  • “These myths…operate on the level of individuals, but they have reverberations nationally and culturally…” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 45:53)
  • Points out contemporary political appropriations of “meritocracy” language under President Trump’s second term (2025).
  • Although Watkins rose farther than most marginalized people, even he fell short of the dream, suffering disappointment and internalizing blame—a pattern mirrored today.
  • “These myths harm everybody. Not just people who are racialized or minoritized, but even white people who buy into them. And the harm…is disproportionately less…but there are moments when we too…are subjected to the harm.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 51:30)

8. Gender, Marriage, and Labor in Theater

• [54:28] Although the book centers a white male, Hughes intentionally broadens the frame by following the lives and contributions of women like Watkins’s wives.
  • “By recovering the history of mediocre white men…we can also recover the histories of the people who they worked with and labored with…especially with white women, because Harry Watkins had two wives and so he writes about them.”
• Strategic Marriages: marrying a talented (white) wife added “value” to a male actor’s labor and doubled earning potential (as in producing package deals for theaters).
• For Women: The rare profession available to women, acting, brought precarities—respectability, safety—making marriage both protection and constraint.

9. Structure of the Book

• Each chapter is organized around an object tied to Watkins—his diary, a cast book, the sword, his “wife”—with each chapter illuminating not just individual biography but larger industrial or societal patterns.
  • “The objectified person at the center of [the final] chapter is the wife.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 58:49)

10. What’s Next for Dr. Hughes?

• [60:20] Dr. Hughes shares her next project: a book about the history of humans’ love for dogs, traced through “dog dramas,” a little-known but wildly popular genre in nineteenth-century theater.
  • “I’m writing a book about love…but it’s not about human-to-human love. It’s about human’s love affair with dogs…I wanted to understand myself and the love that I and others have for our pets through the lens of theater history.” (Dr. Amy Hughes, 61:04)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “His ordinariness might be the subject of my research.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [05:12]
• “We’re terrified of being merely ordinary.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [11:03]
• “Artists…genuinely committed to progressive ideals…But at the same time…there is a conservatism that is often denied or hidden.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [13:51]
• “Roles were in essence, a form of property…Merit was about who owned something.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [29:39]
• “Approval or approbation…is shaped by individual people, habits, and cultural privilege.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [37:22]
• "These myths...harm everybody. Not just people who are racialized or minoritized, but even white people who buy into them.” – Dr. Amy Hughes [51:30]
• "By recovering the history of mediocre white men...we can also recover the histories of the people who they worked with and labored with." – Dr. Amy Hughes [54:35]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:25 – Hughes introduces subject & Watkins
• 06:32 – Watkins’s background and archival journey
• 12:52 – Broader implications for theater culture, race, and meritocracy
• 19:52 – The diary: content, absences, and meaning
• 25:51 – Cast books and how "merit" worked in 19th-century theater
• 31:52 – The sword: gifts, recognition, and performative awards
• 39:25 – From polymath to specialist: labor changes in theater
• 45:50 – Deconstructing meritocracy and American dream myths
• 54:28 – Gender, marriage, and labor in Watkins’s life
• 60:20 – Dr. Hughes’s next project: the history of dog dramas

Conclusion

This episode leverages a singularly ordinary figure, Harry Watkins, to explode misconceptions about success, merit, race, and recognition in American theater history and beyond. Dr. Amy Hughes’s reflections challenge listeners to reexamine the value of everyday lives, the constructedness of "excellence," and how the legacies of the past live on—sometimes undetected—in industry and culture today.

To learn more, read Amy Hughes's open access book: An Actor's Theater Culture and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States (U Michigan Press, 2025).