Theater riots, common in the first half of the nineteenth century, expressed a mixture of xenophobia, ethnic rivalries, and class antagonism. Political animosities left over from the Revolution and the War of 1812 fed attacks on British actors, as in that made against Edmund Keane in 1821. In addition, British actors symbolized aristocracy to the mass of American playgoers. Irish audiences had their own political and ethnic reasons for hating the British. All these animosities came to a dramatic focus in the Astor Place Riot in New York City, May 10, 1849. William C. Macready, a British actor, publicly expressed his contempt for most American audiences. His leading rival in the theater was Edwin Forrest, a passionate American patriot and an equally passionate democrat. When Macready played at New York’s Astor Place Theater to the applause of polite society, Forrest played to a working class audience at the “democratic” Bowery Theater. In London, Forrest was hissed by “groaners” hired by Macready, while in Edinburgh Macready was hissed by Forrest himself. Their fulminations against each other were the delight of theatergoers. When Macready went on an American tour in 1848 Forrest too went on tour, and the two crisscrossed the country trading insults, until their paths met in New York City. On Monday night, May 7, 1849, Macready opened in Macbeth at Astor Place. The working class of the city, who were organized in various clubs or gangs—particularly the Irish or the Bowery B’hoys—turned up en masse. Screaming “huzzah for native talent,” and “three groans for the English bulldog,” and heaving rotten eggs, potatoes, and chairs, they closed down the performance. The enraged Macready was about to leave for England when a group of prominent citizens asked him to stay and give a repeat performance, guaranteeing that order would be maintained. Macready agreed. To many in the city, this animated various grievances against the local elite as well as the English. The city gangs distributed notices and placards calling their supporters to the “English Aristocratic Opera House,” and urging them to “burn the damned den of the Aristocracy.” The theater refused to sell tickets to unkempt applicants. When the curtain rose, some anti-Macready men who had slipped in started yelling, but were quickly arrested. After a short time, an immense crowd of perhaps 10,000—15,000 which had gathered outside, began hurling rocks and smashing windows, but Macready continued amidst the din. The militia was then summoned, but was stoned by the crowd. Militiamen first fired in the air, but as stones continued to be thrown, fired directly into the crowd four times until it broke ranks and scattered. Thirty-one people were killed and more than one hundred wounded.
At a rally the following day speakers denounced the “aristocracy of the city” for the shooting and asserted that “law and order become a curse when they bring death and desolation into families.” But the crowd had had enough, and dispersed in relative peace. Class antagonisms, however, could no longer be ignored. The Philadelphia Public Ledger noted that “There is now in our country, in New York City, what every good patriot hitherto has considered it his duty to deny—a high and a low class.”
The following account is taken from the New York Herald, May 11, 1849, as reprinted in a pamphlet entitled A Rejoinder to ‘Replies from England’ … Together with an Impartial History and Review of the Lamentable Occurrences at the Astor Place Opera House … (1849). See Richard Moody: The Astor Place Riot (1958); Herbert Asbury: The Gangs of New York (1927); Joel Tyler Headley: The Great Riots of New York (1873); and Douglas T. Miller: Jacksonian Aristocracy (1967).
The house itself was filled to the dome. A great portion of the assemblage in the theatre consisted of policemen, who had been distributed all over the house in detached parties. There was not any appearance of an organized party of rioters in the house. When the curtain rose, there was an outburst of hisses, groans, cheers, and miscellaneous sounds, similar to those which interrupted the performance on Monday night. The opening scenes, however, were got through with after a fashion, several persons who hissed and hooted having been siezed by the police, and immediately conveyed to an apartment underneath the boxes, where they were placed in confinement, under the charge of a posse of the police officers. Macready’s appearance was the signal for a great explosion of feeling. Hisses, groans, shouts of derision assailed him, intermingled with loud cries of “Out with him!” “Out with him!” Large numbers of the auditory started to their feet, and called on the police to eject the individuals who had expressed their disapprobation, and several arrests were made in the manner we have described, each arrest being followed by loud cheers and applause all over the house. It was speedily apparent that those unfriendly to Mr. Macready were in the minority.
Thus the play proceeded through the first two acts. There had been a great deal of trepidation behind the scenes, but the heroism with which the actors and actresses sustained themselves on the stage is worthy of all praise. The manner of Mrs. Pope, the Lady Macbeth of this melancholy night, deserves the most honorable mention. It was, indeed, a trying scene. Mr. Macready repeatedly expressed to Mr. Hackett his wish to desist, and his desire to avoid any further collision with those who were opposed to his appearance; but, amid the shouts, groans, hisses and arrests by the police, the play, as we have said, went on much of it in dumb show, but portions of it without much interruption. It was supposed, at this moment, that the tumult would be effectually quelled, for the disturbance in the house became less and less, and even some passages of Mr. Macready’s part were heard, with a tolerable degree of order.…
At this moment a shower of stones assailed the windows of the theatre. News then came in from the street through Captain Tilley, of the 13th ward, that a man known to be Edward Z. C. Judson, was heading the mob outside, and calling upon them to stone the building. The Chief of Police immediately ordered his arrest, which was promptly effected. In the meantime the assault upon the doors and windows was continued. Volley after volley of large paving stones were discharged against the windows. The glass was, of course, in a few moments, all smashed to atoms; but having been barricaded, the windows resisted the attack for some minutes; at last yielding however, the fragments of glass, and blinds, and barricades being driven with violence into the body of the house, great alarm began to pervade the audience. Rumors of all kinds—that the house would be fired—that it was to be blown up, and so on, were circulated. The ladies, seven in number, who were present, and who, with a heroism that did infinite credit to their sex, had till this moment preserved their equanimity, now became alarmed, as well they might, and shifted their seats to the part of the house not in the range of any of the windows through which the stones and fragments of glass and wood were now flying.
At this time, the scene within the house was indeed most exciting. In front and rear the fierce assaults of the mob, as they thundered at the doors, resounded all over the theatre, whilst the shouts and yells of the assailants were terrific.…
As the mob increased in magnitude and in the ferocity with which they assailed the building the cry arose inside, and also outside, among the peaceable citizens attracted by a curiosity, which in such a case was most culpable—“Where are the military?” “Can nothing be done to disperse the rioters?” “Where’s the Mayor?” Several dispatches were sent to the City Hall, where the military were stationed. At length, about nine o’clock, the sound of a troop of cavalry coming up Broadway was heard; and in a few minutes afterwards, two troops of cavalry of the First Division of the State Militia, and a battalion of the National Guard were approaching the scene of the riot.
Appearance of the Military
A troop of horses then turned from Broadway in Astor Place, and rode through the crowd to the Bowery, receiving showers of stones and other missiles, on their way. The horses became unmanageable, and the troops did not again make its appearance on the ground. In a few minutes afterwards, the National Guard, one of our independent volunteer companies, made their appearance on the ground, and attempted to force a passage through the crowd to the theatre. The mob hissed and hooted at them, and finally attacked them with stones, which were at hand in consequence of the building of a sewer in the neighborhood. The company were at this period thrown into disorder by the attack made upon them, and retired to Broadway, where they rallied and made another attempt to reach the theatre. They were hissed and pelted as before, with stones, but they succeeded in reaching the desired point. They then endeavored to form in line on the side-walk, and while doing so, five or six of them were felled to the ground by paving stones and taken into the theatre in a state of insensibility. Captain Pond, the Captain of the company, was one of those thus injured.
The next officer in command then said to the Sheriff, who was on the ground, that if he did not get orders to fire, he and his men would abandon the streets. Accordingly that officer directed the company to fire a round over the heads of the people, which was accordingly done, but without effect. The people continued to pelt them with paving stones as before. An order was then given to the company to fire at the crowd, and it was done, two falling, one shot in the arm, and the other through the right cheek. The first was sent to the hospital, but the other was found to be dead. After the volley, the mob retreated a short distance, but rallied and renewed the attack with greater vigor than before. Paving stones and other missiles were discharged at them in great quantities; and while the mob was going on, another volley was fired by the military, killing and wounding several more, some of whom were taken by their friends to the drugstore on the corner of Ninth Street and Broadway. One young man named John McKinley, of no. 147 Third Avenue, was shot through the body, and taken to a public house in the neighborhood.
After this volley the crowd retreated again, and the military and the police took advantage of it to form a line across the street at both ends of Astor Place, so as to prevent any connection between Broadway and the Bowery. Major General Sandford then issued an order for more troops and two brass pieces loaded with grape to be brought to the scene immediately, as it was rumored that the crowd intended to arm themselves and renew the attack. It was at this time half past eleven o’clock and the additional troops consisting of several companies and the artillery, reached the scene of disorder. The cannon loaded with grape were replaced in front of the theatre, ready in case of a renewal of the attack.