Susan Webb Cushman

Susan Webb Cushman (March 17, 1822 – May 10, 1859) was a Boston, Massachusetts-born American actress, the younger sister of established actress Charlotte Cushman. Susan Cushman débuted in Epes Sargent's play, The Genoese in 1836, a year after a trip with her mother to see Charlotte, an up-and-coming actress, in New York City and Albany, New York. American career Following a failed marriage that same year to Nelson Meriman, after which he left her destitute with a child, she followed Charlotte's advice to pursue an acting career with her. Together they acted in New York City and Philadelphia, circa 1841–1842, as Grace Harkaway (Susan) and Lady Gay Spanker (Charlotte). She received acclaim in the play Satan in Paris and played Desdemona to George Vandenhoff's Othello. In 1842 Susan was a member and Charlotte a stage manager of the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, where Vandenhoff performed for six nights for $180. Vandenhoff later acknowledged both Charlotte's and Susan's cool-headedness in his autobiographical book entitled Leaves from an Actor's Notebook. In it he wrote that Susan was "a pretty creature, but had not a spark of Charlotte's genius..." and that "she pleased 'the fellows', however, and was the best walking-lady on the American stage".