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[[File: HoudiniTMWWTW.png|right|thumb|200px|[[ Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls]]]]


'''William Lindsay Gresham''' (b.1909-d.1962) was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is Nightmare Alley (1946) and a biography of [[Houdini]], Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls (1959)
[[File: RichardPotter.png|right|thumb|200px|[[ Richard Potter]]]]
 
'''Richard Potter''' (b.1783-d.1835) is credited as the first successful stage magician born in the United States and as the first black magician.  


== Biography ==
== Biography ==
Reportedly, Potter was the son of an English baronet, Charles Henry Frankland, and an African American woman (some say "slave"). Frankland, however, died years before Potter was born.  Church records from Hopkinton, MA, list his father as George Simpson.  His mother's name was Dinah, who was a slave on the Frankland estate.  Potter went to England around 1798.  There is no record of his actual education.  He returned to the United States around 1801, probably with [[John Rannie]], a professional magician whom he started out working for as an assistant in 1802.


Gresham was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but moved to New York with his family as a child, where he became fascinated by the [[sideshow]] at [[Coney Island]]. Upon graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 1926, Gresham drifted from job to jobIn 1937, Gresham served as a volunteer medic for the Loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. There, he befriended a former sideshow employee, Joseph Daniel "Doc" Halliday, and their long conversations inspired much of his work, particularly Gresham's two books about the American carnival, the nonfiction Monster Midway and the fictional Nightmare Alley.
One of the earliest records of Potter advertising a show was in Boston, November 2nd, 1811 at the Columbian MuseumHe advertised his show as, "An Evening's Brush to Sweep Away Care, or a Medley to Please."
Gresham developed a deep interest in [[Spiritualism]], having already exposed many of the fraudulent techniques of popular spiritualists in his two sideshow-themed books and having authored a book about Houdini with the assistance of noted skeptic [[James Randi]].  


[[William Lindsay Gresham|Read more about William Lindsay Gresham…]]
[[Richard Potter|Read more about Richard Potter…]]

Latest revision as of 17:27, 1 November 2024

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Richard Potter (b.1783-d.1835) is credited as the first successful stage magician born in the United States and as the first black magician.

Biography

Reportedly, Potter was the son of an English baronet, Charles Henry Frankland, and an African American woman (some say "slave"). Frankland, however, died years before Potter was born. Church records from Hopkinton, MA, list his father as George Simpson. His mother's name was Dinah, who was a slave on the Frankland estate. Potter went to England around 1798. There is no record of his actual education. He returned to the United States around 1801, probably with John Rannie, a professional magician whom he started out working for as an assistant in 1802.

One of the earliest records of Potter advertising a show was in Boston, November 2nd, 1811 at the Columbian Museum. He advertised his show as, "An Evening's Brush to Sweep Away Care, or a Medley to Please."

Read more about Richard Potter…