Laura Keene (1826-1873)

Born in England, actress Laura Keene gained fame as a director and producer in the U.S. She debuted in New York in 1852. Keene became the first woman to manage a theater in the U.S. In 1855 she leased the Metropolitan Theatre and opened it under a new name: Laura Keene's Varieties. Keene’s company produced some of the finest stage performers of nineteenth-century America. This is a daguerreotype.