THE GREAT BOOMSKY

A bygone era of stage magic comes to life in Steele’s biography.

As this book’s subtitle suggests, The Great Boomsky was more of a brand than a specific person. To better understand Boomsky, it’s necessary to comprehend the time and place in which his portrayers lived. This history is set in a period when magic acts ruled the stage, from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s—long before movies, radio, and television hit the scene. One of the best magicians of that era was a white performer named Alexander Herrmann, also known as “Herrmann the Great,” around whom this story revolves, as several of the young men who used the Boomsky name served as assistants to Herrmann or his heirs. Milton Hudson “Hutchin” Everett, a Black former sharecropper from Georgia who joined Herrmann’s crew at age 13 in 1891, was the first person to be known as Boomsky; he became a talented magician and was the most enduring assistant for Herrmann and, later, his wife, Adelaide, although some of his later actions led to estrangement and even a prison term. Much of this volume is dedicated to the relationship between Hutchin and the Herrmanns, but other Boomskys receive time in the spotlight, and many of them went out on their own; Steele also discusses rival magicians, such as the famed Harry Houdini. This book is a spin-off of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic: Memoirs, Published Writings, and Collected Ephemera (2011)which Steele edited. Overall, she does a marvelous job re-creating various entertainments, and she makes it abundantly clear that magicians of that era, especially Herrmann, were larger-than-life figures, while also showing how racist attitudes kept Hutchin and the other Boomskys from getting the recognition they deserved. The Herrmann memoir provides a fine foundation for this book but, as her extended bibliography attests, she did quite a bit of additional research to lend authenticity and interest to this new volume. She also includes a helpful list so that readers can more easily keep track of the various historical figures.

An involving, detailed survey of talented but forgotten performers.