Rufus C. Somerby

Rufus C. Somerby (c. 1833 — after 1904) was an entertainer, showman, and panoramist in the mid-nineteenth century, and one of a very few men of his profession to leave behind any memoirs or account of his activities. He is chiefly known through a series of articles published in 1902 and 1903 in The Billboard, the ancestor of today's "Billboard Magazine," which at the time was a trade journal for circus, carnival, and theatrical performers and managers. Mr. Somerby operated several Moving panoramas under the management of Boston's George K. Goodwin, including a panorama of "Dr. Kane's Arctic Voyages," and also was involved in mechanical theatres. He worked as an agent for P.T. Barnum, bringing one such mechanical theatre, "Thiodon's Theatre of Arts," from Britain to the United States for an exhibition at Barnum's American Museum. Later, after this mechanical show was completed his run, he oversaw its re-making into two smaller such theatres, one of which had its figures re-painted to as to present not "The Battle of Balaclava" in the Crimean War, but the assault of Fort Sumter, by a panorama broker in Providence, Rhode Island.

Somerby himself may possibly have served in the U.S. Civil War; a man of that name was a lieutenant in both Companies "A" and "B" of the Ninth Kentucky Infantry Regiment. After his service, he returned to the show trade, working with the well-known Boston actor and theatrical agent, Edward P. Kendall as part of a variety troupe, established in 1867, which toured the country. Other members of this troupe included John Maguire, Barney McNulty, C. Amory Bruce, L. M. W. Steere and D. B. Hodges. Somerby also headed his own bills as a professional lecturer; in 1877, there is a record of his operating his own Fair, which included himself as "graphic lecturer" (probably with a panorama), O-car Shaffer, a "facial contortionist," Shaffer's wife the singer Louise Shaffer, and a player of the "musical glasses" (probably a sort of glass harmonica.

Articles in The Billboard

Somerby's career is known chiefly through a series of articles which appeared in The Billboard between December 1903 and December of 1904 under the by-name "Doctor Judd." In these columns, the good Doctor offered his reminiscences over the decline of the panorama trade, which by then was almost entirely eclipsed by motion picture exhibition; "all the old panoarama men who catered to the last generation with their exhibitions are fast passing away." Rather puzzlingly, though Dr. Judd laments the recent death of Rufus Somerby, the first-person accounts given in the articles are all of shows at which Somerby was the lecturer. It's possible that the author, an acquaintance of Somerby, is quoting from some memoir written by him, or it the "Judd" identity, and the conceit that he mourns the passing of Somerby, may be a ploy, and Somerby himself may have been "Dr. Judd."