Katherine Bloodgood, from an 1897 publication

Katherine Spencer Bloodgood Kipp (April 24, 1871 – January 1967) was an American contralto singer and vaudeville performer.

Early life

Katherine "Kitty" Spencer was born in Ithaca, New York and raised in San Diego, California.[1]

Career

Ballad by Edward Warren Corliss sung by Katherine Bloodgood

Bloodgood was a contralto singer of "singular power, richness, beauty and breadth", according to one reviewer, who also noted her "fine stage presence" and that she sang equally well in German and English.[2] She performed in New York for the Manuscript Society in 1897,[3] and at Carnegie Hall in 1898, where the New York Times reviewer said she "sang with the assurance and aplomb of an experienced artist."[4]

In 1898, as a celebrated beauty, she sold kisses at a charity fair in St. Louis, Missouri, sometimes for as much as $500 a kiss. This publicity stunt was cited by her husband as a cause for their widely publicized divorce a year later.[5][6]

After her divorce, she was often featured on programs that included a wide range of performance genres.[7] "She has decided to stay in the vaudeville field, at least for a time, as she finds it much more lucrative than the concert field," explained a San Francisco magazine.[8] In 1904 Bloodgood appeared on a vaudeville bill with Blind Tom Wiggins at an opera house in Rochester, New York, just months before Wiggins's health ended his long performing career.[9] In 1906, she was "the artistic number" on a Washington, D.C., variety program that included acrobats, comedians, and trained animals.[10]

Personal life

Katherine Spencer married twice. She was first wed to William Denton Bloodgood in 1889, when she was 17 years old. This marriage ended in divorce in 1899.[5] She married again in 1902, to Howard Hapgood Kipp, a Marine officer.[11] She had two sons, Elwyn Lynotte Bloodgood (1890-1935) and Hapgood Kipp (1907-2000), and a daughter, Eleanore Mayo Kipp (born 1909 in the Philippines).[12] Elwyn may have accompanied Lieutenant Kipp to a posting on Guam in 1903.[13][14]

Katherine Spencer Bloodgood Kipp died in 1967, in Los Angeles CA, aged 95 years.

References

  1. ↑ "Mrs. Bloodgood is Not Divorced" San Francisco Call (February 24, 1899) p. 12, via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  2. ↑ "The Concordia Concert" The Wilkes-Barre Record (November 24, 1897) p. 5, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  3. ↑ "The Manuscript Society" The New York Times (April 23, 1897) p. 6
  4. ↑ "Mr. Paur's Concert" The New York Times (November 14, 1898): p. 7.
  5. 1 2 "Fair Singer Now No Wife" The Times (Philadelphia, July 9, 1899): p. 9. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  6. ↑ "Celebrated Contralto's Divorce" Los Angeles Herald (September 29, 1898) p. 8, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  7. ↑ "Keith's Theatre" The Boston Post (March 27, 1904): p. 21, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  8. ↑ "Kitty is Here Again" Town Talk (July 19, 1902), p. 23.
  9. ↑ "Grand Sacred Concert by Blind Tom" (advertisement) Democrat and Chronicle (February 28, 1904), p. 16, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  10. ↑ "Katherine Bloodgood and Other Features of Chase's Vaudeville Programme" The Washington Post (April 17, 1906), p. 21, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  11. ↑ "Katherine Bloodgood Married" The New York Times (November 8, 1902): p. 1
  12. ↑ Frederic Ellsworth Kip, History of the Kip Family in America (Hudson Printin 1928): 439.
  13. ↑ "Mrs. Kipp Not Going to Samar" The Philadelphia Inquirer (January 21, 1903), p. 6, via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  14. ↑ "Society News of the Week" Los Angeles Herald (July 18, 1909), p. 8, via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
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