Natalie Dagwell

Henrietta Emma Dagwell, known professionally as Natalie Dagwell, was born on September 11, 1886, in Utica, New York, and died on July 7, 1965, in Middleville, New York, at the age of 78. She was the daughter of Charles Miller Dagwell, a policeman and veteran of both the Union Army and Union Navy during the American Civil War, and Barbara J. Dishler Dagwell. Her uncle, George Albert Dagwell, was wounded and captured at the Battle of Fairfax Court House in 1863. Dagwell trained as a singer under three instructors: Frieda Ashworth, Melanie Guttman-Rice, and Victor Maurel.

Dagwell built a career as a singer, dancer, and performer in vaudeville, burlesque, and on Broadway during the early twentieth century. Her Broadway appearances spanned from 1906 to 1916 and included Dream City, which ran from 1906 to 1907, followed by Fascinating Flora in 1907 and The Merry Widow Burlesque in 1908. She appeared in A Winsome Widow in 1912 and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1912, which continued into 1913. The Big Show, a revue, featured Dagwell in its 1916 to 1917 run, and she also appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918.

Outside of Broadway, Dagwell maintained a long association with the New York Hippodrome, where she performed early American songs as part of her act beginning in 1909. In 1917 she portrayed Miss Columbia in a patriotic pageant staged at the Hippodrome, and in 1918 she appeared there in Cheer Up. That same year, 1916, the designer Léon Bakst created a costume for her. In vaudeville, Dagwell performed a singing act built around old songs alongside her older sister, Aurie Dagwell, and both sisters appeared together in the cast of A Black Sheep in 1911 with the Edward F. Albee Stock Co. Dagwell was also among the chorus performers who raised funds for a memorial honoring dogs that died during military testing in World War I.