This composite cabinet card features Eva McGinley and is subtitled indicating that she was a “character change artist”. The central portrait on the card shows a prim and proper lady but the image is surrounded by other images displaying Miss McGinley’s versatility and talent to play disparate character roles. Eva McGinley was not a major actress which is apparent by the dearth of information readily available in my preliminary research. However, two newspaper articles were found pertaining to Miss McGinley. The New York Dramatic Mirror (1900) reported that “Eva McGinley’s voice failed her at Greenfield, Iowa last week” and she and her husband Bob went to Omaha to recuperate. A second article appeared in the New York National Police Gazette (1900) which proclaimed that Miss McGinley and her husband were enjoying themselves in Lakeview, Iowa and that she had shot and killed the largest pelican ever killed on Wall Lake. Imagining Miss Mcginley hunting pelicans with a rifle is distasteful to me but it certainly indicates that she really was quite a “character”. The photographer of this image is unidentified.
EVA McGINLEY: CHARACTER CHANGE ARTIST
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THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
Character change artists like Eva were a popular style of vaudeville entertainer who told jokes and stories in the dialects of immigrants and rubes (both rural and urban) from other parts of the country, Some artists seem to have used elaborate “quick change” costumes which was also a novelty. I’ve seen several similar cards of men and women character performers. Eva disguises reminds me of Carol Burnett’s comic skits.
My great aunt, Jessie May (Bowersock) Foley was a character change artist in Vaudeville. I am a writer of stories for a genealogy magazine and was wondering if you would give me permission to use an image of this cabinet card of Eva McGinley as an example in my new article on Circuses and Vaudeville. Please send permission in an email I can forward to my editor. Thanks You.
Thanks for your interesting email. The life of a character change artist must have been quite interesting. These artists had to be talented because their work could make or break a show. I would be happy to send you an email but I will need your email address. Please send your email address to cabinetcardgallery@gmail.com. Thanks for your comment.
Love this card! I’ve been researching the McGinleys for a project we’re doing at the library where I work. They performed frequently around Minnesota (and surrounding states) in the early 1900s. I found a fascinating biography of the McGinleys in this 1948 edition of Billboard online (see page 47): https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/40s/1948/Billboard%201948-12-04.pdf
Eva actually died from falling down a staircase during a show while trying to make one of her trademark quick changes!
Thanks so much for sharing the article about the McGinleys. They lived interesting lives and the article makes me want to learn more about them.