This cabinet card portrait features stage actress May Gallagher. The photograph was taken by New York City celebrity photographer D. H. Anderson. To view more photographs by the Anderson studio, click on the category “Photographer: Anderson (New York)”. Miss Gallagher’s hair appears to need a little work. Her curls are quite flat. In fact her hair looks glued down to her head. She is wearing a fancy lace dress. May Gallagher was not a major actress but she received some attention in the theatrical news of her time. Music and Drama (1882) refers to her as “the charming May Gallagher” in their reference to her appearing as Esmeralda at the Madison Square Theater in New York City. The New York Times (1884) mentions Miss Gallagher in their story about the traveling company of the play “Private Secretary”.
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
I remember my mother, or perhaps it was my grandmother, who told me about “finger curls”. I believe they were little curls about the size of a finger and it seems that the hair was wrapped around a finger and then fastened somehow to the head. I have never seen such flat curls as Miss May Gallagher wears!