Table of Contents

Introduction
Articles Relating to the Play
The original book Maid of Orleans

Introduction
Joan of Arc was nothing less than a spectacular performance at Harvard Stadium by Maude Adams and thousands of others. It made an impression on everyone who saw it. However, whether or not it succeeded as a play was a matter that the critics debated. As can be seen in this work there were a lot of written articles about the play, both before and after, and I've presented a fairly decent representative sample of them here. The book that follows the articles section is related to the play in that (1) it has a photograph right at the front of Maude Adams in her Joan of Arc armor on her horse, and (2) it is about the factual history of Joan of Arc. It's written in a manner which is both very interesting and highly readable at the same time (as I find so often books labeled for 'young people' are.) The performance date was June 22, 1909, in Harvard Stadium. There were some 15,000 people in the stadium, and a cast of over 1,500 in the play itself. There was a thirty-minute battle scene that involved over 1000 actors as soldiers.
Articles About the Play
[Yes, she was to appear in Joan of Arc, but the article got the country wrong.] New York Times: March 25, 1908. MISS ADAMS AS JOAN. She is to Appear in London in an elaborate Production. Charles Frohman is arranging for Maude Adams's appearance in London as Joan of Arc. He will have a play writer in French and adapted to the English by William Gilette. Local representatives of Charles Frohman said last night that the plan to have Miss Adams appear in London in a Joan of Arc play had been under consideration for two years. The idea was first suggested by J.M. Barrie, who believed that the American actress could make her best impression on English audiences in such a role. Miss Adams heartily took up the suggestion, and the lines of the play have been under discussion by the persons concerned, the desire being to get a new point of view on the French heroine's character. Mr. Gilette has spent a great deal of time in France recently, and it is understood that he has been in consultation with French dramatists and has been looking deeply into all the legends of Joan in order to map out the play. Mr. Frohman has also had material gathered for a most elaborate production which will give the atmosphere of the stirring time to be represented.
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New York Times May 5, 1909. 1,300 TO PLAY IN 'JOAN OF ARC'. Maude Adams to Rehearse Next Week for Harvard Stadium Presentation Maude Adams will on next Monday morning assemble for preliminary rehearsal on the stage of the Empire Theater the principal actors and actresses who are to support her in the single performance of 'Joan of Arc' which she is to give in the Stadium of Harvard University on the evening of June 22. There will be over 1,300 persons, including supernumeraries, in the company. There will be fifty super Captains, two chief stage managers, ten ordinary stage managers, a large corps of electricians, property men, masters of costumes, masters of the horses that will be used in the battle scene, and four skilled armorers. The single performance of 'Joan of Arc' will be given for the benefit of the Germanic Museum, and under the auspices of the German Department of Harvard. The use of the Stadium was granted some months ago to Miss Adams by the President and Fellows of the college. A special scene setting adaptable only to the Stadium, which seats 10,000 persons, will be used. The whole effect is planned to resemble the setting for the Passion Play at Oberammergau. After the performance the whole production will be dismantled and its parts dispersed. An English version of Schiller's 'Jungfrau von Orleans' will be used, and the incidental music, which will be an important feature, will be taken in most part from Beethoven's famous symphony, the 'Eroica.'
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New York Times June 19, 1909. RECEPTION TO MAUDE ADAMS. Harvard dramatic club entertains actress who will play 'Joan of Arc'. The Harvard Dramatic club gave a reception on the lawn of the Union this afternoon in honor of Miss Maude Adams who will present 'Joan of Arc' in the Stadium next Tuesday night. Miss Adams was presented to nearly 200 guests of the club... Miss Adams is giving the preparation for the outdoor production of “Joan of Arc' her personal attention. yesterday she directed the soldiers' rehearsal in the Stadium.
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The Tacoma Times June 21, 1909. MAUDE ADAMS IN ARMOUR TO PORTRAY JOAN OF ARC. Boston will see Maude Adams in a monster open-air production of 'Joan of Arc' in the Harvard stadium June 22, and it will mark Miss Adams' first appearance in an open-air spectacle. But this occasion will be notable and means so much to cultured Boston that the faculty of Harvard, headed by former President Elliott, will attend. More than 15,000 persons will see the play and a small army of actors and actresses will give the battle scene. In this Miss Adams, wearing armor of the middle ages and riding an armored white horse, will lead her forces in a procession. Count von Bernstorff, the German ambassador, will attend, as 'Joan of Arc' written by the German poet, Schiller, rarely has been produced in English. In preparing for the pageant, Miss Adams is training whole regiments of wooden soldiers on a toy battlefield, so she will learn how an army actually moves in war.
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Christian Science Monitor, June 23, 1909.: she achieved nothing less than a triumph. Her performance entire was magnificent, and that she shone even against the background of the multitude of soldiers and court people was proof that she had given all of herself to her task.
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San Francisco Call July 15, 1909. MEDIEVAL PLAY ON UNIVERSITY STAGE. Rumor says Maude Adams will appear in 'Joan of Arc' at Greek theater Reports that Miss Maude Adams will reproduce 'Joan of Arc,' which created great interest in the Harvard stadium a short time ago, in the Greek theater when she comes to the coast next month, have caused a ripple of interest in the dramatic circles of the bay cities. According to report, Miss Adams had entered into a contract with the university authorities for the staging of 'Joan of Arc,' and the stupendous performance will be an event of the opening of the university year in August. Prof. William Daltam Armes, chairman of the university music and dramatic committee, said that he knew nothing of the proposed engagement of Miss Adams in the Greek theater, but admitted that he had heard of the rumor that she was coming here. He said that one of the drawbacks to the project was the fact that Miss Adams could not appear with as large a company of supernumeraries in the Greek theater as at eh Harvard stadium, and the university theater was not suited for 'Joan of Arc.' Professor Armes said that no contract had been signed with her to his knowledge, but expressed the hope that Miss Adams would be seen in the Greek theater in some other play.
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Colorado Springs Gazette, Oct. 8, 1909: Maude Adams' success as 'Joan of Arc' opened a theatrical man's vein of reminiscence the other night on the Atlantic City boardwalk. 'She made,' he said, 'a stunning Joan.' she seemed built, literally built, for the part, didn't she.' her contours were just precisely the firm and rounded countours we should expect in the warrior made of Domremy. 'And yet, I remember,' said the theatrical man,' when Maude Adams were so thin that every company she starred in made her thinness its standing joke. She was very graceful and charming. I hasten to add, with all her, er-scarcity. At a diner in Miss Adams' honor one night in Chicago, a dinner given by a number of Chicago women, Miss Adams made fun of her own thinness neatly. She began her little speech with the quiet sentence. 'An empty carriage drove up to this restaurant an hour ago, and I got out of it.'
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The Pacific Monthly July to December 1909 In June, 1909, Harvard gave Joan of Arc, which, though ostensibly only an outdoor play, deserves mention among university pageants; for, though there was more speaking than is usual in the pageant proper, in grouping, effective massing, and the general scale on which it was carried out, the pageant element was prominent. Like the Oxford pageant, it was semi-professional in character; for, while college students and citizens in large numbers made up troops of soldiers and crowds of clergy, peasantry, and noblemen, the leading role was played by Maude Adams, and the color effects were in charge of John W. Alexander.
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The Dial Journal. July 1 to Dec. 16, 1909. A spectacular presentation of Schiller's 'Joan of Arc' was enjoyed by fifteen thousand on-lookers at the Harvard Stadium on Tuesday evening of Commencement week. Three years ago the 'Agamemnon' of Aeschylus was successfully given on the same spot in the original Greek; but on this later occasion it was wisely decided to resort to the vernacular,and accordingly Miss Anna Swanwick's version, revised by Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, was used. Miss Maude Adams and a company of players selected from Mr. Charles Frohman's dramatic forces filled the various parts, and were aided by a host of well-trained supernumeraries in the battle scenes, the coronation pageant, and elsewhere. So elaborate and magnificent a presentation of this drama was surely never before seen, and may well never be seen again. Schiller himself could not have failed to be delighted and to pronounce it grandios in the extreme, had he been one of the vast audience ranged semi-circularly about that end or segment of the stadium appropriated to the purposes of the play. The leading part was well conceived and interpreted, as was to have been expected of Miss Adams, and her support was good. The pecuniary profits of the performance go, most fittingly, to the Germanie Museum of Harvard University.
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The German Element in the United States 1909: The example of Henrich Conried was followed, consciously or unconsciously, in the magnificent performance of Schiller's 'Jungfrau von Orelans,' by Maude Adams and Mr. Charles Frohman's troupe, in the Harvard stadium, June 22, 1909. perhaps never before in the history of our country was a classic drama staged so elaborately or attended by so large an audience. About fifteen hundred performers took part in the pageantry and battle scenes, and the audience, gathered in a huge semicircle, filled every one of the fifteen thousand available seas. though the spectacle of vast numbers in the coronation scene or the battlefield of the last act was imposing, pageantry and pantomime were not more impressive than the skill with which the drama was performed. the players could be heard as well as seen on the great open-air stage, and they produced successfully an artistic illusion. Maude Adams portrayed the Maid of Orelans not realistically, not as a robust peasant girl, but as the romantic ideal, spiritual, and conscious of a heavenly mission.
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Official Register of Harvard University, April 21, 1910. To the President of the University- Sir-During the past year the principal gifts received for the Germanic Museum are as follows- … From Mr. Charles Frohman the sum of $10,000 has been received in connection with performance of Schiller's 'Maide of Orelans,' given by Miss Maude Adams and her theatrical company in the Harvard Stadium on the evening of June 22nd, by permission of the Corporation and under the auspices of the German Department, for the benefit of the Germanic Museum. This gift has an additional significance, inasmuch as the expenses of the representation, which was born by Mr. Frohman, were about double the amount of the large receipts. Apart from its beneficial relation to the Germanic Museum, in arousing and extending a wider interest in that institution, the performance was of great value to the University as indicating the capacity of the Stadium, and its availability for exhibitions of a different character from those athletic contests for which it was mainly constructed.
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The American Dramatist, 1917. The footlights, the picture frame of the proscenium arch, the orchestra, all tend toward making the theatre more intimate and more subtle. Hence, in the legitimate drama there is a group sentiment rather than a communal sweep, a more calculating effect or artifice than appears to a great crowd. In fact, the more delicate an actor's art, the more limited his immediate influence, as far a the numbers of his audience are concerned. No one could regard the extensive spectacle of Schiller's 'The Maid of Orleans,' as given by Miss Maude Adams before fifteen thousand spectators in the Harvard Stadium, as anything more than an interesting pageant, totally unsuited for any other than visual effect.
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The Book Maid of Orleans

Although on the inside the book says it is the story of Joan of Arc told for girls, it seems to me that anyone of either gender or age reading it would find it to be a very well done, very readable book.

Other Books In This Series

BOOK 1: MAUDE ADAMS: AS OTHERS SAW HER. A book containing a lot of information about Maude Adams. This includes Chapter 1 (Basic information); Chapter 2 (family news); Chapter 3 (her avoidance of publicity); Chapter 4 (illness); Chapter 5 (fashion); Chapter 6 (money); Chapter 7 (her return to the stage); Chapter 8 (movies); Chapter 9 (teaching); Chapter 10 (as an inventor); Chapter 11 (her personal life); Chapter 12 (her statue); Chapter 13 (death notices); Chapter 14 (plays she was in); Chapter 15: Conclusion; Appendix A (books about her); Appendix B (books with some information about her); Appendix C: (longer magazine and newspaper articles about her); and Appendix D (radio programs she did).

BOOK 2: MAUDE ADAMS: A KISS FOR CINDERELLA (Scan of the original book of the play along with articles about the play.

BOOK 3: MAUDE ADAMS: CHANTECLER (Scan of the original book of the play along with a scan of a booklet of the play plus articles about the play.

BOOK 4: MAUDE ADAMS: L'AIGLON: (Scan of the original book of the play, plus scan of the original souvenir booklet, plus articles about the play.

BOOK 5: MAUDE ADAMS: THE LITTLE MINISTER (Scan of the original book of the story, scan of the original souvenir booklet, plus articles about the play.

BOOK 6: MAUDE ADAMS: THE JESTERS (Scan of the original book of the play plus articles about the play.

BOOK 7: MAUDE ADAMS: JOAN OF ARC (Scan of the book Maid of Orleans along with articles about the play.

BOOK 8: MAUDE ADAMS: OP 'O ME THUMB (Scan of the original book of the play plus articles about the play.

BOOK 9: MAUDE ADAMS: PETER PAN (Scan of the original book plus articles about the play.

BOOK 10: MAUDE ADAMS: THE PRETTY SISTER OF JOSE (Scan of the original book of the story plus articles about the play.

BOOK 11: MAUDE ADAMS: QUALITY STREET (Scan of the original book of the play, scan of the original souvenir booklet, plus articles about the play.

BOOK 12 MAUDE ADAMS: ROMEO AND JULIET (Scan of the original book of the play plus articles about the play.

BOOK 13: MAUDE ADAMS: WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS (Scan of the original book of the play plus articles about the play.