This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
Stage-Struck Sisters Rise to Broadway Fortunes
In 1893 four stage-struck sisters from a Town farm aged 17 to 22 performed an original sketch on a Cedar Rapids amateur program. Their infamous act, so absurd it used a wire screen to shield them from vegetables, launched a career across the Middle West. By 1896 their reversed fame earned a Broadway contract worth $1,000 a week, and seven years later the Cherry Sisters retired to farm life with about $200,000.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Cedar Rapids
Collier's
Middle West
Cherry Sisters