Macready, Mary (McCready)

Alternate name: McCready

Mary Macready was an actress who specialized in dramatic readings. She was a resident of New York and married. In the mid-nineteenth century she toured and performed in New England, larges cities in the eastern United States, and in several cities and towns in Illinois, offering dramatized readings of the works of William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lord George G. Byron, among others. She was injured in Alton, Illinois in the spring of 1857 by falling into a hole in a city sidewalk. Abraham Lincoln represented her in a lawsuit against the city of Alton, and a jury ultimately awarded her $300 in damages.

Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 21 July 1856, 2:4; 23 July 1856, 3:1; 9 March 1858, 2:4; 16 March 1858, 2:4; Macready v. Alton, Illinois, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), https://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137571.