“No Man Ever Would Have Been Treated So”

Wanda Schell stars as Elleanor Eldridge, a nineteenth-century businesswoman who sued to regain her stolen property. (Image courtesy of Stages of Freedom)

On Wednesday, Sept. 10, and Thursday, Sept. 11, Stages of Freedom and the Ely Neighborhood Performing Arts Initiative will present two performances of No Man Ever Would Have Been Treated So: The Trials of Elleanor Eldridge. The one-woman play stars local actress and playwright Wanda Schell and will be performed at Market Square and Prospect Terrace in Providence.

The show is based on the life of Elleanor Eldridge, a nineteenth century Rhode Islander and businesswoman who brought a landmark legal case to regain her stolen property. Eldridge, who was descended from African and Narragansett heritage, owned two homes in Providence and Warwick and ran a successful business doing whitewashing, wallpapering, laundry and other household tasks.

“This was unusual for this time. Black woman owned nothing. I’m guessing 1 percent of Black men and zero percent of Black women owned property, so this is really unique,” says Ray Rickman, executive director of Stages of Freedom.

After a brief illness kept her out of town, Eldridge was presumed dead and her Providence home was seized by a moneylender. Far from giving up her property, Eldridge sued to regain her home, a landmark case that was considered unprecedented at the time. To raise funds for her cause, she published Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge about her life and history. The book was ghostwritten by Frances Harriet Whipple Green, a wealthy white woman and abolitionist who took an interest in her case.

“She had a coterie of wealthy white women who really championed her cause,” says Robb Dimmick, program director at Stages of Freedom and director of the play.

Though the end result was far from simple — the suit was eventually settled and Eldridge was able to buy back her property — its fame and accompanying memoir meant that her story went down in Rhode Island legal history. Eldridge was known to champion other causes, later organizing her brother’s defense when he was wrongly accused of accosting another rman. According to Dimmick, Schell conducted extensive research in the Rhode Island Judicial Records Center when composing the play.

The two half-hour performances are free to attend and will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 10, at 12:15 p.m. (Market Square, at the intersection of North Main and College streets) and Thursday, Sept. 11, at 5:30 p.m. (Prospect Terrace at 60 Congdon St.). Attendees are invited to bring a chair or blanket to sit. The performance is the latest in a series of one-person plays presented by Stages of Freedom, including shows on Sissieretta Jones and William J. Brown.

“This is just another way of us helping people access these stories,” Dimmick says.

For more information, visit www.stagesoffreedom.org.

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