Booth's Sister

Her brothers were the matinee idols of the 1850's theater world; her father was a famous Shakespearean; she wanted to be an actress but the social rules of the era prevented it; Asia Booth, sister of John Wilkes Booth, endured a peculiar and often sad childhood with her flamboyant father, flighty mother and restricted ambitions. Her devotion to brother Johnnie led her to aid his anti-Union sentiments during the Civil War, and she was suspected of conspiracy in the Lincoln assassination. Historian Jane Singer imagines the dreamlike misery and mistakes of a little-known player in the Lincoln tragedy.