Francis S. Chanfrau was an American actor and theatre manager in the 19th century. He began his career playing bit parts and doing impressions of star actors such as Edwin Forrest and of ethnic groups.

Thomas Butler Gunn was an English born illustrator, writer and war correspondent who spent fourteen years in America. His diaries of this period provide details of his life amongst the bohemian writers and artist in New York including Frank Bellew, Sol Eytinge Jr., Fanny Fern, Thomas Nast, James Parton, Fitz James O'Brien, Alfred Waud and Walt Whitman.