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May Davenport Seymour

American actress and museum curator

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ73426558 ↗
Source-derived summary

May Davenport Seymour Eckert (1883 – October 5, 1967) was an American stage actress descended from a long line of famous actors and later a patron of the arts scene in New York. She was the daughter of actor and stage manager William Gorman Seymour and actress May Marian Caroline Davenport. She had three siblings. Her maternal grandparents were E. L. Davenport and Fanny Vining Davenport, two mid-19th century actors. Her mother, May Marian, was a sister of famous 19th-century actress Fanny Davenport and Hollywood actor Harry Davenport. May Eckert married William Stanley Eckert in 1908; one of their children was actress Anne Seymour.

May Seymour began her theater career c.1901. In 1903, she was appearing in The Little Princess on Broadway. Other Broadway plays were The Lady of Lyons, The Triumph of Love, The Ruling Power, Brother Jacques, Beauty and the Barge and The Marriage of William Ashe. In 1905, she appeared in A Doll's House, produced by Charles Frohman and starring Ethel Barrymore.

Editorial summary

“May Davenport Seymour” enters the record as american actress and museum curator. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Davenport, Seymour and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1883, 1967, 1908, 1901—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1883-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Davenport, Seymour and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“May Davenport Seymour” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Davenport, Seymour and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q73426558. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1967, 1908 and 1901.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “May Davenport Seymour”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow May Davenport Seymour primary sources, May Davenport Seymour archive and Davenport research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “May Davenport Seymour”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “May Davenport Seymour” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.