Photo: Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain

Photograph of Alexander Herrmann was signed “Herrmann the Great” by his wife Adelaide.

A generation before Harry Houdini, audiences were thrilled by the magical stage productions of Alexander “The Great” Herrmann. Known as “the great undisputed monarch of conjurers,” Herrmann was born in Paris in 1844 to a family of performers. At the age of eight, he began as a magician’s assistant to his older brother.