Editing Emma Abbott (section)

==Early life==
Emma Abbott was born in 1850 in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], the daughter of the struggling Chicago musician Seth Abbott and his wife, Almira (née Palmer). As a child, she and her brother George studied singing, [[piano]], [[guitar]] and [[violin]] with their father.

The family moved to [[Peoria, Illinois]], Emma was eight years of age when, she made her first appearance on the stage, singing at a concert given in her father's office in Peoria.<ref name="BDA1906" /> In 1854, Professor Abbott was unable to find a sufficient number of music students to make ends meet and the family suffered from financial problems.<ref name=century/> To help out, she and George began performing professionally when Emma was nine years old. She made her debut as a guitar player and singer in Peoria, Illinois in 1859, with George on the violin, and was teaching guitar by age thirteen.<ref>[http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/23027 Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829003913/http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/23027 |date=August 29, 2008 }}, picturehistory.com; accessed October 5, 2015.</ref>