[1] Berthold Galland was a native of Posen, Prussia (present-day Poznań, Poland) who came to America in 1860 where he became a dry goods merchant and later found success as a manufacturer of fashionable women’s lace undergarments.

[4] Anna’s sister, Effie Julia Hawley, was the wife of Louis Arthur Watres, a onetime Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

[5] Galland took to the stage about age twenty after studying drama for several years in Europe and later in America as a student of George Edgar, a former instructor of actress Margaret Mather.

In the summer of 1895 it was widely reported in the press that the following season Galland would debut playing Juliet, Lady Macbeth and Frou-Frou in a tour of New England.

An Adams theater critic later wrote, “Lovers of good acting who failed to attend the performance of Miss Bertha Galland and George Edgar at the opera house at Adams last evening, missed one of the best attractions of the season.”[9] Galland's first major success came in 1900 at the Criterion Theatre in New York playing Marie Ottilie in The Pride of Jennico opposite James K.

[11][12] She next appeared in The Love Match at the Lyceum as Pansy de Castro[13] and then in a long engagement as Esméralda, in a road production of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

[19][20] On May 8, 1910, Bertha Galland was one of fourteen prominent actresses to greet President William Howard Taft before his inaugural address opening the Actors Fund Fair in New York.

[21] On May 2, 1929, Galland presented President Herbert Hoover with an illuminated copy of a song she composed as a possible American national anthem called America Beloved Land.