Entertainment

Angela Brown Chapter 17 Section 2

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Popular Amusement in the late 1800s • Rural – leisure special celebrations

• Laborers – when off the clock wanted inexpensive entertainment after hours

• Saloons most popular gathering places (ethnic ties and political alliances)

• 1900 NY population 3,437,202 had 10,000 saloons

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/1900/Images/saloon.jpg

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• Women attended dance halls and cabarets – watched musical shows and dance latest dances

• Trolley parks – amusement parks built at end of trolley lines

• moving pictures – 1903 – The Great Train Robbery• 1908 – 8,000 nickelodeons • Theaters were set up in converted stores or

warehouses (nickel admission) • Slap-stick comedies and other films 200,000 daily

http://users.telenet.be/thomasweynants/images/actrices/Moulin.jpg 3

http://www.nps.gov/archive/edis/edisonia/graphics/23430176.jpg

http://www.filmmonthly.com/Silents/Articles/GreatTrain/Barnes%201.jpg

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Vaudeville

• 1870 inexpensive variety show

• Comic sketches on ethic or racial humor, song – and dance routines, ventriloquists, jugglers, and trapeze artists

• Strictly for families

http://www.weisman.umn.edu/exhibits/edgeofseat/images/bicyclist2.jpg

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Sports

• Boxing and horse racing widely enjoyed• Baseball most popular• 1860 firefighters, police officers,

teachers formed baseball clubs in cities• 1869 nation’s 1st true professional team

Cincinnati Red Stockings formed• 1870’s best players paid

http://www.crosley-field.com/images/1888reds.jpg

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• Native Americans and white immigrants in most popular leagues – African Americans included only a short time

• Segregated leagues until 1940s• Football – adapted from European game of

Rugby in 1880s by Walter Camp• 1891 basketball invented – only sport

American in origin by Dr. James Naismith of Springfield Mass. – PE instructor

http://www.kshs.org/people/graphics/naismith_james.jpg

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• Women – ice skating/bicycling – brought about changes in women’s clothing

• Women athlete’s abandoned corsets – used shirtwaists (ready made blouses) tucked into shorter or split skirts

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_1895_bicycle.htm

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• Women played b-ball with less demanding rules – hard physical exertion said to be unhealthy for women

• Gymnastics and swimming – black cotton stockings under short dresses or bloomers

http://www.pasttimesports.biz/photos/basketball/cigarbball.jpg 9

Newspapers

• 1800 newspaper became entertainment – larger more interesting publications

• yellow journalism – a reference to the ink used to popular comic strips “sensational” news coverage to gain readers.

• 2.6 to 15.1 million copies – 1870-1900

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Journalists

• Joseph Pulitzer – sought to expose “all fraud and shame, fight all public evils and abuses

• William Randolph Hearst – NY Journal

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/thumb/9/94/Joseph_Pulitzer.jpg/300px-Joseph_Pulitzer.jpg

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Magazines and Popular Fiction

• 1879 law lowering postal rates for periodicals helped boost circulation (McClure’s, Cosmopolitan, Munsey’s)

• Horatio Alger’s – Ragged Dick – characters rags to riches American Dream

• Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) – wrote about corrupt side of Gilded Age in The Gilded Age – began trend of using novels as a vehicle for social protest

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/95novgifs/twain.gif

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• Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(1884) – tales of Mississippi River Life captivated audiences

• Other authors: Sarah Orne Jewett, Bret Harte, George Washington Cable, Joel Harris, Kate Chopin, Edward Eggleston, O. Henry

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/tomsawye/nostalgia/movies/tsm1938.html

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The Negro Spiritual

• Fisk Jubilee Singers – tour to raise money for their school (U.S., England, Europe)

• Queen Victoria had group portrait of them painted.

• Acquired characteristics of European musical tradition.

• Identified as an American Art form.

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images2/jubilee_singers2_sm.jpg

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Minstrel Shows

• White actors imitated African American music, dance and humor in exaggerated form.

• Racial stereotypes – performed in “black face”

• African Americans also performed – only stage work they could get

http://www.musicals101.com/News/jolson.jpg

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Ragtime and Jazz

• Ragtime – originated by black musicians in saloons, melodies steady marching band beat

• Scott Joplin composer “Maple-Leaf Rag” 1899• Jazz – musical culture of New Orleans• By 1915, Jazz was becoming a national

passion.

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