Author: William L. Slout
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0809513102
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.
Olympians of the Sawdust Circle
Author: William L. Slout
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0809513102
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0809513102
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.
Olympians of the Sawdust Circle
Author: William Lawrence Slout
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0809503107
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0809503107
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.
Circus Life
Author: Micah D. Childress
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1621903958
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible. The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870, when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm—the “circus family.” Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers’ lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class. As a study in sport and social history, Childress’s account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing profile of its patrons and a changing economy. MICAH D. CHILDRESS received his PhD in history from Purdue University and currently works as a Realtor® in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His articles have appeared in Popular Entertainment Studies and American Studies.
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1621903958
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible. The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870, when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm—the “circus family.” Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers’ lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class. As a study in sport and social history, Childress’s account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing profile of its patrons and a changing economy. MICAH D. CHILDRESS received his PhD in history from Purdue University and currently works as a Realtor® in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His articles have appeared in Popular Entertainment Studies and American Studies.
Mrs. Ziegfeld
Author: Grant Hayter-Menzies
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786453087
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Broadway actress Billie Burke was one of the most sought after young stage beauties of her time, stealing the hearts of Enrico Caruso, Mark Twain, and, most importantly, famed Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld, who became her husband. Following Ziegfeld's death, the threats of financial ruin and encroaching age forced Burke to recreate herself as a Hollywood character actress. This biography benefits from the cooperation of the daughter and grandchildren of Burke and Ziegfeld, as well as from anecdotes provided by actors who performed with Burke on the stage and screen. In addition to studying the character and significance of Burke's greatest screen role as Glinda the Good Witch of the North, this richly illustrated book also provides a complete history of Burke's stage, screen, and radio work.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786453087
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Broadway actress Billie Burke was one of the most sought after young stage beauties of her time, stealing the hearts of Enrico Caruso, Mark Twain, and, most importantly, famed Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld, who became her husband. Following Ziegfeld's death, the threats of financial ruin and encroaching age forced Burke to recreate herself as a Hollywood character actress. This biography benefits from the cooperation of the daughter and grandchildren of Burke and Ziegfeld, as well as from anecdotes provided by actors who performed with Burke on the stage and screen. In addition to studying the character and significance of Burke's greatest screen role as Glinda the Good Witch of the North, this richly illustrated book also provides a complete history of Burke's stage, screen, and radio work.
Astride
Author: Eliza McGraw
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 1985901293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
On March 3, 1913, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington, DC, to watch five thousand female suffragists march down Pennsylvania Avenue, headed by a cohort of equestrians in breeches and plumed hats. From atop a white horse, wearing long white boots and a cloak emblazoned with a Maltese cross, Inez Milholland rallied her compatriots against hecklers. Channeling Joan of Arc, Milholland appeared strong and fearless as she sat astride her horse. The latter half of the 1800s ushered in a golden age of the horse that found more American women riding—both aside and astride—as they commanded presence in the public sphere. Reporters filed riding-craze stories about Manhattan socialites shopping on horseback, women who exercised on hobby horses, and women who worked as horsebreakers, cattle rustlers, or jockeys. In Astride: Horses, Women, and a Partnership That Shaped America, Eliza McGraw weaves together stories of women who pioneered in worlds such as Thoroughbred breeding, the circus, and horse rescue at a time when American women in general internalized the lessons of horsewomen: take chances, take up more space, and learn to get back on. From tamers to caretakers and performers to teachers, all worked with horses to buck the status quo. Expressing the idea of femininity with athleticism and authority, these trailblazers changed the way America understood women. Richly illustrated with period photographs, Astride demonstrates that even small changes can advance the fight for progress.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 1985901293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
On March 3, 1913, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington, DC, to watch five thousand female suffragists march down Pennsylvania Avenue, headed by a cohort of equestrians in breeches and plumed hats. From atop a white horse, wearing long white boots and a cloak emblazoned with a Maltese cross, Inez Milholland rallied her compatriots against hecklers. Channeling Joan of Arc, Milholland appeared strong and fearless as she sat astride her horse. The latter half of the 1800s ushered in a golden age of the horse that found more American women riding—both aside and astride—as they commanded presence in the public sphere. Reporters filed riding-craze stories about Manhattan socialites shopping on horseback, women who exercised on hobby horses, and women who worked as horsebreakers, cattle rustlers, or jockeys. In Astride: Horses, Women, and a Partnership That Shaped America, Eliza McGraw weaves together stories of women who pioneered in worlds such as Thoroughbred breeding, the circus, and horse rescue at a time when American women in general internalized the lessons of horsewomen: take chances, take up more space, and learn to get back on. From tamers to caretakers and performers to teachers, all worked with horses to buck the status quo. Expressing the idea of femininity with athleticism and authority, these trailblazers changed the way America understood women. Richly illustrated with period photographs, Astride demonstrates that even small changes can advance the fight for progress.
The Circus Age
Author: Janet M. Davis
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861499
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
A century ago, daily life ground to a halt when the circus rolled into town. Across America, banks closed, schools canceled classes, farmers left their fields, and factories shut down so that everyone could go to the show. In this entertaining and provocative book, Janet Davis links the flowering of the early-twentieth-century American railroad circus to such broader historical developments as the rise of big business, the breakdown of separate spheres for men and women, and the genesis of the United States' overseas empire. In the process, she casts the circus as a powerful force in consolidating the nation's identity as a modern industrial society and world power. Davis explores the multiple "shows" that took place under the big top, from scripted performances to exhibitions of laborers assembling and tearing down tents to impromptu spectacles of audiences brawling, acrobats falling, and animals rampaging. Turning Victorian notions of gender, race, and nationhood topsy-turvy, the circus brought its vision of a rapidly changing world to spectators--rural as well as urban--across the nation. Even today, Davis contends, the influence of the circus continues to resonate in popular representations of gender, race, and the wider world.
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861499
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
A century ago, daily life ground to a halt when the circus rolled into town. Across America, banks closed, schools canceled classes, farmers left their fields, and factories shut down so that everyone could go to the show. In this entertaining and provocative book, Janet Davis links the flowering of the early-twentieth-century American railroad circus to such broader historical developments as the rise of big business, the breakdown of separate spheres for men and women, and the genesis of the United States' overseas empire. In the process, she casts the circus as a powerful force in consolidating the nation's identity as a modern industrial society and world power. Davis explores the multiple "shows" that took place under the big top, from scripted performances to exhibitions of laborers assembling and tearing down tents to impromptu spectacles of audiences brawling, acrobats falling, and animals rampaging. Turning Victorian notions of gender, race, and nationhood topsy-turvy, the circus brought its vision of a rapidly changing world to spectators--rural as well as urban--across the nation. Even today, Davis contends, the influence of the circus continues to resonate in popular representations of gender, race, and the wider world.
En Route to the Great Eastern Circus and Other Essays on Circus History
Author: William L. Slout
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1434437604
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
William L. Slout, entertainment historian par excellence, here provides five fascinating essays on the development of the American traveling circus in the post-Civil War era: "En Route to the Great Eastern Circus" (on the creation of this great show); "The Great Eastern Circus of 1872" (more details about one of P. T. Barnum's rivals); "The Not-So-Great Trans-Atlantic Circus and Menagerie" (how a show failed suddenly in a yellow fever epidemic); "What Goes Up...Comes Down" (how balloning became part of the circus environment); and "The Chicken or the Egg?" (on the first development of the double-ring act pioneered by Barnum and others). These vivid essays, highlighted by numerous contemporaneous excerpts from local newspapers, help bring a long-forgotten era alive again.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1434437604
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
William L. Slout, entertainment historian par excellence, here provides five fascinating essays on the development of the American traveling circus in the post-Civil War era: "En Route to the Great Eastern Circus" (on the creation of this great show); "The Great Eastern Circus of 1872" (more details about one of P. T. Barnum's rivals); "The Not-So-Great Trans-Atlantic Circus and Menagerie" (how a show failed suddenly in a yellow fever epidemic); "What Goes Up...Comes Down" (how balloning became part of the circus environment); and "The Chicken or the Egg?" (on the first development of the double-ring act pioneered by Barnum and others). These vivid essays, highlighted by numerous contemporaneous excerpts from local newspapers, help bring a long-forgotten era alive again.
The Story of My Campaign
Author: Francis T. Moore
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 160909025X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
In 1861, Francis Moore appeared to be a perfectly ordinary, twenty-three year old man: a carriage maker in the bustling Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois. And there he might well have lived out his life in unadventurous comfort. But then the Civil War burst out, and Moore, along with most of his friends, like young men North and South, rushed to enlist in the army. His cavalry regiment soon set off for what proved to be four years of warfare, plunging him into harrowing experiences of battle that would have been unimaginable back in his small hometown and that uprooted him, body and soul, for the remainder of his life. Enter The Story of My Campaign, the remarkable Civil War memoir of Captain Francis T. Moore, which historian Thomas Bahde here offers in an original edition to contemporary readers for the first time. Moore began the war as a private in Company L of the Second Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, and was soon promoted to lieutenant and then captain of his company. He spent most of the war fighting guerillas in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He fought at the battle of Belmont, Kentucky, in 1861 and raided Mississippi with General Benjamin Grierson in 1864. He also battled Confederate leaders, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest and Leonidas Polk. His unflinching chronicle of small-scale and irregular warfare, combined with his intimate account of military life, make his memoir as absorbing as it is historically valuable. Moore was also an unusually articulate young man with strong opinions about the war, the preservation of the Union, the institution of slavery, African Americans, the people of the South, and the Confederacy: his wartime observations and his postwar reflections on these themes provide not only a captivating narrative, they also provide readers with an opportunity to examine how the conflict endured in the memory of its veterans and the nation they served. The enormous social upheaval and staggering loss of human life during the Civil War cannot be overstated: the estimated 2 percent of Americans—or 620,000 people—who died in the conflict would be the equivalent of 6,000,000 people today. The Story of My Campaign offers an indelible account of this conflagration from the perspective of one of its survivors. It is evidence of a hard war fought—and the long hard life that followed.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 160909025X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
In 1861, Francis Moore appeared to be a perfectly ordinary, twenty-three year old man: a carriage maker in the bustling Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois. And there he might well have lived out his life in unadventurous comfort. But then the Civil War burst out, and Moore, along with most of his friends, like young men North and South, rushed to enlist in the army. His cavalry regiment soon set off for what proved to be four years of warfare, plunging him into harrowing experiences of battle that would have been unimaginable back in his small hometown and that uprooted him, body and soul, for the remainder of his life. Enter The Story of My Campaign, the remarkable Civil War memoir of Captain Francis T. Moore, which historian Thomas Bahde here offers in an original edition to contemporary readers for the first time. Moore began the war as a private in Company L of the Second Illinois Volunteer Cavalry, and was soon promoted to lieutenant and then captain of his company. He spent most of the war fighting guerillas in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He fought at the battle of Belmont, Kentucky, in 1861 and raided Mississippi with General Benjamin Grierson in 1864. He also battled Confederate leaders, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest and Leonidas Polk. His unflinching chronicle of small-scale and irregular warfare, combined with his intimate account of military life, make his memoir as absorbing as it is historically valuable. Moore was also an unusually articulate young man with strong opinions about the war, the preservation of the Union, the institution of slavery, African Americans, the people of the South, and the Confederacy: his wartime observations and his postwar reflections on these themes provide not only a captivating narrative, they also provide readers with an opportunity to examine how the conflict endured in the memory of its veterans and the nation they served. The enormous social upheaval and staggering loss of human life during the Civil War cannot be overstated: the estimated 2 percent of Americans—or 620,000 people—who died in the conflict would be the equivalent of 6,000,000 people today. The Story of My Campaign offers an indelible account of this conflagration from the perspective of one of its survivors. It is evidence of a hard war fought—and the long hard life that followed.
Punch and Judy in 19th Century America
Author: Ryan Howard
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601542
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
The hand-puppet play starring the characters Punch and Judy was introduced from England and became extremely popular in the United States in the 1800s. This book details information on nearly 350 American Punch players. It explores the significance of the 19th-century American show as a reflection of the attitudes and conditions of its time and place. The century was a time of changing feelings about what it means to be human. There was an intensified awareness of the racial, cultural, social and economical diversity of the human species, and a corresponding concern for the experience of human oneness. The American Punch and Judy show was one of the manifestations of these conditions.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601542
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
The hand-puppet play starring the characters Punch and Judy was introduced from England and became extremely popular in the United States in the 1800s. This book details information on nearly 350 American Punch players. It explores the significance of the 19th-century American show as a reflection of the attitudes and conditions of its time and place. The century was a time of changing feelings about what it means to be human. There was an intensified awareness of the racial, cultural, social and economical diversity of the human species, and a corresponding concern for the experience of human oneness. The American Punch and Judy show was one of the manifestations of these conditions.
The Irish and the Origins of American Popular Culture
Author: Christopher Dowd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351767364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This book focuses on the intersection between the assimilation of the Irish into American life and the emergence of an American popular culture, which took place at the same historical moment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, the Irish in America underwent a period of radical change. Initially existing as a marginalized, urban-dwelling, immigrant community largely comprised of survivors of the Great Famine and those escaping its aftermath, Irish Americans became an increasingly assimilated group with new social, political, economic, and cultural opportunities open to them. Within just a few generations, Irish-American life transformed so significantly that grandchildren hardly recognized the world in which their grandparents had lived. This pivotal period of transformation for Irish Americans was heavily shaped and influenced by emerging popular culture, and in turn, the Irish-American experience helped shape the foundations of American popular culture in such a way that the effects are still noticeable today. Dowd investigates the primary segments of early American popular culture—circuses, stage shows, professional sports, pulp fiction, celebrity culture, and comic strips—and uncovers the entanglements these segments had with the development of Irish-American identity.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351767364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This book focuses on the intersection between the assimilation of the Irish into American life and the emergence of an American popular culture, which took place at the same historical moment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, the Irish in America underwent a period of radical change. Initially existing as a marginalized, urban-dwelling, immigrant community largely comprised of survivors of the Great Famine and those escaping its aftermath, Irish Americans became an increasingly assimilated group with new social, political, economic, and cultural opportunities open to them. Within just a few generations, Irish-American life transformed so significantly that grandchildren hardly recognized the world in which their grandparents had lived. This pivotal period of transformation for Irish Americans was heavily shaped and influenced by emerging popular culture, and in turn, the Irish-American experience helped shape the foundations of American popular culture in such a way that the effects are still noticeable today. Dowd investigates the primary segments of early American popular culture—circuses, stage shows, professional sports, pulp fiction, celebrity culture, and comic strips—and uncovers the entanglements these segments had with the development of Irish-American identity.