Entertaining America: Vaudeville and the middle ground of American culture, 1865--1920

Vaudeville, the most popular form of entertainment in America between c. 1890 and 1920, drew its enormous appeal in large part from the position it established within American culture. Neither clearly highbrow nor lowbrow, vaudeville pulled together aspects of nearly every form of nineteenth-century popular entertainment to constitute a new type of show that occupied a broadly appealing cultural middle ground. Vaudeville shows were lively and exceptionally varied. They included acts that might be construed as highbrow and others as lowbrow, but which typically fell somewhere in between or that combined culturally disparate performance elements in a single act. Holding this entertainment form together was the concept of respectability, which drew into vaudeville shows a national audience. A large part of that audience had disposable income to spend on entertainment, but could not afford to attend higher-priced shows, and wanted also to avoid the stigma attached to many of the available entertainment options. Neither an example of cultural hegemony nor of cultural resistance, vaudeville was the product of interactions and sometimes-difficult negotiations among entrepreneurs, performers, and audiences. The product was a type of popular entertainment that was derided by many, especially elite, observers as dull and vapid. Nevertheless, millions of average Americans made their preferences clear by choosing to attend vaudeville shows. Chapters on the origins of vaudeville, on its emergent business practices, on the entertainment's audience, and on comedy, explore vaudeville's appeal and the way it represented both the collaboration and clashes among various groups in American society.