{"id":417,"date":"2010-08-17T08:15:42","date_gmt":"2010-08-17T13:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/?p=417"},"modified":"2010-08-17T08:15:42","modified_gmt":"2010-08-17T13:15:42","slug":"vaudeville-theatre-an-early-american-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/417\/vaudeville-theatre-an-early-american-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaudeville Theatre, An Early American Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"896db7480f66673a7b164fbcd4905391\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-8134560547846945\";\r\n\/* 468x60 tha *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1487607395\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>The period from the end of the Civil War to 1920 was a dynamic time   of change in the United States. It was influenced by massive European   immigration and major population shifts amongst the various regions of   the country. One of these major shifts was a vast migration from rural   farming communities to urban centers. City populations exploded during   this time.. In fact, during this fifty year period, the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s city   dwelling population increased from less than ten million to more than   fifty million people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a remarkable 500% increase in population. All   manner of working people benefited from an increase in personal income   and leisure time that city life offered. Tourism in America suddenly   became available to masses of people, annual vacations became the norm,   and city dwellers even began reducing their work day \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as compared to   their rural counterparts. With all this extra free time, inexpensive   amusements of all types appealed to growing numbers of people -rich and   poor alike.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Live entertainment gained traction in the late  nineteenth century  and reached a peak of popularity in the first decade  of the twentieth.  During this fifty-year period, the popularity of  minstrel shows  declined in popularity due to the growing success success  of variety  and vaudeville theater. This show format offered an  ever-increasing  diversity of popular entertainment to the masses.  Burlesque shows  developed into full fledged theatrical shows and  amusement parks of the  era drew huge crowds both for the rides and the  revolving array of  vaudeville theater shows they presented. For example,  Coney Island  attracted over 20 million visitors in 1909. (To give you  an idea how  large that number is, when it is adjusted for population  growth, it  represents more than the total combined attendance of both  Disneyland  and Disney World in 1989.) Entertainment of all sorts  flourished during  this renaissance period and the United States was  awash in circuses,  world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fairs, nightclubs, ballparks, traveling  theatrical road shows  and more. And from this explosion, the cinema was  born.<\/p>\n<p>Vaudeville featured materials that demonstrate the diverse  forms of  theater that dominated the growing entertainment world in the  United  States during this period. In fact variety theater drew larger   audiences than the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153legitimate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d theater which presented classical   performances. The appeal of the vaudeville shows was that it worked hard   to attract all classes of people from every cultural background rather   than performances that were targeted to the cultured upper crust only.   They succeeded in this task by offering a wide variety of program in   each show as well as low admission prices.<\/p>\n<p>To make the shows  successful to the greatest audience possible, the  vaudeville theater  concentrated on action and caricature entertainment  using humor with  broad and sometimes vulgar appeal to titillate the  audience while at the  same time trying to threat the fine line that  also kept it respectable  entertainment. Even pure burlesque shows tried  to thread this knot by  billing themselves as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vaudeville\u00e2\u20ac\u009d  entertainment and using the same  theaters that had respectable  performances.<\/p>\n<p>Of all the types of  vaudeville theatre, comedy was the most popular  and most transportable  entertainment to more modern venues. In fact,  comedians often migrated  from minstrel and vaudeville shows direct to  radio and eventually  television with the same sorts of jokes and skits  they used on stage.  Some famous transition comedians include Bob Hope,  George Burns, and  Milton Berle.<\/p>\n<p>The vaudeville theater period of America offered a  variety of  amusements: comedy, musical skits, novelty acts, stage magic,  musical  comedy, slapstick and stage spectacles. Variety theater drew  from  several distinct genres, including vaudeville, burlesque, minstrel   shows, spectacles, extravaganzas, musical revue, and musical comedy. It   represents a very part of American entertainment history that provided   the genesis for many modern entertainment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Vintage-Variety-Stage-Vaudeville-Collection\/dp\/B000TXY7MA\" target=\"_new\">Vaudeville  Theatre<\/a> is a fascinating art form that is best studied by seeing  the shows.  Fortunately, with the thanks of people like Thomas Edison and  his  motion picture company, many vaudeville shows were captures for   posterity and can be viewed on the Vintage Variety Stage and <a href=\"http:\/\/thehistoricalarchive.com\/products\/a453.html\" target=\"_new\">Vaudeville  Film Collection<\/a> offered at The Historical Archive.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehistoricalarchive.com%2Fhappenings%2F417%2Fvaudeville-theatre-an-early-american-entertainment%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The period from the end of the Civil War to 1920 was a dynamic time of change in the United States. It was influenced by massive European immigration and major population shifts amongst the various regions of the country. One of these major shifts was a vast migration from rural farming communities to urban centers. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}