The famous ball with which Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt crashed the gates of society in 1883 was admitted by the press to have been more magnificent than the entertainments of Alexander, Cleopatra, or Louis XIV. It was soon outshown by other affairs of New York's Four Hundred. In his Society as I Have Found It, Ward McAllister describes dinner parties with squadrons of butlers and footmen in light plush livery, silk stockings, and powdered hair; orchestras concealed behind flowered screens; and every out-of-season fruit and vegetable served on golden plates. At society's fancy-dress balls, men weighed down in suits of medieval armor tripped over their swords as they attempted to dance quadrilles; the women wore wreaths of electric lights in their hair to add a new luster to their diamonds.
"Everything that skill and art could suggest," McAllister notes at one point, "was added to make the dinners not a vulgar display, but a great gastronomic effort, evidencing the possession by the host of both money and taste." But always taste was secondary, and Crœsus was crowned society's Lord of Misrule. A marveling correspondent of the LondonSpectator found America's newly rich pouring out money on festal occasions as from a purse of Fortunatus, making feasts as of the Great King Belshazzar.
For one ball the host built a special addition to his house providing a magnificent Louis XIV ball-room which would accommodate twelve hundred. Another time a restaurant was entirely made over with a plum-shaded conservatory, a Japanese room, and a medieval hall hung with Gobelin tapestries especially imported from Paris. At a reception given at the Metropolitan Opera House, twelve hundred guests danced the Sir Roger de Coverley on a floor built over stage and auditorium, and were then served supper at small tables by three hundred liveried servants. It was a world of jewels and satins, of terrapin and canvasbacks, of Château Lafite and imported champagne -- "luxurious in adornment . . . epicurean in its feasting."
Gilded Age of American civilization
THE WAYS IN WHICH SOCIETY MAY AMUSE ITSELF AFFORD, IN any country and at any time, an exceptional opportunity for the display of wealth and the assertion of social importance. Thorstein Veblen has graphically demonstrated this conscious or unconscious motivation in many forms of recreation. It is clearly evident throughout American social history. The worthy citizens of eighteenth-century Philadelphia vied with each other in the magnificence of their banquets, loading their tables with massive silver plate and serving such a choice selection of imported wines that the visiting John Adams stood amazed at the "sinful feasts." The planters of Virginia rode to hounds in close imitation of the English country squires whose social status they sought to emulate in every possible way. Merchants of New York and Boston were already aspiring to yachts in the 1850's, their sons to membership in the exclusive boating clubs, while all the fashionable world sought out Saratoga or Newport as a step upward on the social ladder.
It was in the latter half of the 19th century, however, the Gilded Age of American civilization, that society most flagrantly bent its pleasures to display. The newly rich born of industry's great advance since the Civil War-owners of railways, coppermines, textile-mills, steel-plants, packing-houses, and cattle ranches -- sought to establish social leadership through their extravagance in entertainments and amusements. A little band of idle rich held the final redoubt in the fashionable world of the 1880's and 1890's, and the families of the new plutocracy felt it essential to prove beyond shadow of doubt that they too were idle and rich. It was not in the American tradition, which esteemed riches and abhorred idleness, but urban society was running after strange gods. And, in any event, the new plutocrats generally supplied the riches and left it to willing wives and a younger generation to demonstrate the idleness.
With the first post-war boom in the 1860's, observers began to note that New York society was becoming entirely based upon wealth, social prestige being won by those who had the most splendid carriages, drawing-rooms, and opera boxes. George Makepeace Towle has described the balls and assemblies-ladies in sparkling tiaras, suppers of oysters and champagne, fountains gushing wine or sprays of perfume. He was somewhat horrified by "so unceasing a round of glittering gaiety and dissipation." 1 The advance of the new millionaires was picturesquely described as "the Gold Rush" by representatives of older social traditions. "From an unofficial oligarchy of aristocrats," Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer sadly wrote, "society was transformed into an extravagant body that set increasing store by fashion and display."
Nor was New York alone in this competitive rage for showy display. A sycophant press might boast that its ornate fancy-dress balls and ten-thousand-dollar dinner parties were the most expensive ever known, but the world of fashion throughout the land was closely following its lead. There was an epidemic of gaudy magnificence in the amusements of what went for society. One Chicago magnate brought an entire theatrical company from New York to entertain a group of his friends, and a wealthy woman in another city engaged a large orchestra to serenade her new-born child. San Francisco was notorious for its "terribly fast so-called society set, engrossed by the emptiest and most trivial pleasures." A fortunate miner who had struck it rich in Virginia City drove a coach and four with silver harness; another had champagne running from the taps at his wedding party.
It was in the latter half of the 19th century, however, the Gilded Age of American civilization, that society most flagrantly bent its pleasures to display. The newly rich born of industry's great advance since the Civil War-owners of railways, coppermines, textile-mills, steel-plants, packing-houses, and cattle ranches -- sought to establish social leadership through their extravagance in entertainments and amusements. A little band of idle rich held the final redoubt in the fashionable world of the 1880's and 1890's, and the families of the new plutocracy felt it essential to prove beyond shadow of doubt that they too were idle and rich. It was not in the American tradition, which esteemed riches and abhorred idleness, but urban society was running after strange gods. And, in any event, the new plutocrats generally supplied the riches and left it to willing wives and a younger generation to demonstrate the idleness.
With the first post-war boom in the 1860's, observers began to note that New York society was becoming entirely based upon wealth, social prestige being won by those who had the most splendid carriages, drawing-rooms, and opera boxes. George Makepeace Towle has described the balls and assemblies-ladies in sparkling tiaras, suppers of oysters and champagne, fountains gushing wine or sprays of perfume. He was somewhat horrified by "so unceasing a round of glittering gaiety and dissipation." 1 The advance of the new millionaires was picturesquely described as "the Gold Rush" by representatives of older social traditions. "From an unofficial oligarchy of aristocrats," Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer sadly wrote, "society was transformed into an extravagant body that set increasing store by fashion and display."
Nor was New York alone in this competitive rage for showy display. A sycophant press might boast that its ornate fancy-dress balls and ten-thousand-dollar dinner parties were the most expensive ever known, but the world of fashion throughout the land was closely following its lead. There was an epidemic of gaudy magnificence in the amusements of what went for society. One Chicago magnate brought an entire theatrical company from New York to entertain a group of his friends, and a wealthy woman in another city engaged a large orchestra to serenade her new-born child. San Francisco was notorious for its "terribly fast so-called society set, engrossed by the emptiest and most trivial pleasures." A fortunate miner who had struck it rich in Virginia City drove a coach and four with silver harness; another had champagne running from the taps at his wedding party.
By the 1830's some thirty rolling shows were regularly touring the country
The country about Somers, New York, where Old Bet had had her start, became the headquarters for a number of these new rolling shows. They toured New England, worked their way south where warm weather gave them longer playing seasons, and gradually crept westward toward the frontier. But these pioneers of the circus had to be both enterprising and daring. Traveling conditions were still difficult, and in the rural districts the popular attitude was often severely disapproving. They had to perfom miracles in meeting the problem of transportation, and they could combat prejudice only by continually stressing the supposed cultural features of their entertainment. It was long before a circus dared call itself a circus. It clung to the name menagerie which the pious approved, invariably advertising the performance as "a great moral and educational exhibition." It was perhaps from their early association with such shows that James Fisk and Daniel Drew, both circus men in their young days, learned the technique which stood them in such good stead in their later exploitation of a gullible investing public.
By the 1830's some thirty rolling shows were regularly touring the country. Buckley and Wick had eight wagons, forty horses, thirty-five performers, and a tent holding eight hundred people. Soon the Zoölogical Institute advertised forty-seven carriages and wagons, one hundred and twenty matched gray horses, fourteen musicians, and sixty performers. The parade had by now been introduced; the performers came to town to the blare of a brass band. Still it was not the real circus. There was no ring; there were no riding acts.
The final step in the evolution of this institution, its merger with the equestrian shows of urban amphitheatres, took place just before mid-century. The popular appeal of riding and tumbling acts ( President Washington had been an impressed spectator at John Bill Ricketts' indoor circus in the 1790's) naturally suggested an addition to the program of the traveling tent shows. The more enterprising managers introduced a ring beneath the big top; the country as well as the city was treated to bareback riding and trick horsemanship. The thrills of equestrianism supplemented the lure of wild animals, and the circus as we know it to-day at last emerged in all its spangled glory.
The Mammoth Circus of Howe and Mabie -- "Greatest Establishment of its Kind in the World" -- ventured as far west as Chicago in the 1850's, and there faced the unexpected competition of the Grand Olympic Arena and United States Circus. Van Amburg and Company's Menagerie-still advertising itself as "the only moral and instructive exhibition in America" -- carried east and west its African ostriches nine feet high, its polar bears, and Hannibal, the world's largest elephant. Dan Rice, King of American Clowns, was earning $1,000 a week with his acrobatic nonsense; the famous Herr Driesbach was nonchalantly having his supper "at a table set in the den of his animals." Finally, in 1856, the Spaulding and Roger's Circus announced it would travel by railroad, nine special cars: "team horses and wagons won't do in this age of steam."
Nothing could have been more democratic than the circus. Traveling what was still pioneer country, Edmund Flagg found the little village of Carkinsville, Illinois, "absolutely reeling under the excitement of the 'Grand Menagerie.' From all points of the compass men, women and children, emerging from the forest, came pouring into the place, some upon horses, some in farm wagons, and troops of others on foot." 28 Seeing a performance at Newport, Belle Brittan wrote: "Everybody went -- all classes, ages, colors and conditions. There were as many as five thousand people there, all mixed up with the most democratic indiscrimination -- Fifth Avenue belles sitting on narrow boards with their dresses under their arms, alongside of Irish chambermaids and colored persons of all sizes and sexes."
Barnum now entered the circus field. It was not yet the Greatest Show on Earth, only a Grand Colossal Museum and Menagerie, but nothing in the 1850's could rival it. General Tom Thumb was a first drawing-card; there was choice of all the freaks and curiosities of the American Museum, and a menagerie drawn from the four quarters of the earth. Barnum had chartered a ship, sent abroad for his own animals. It was an epochal day in circus history when his ten elephants, fresh from Ceylon, paraded up Broadway harnessed in pairs to a gilded chariot and amid the cheers of an immense crowd were reviewed by Jenny Lind from the balcony of tfie Irving House.
By the 1830's some thirty rolling shows were regularly touring the country. Buckley and Wick had eight wagons, forty horses, thirty-five performers, and a tent holding eight hundred people. Soon the Zoölogical Institute advertised forty-seven carriages and wagons, one hundred and twenty matched gray horses, fourteen musicians, and sixty performers. The parade had by now been introduced; the performers came to town to the blare of a brass band. Still it was not the real circus. There was no ring; there were no riding acts.
The final step in the evolution of this institution, its merger with the equestrian shows of urban amphitheatres, took place just before mid-century. The popular appeal of riding and tumbling acts ( President Washington had been an impressed spectator at John Bill Ricketts' indoor circus in the 1790's) naturally suggested an addition to the program of the traveling tent shows. The more enterprising managers introduced a ring beneath the big top; the country as well as the city was treated to bareback riding and trick horsemanship. The thrills of equestrianism supplemented the lure of wild animals, and the circus as we know it to-day at last emerged in all its spangled glory.
The Mammoth Circus of Howe and Mabie -- "Greatest Establishment of its Kind in the World" -- ventured as far west as Chicago in the 1850's, and there faced the unexpected competition of the Grand Olympic Arena and United States Circus. Van Amburg and Company's Menagerie-still advertising itself as "the only moral and instructive exhibition in America" -- carried east and west its African ostriches nine feet high, its polar bears, and Hannibal, the world's largest elephant. Dan Rice, King of American Clowns, was earning $1,000 a week with his acrobatic nonsense; the famous Herr Driesbach was nonchalantly having his supper "at a table set in the den of his animals." Finally, in 1856, the Spaulding and Roger's Circus announced it would travel by railroad, nine special cars: "team horses and wagons won't do in this age of steam."
Nothing could have been more democratic than the circus. Traveling what was still pioneer country, Edmund Flagg found the little village of Carkinsville, Illinois, "absolutely reeling under the excitement of the 'Grand Menagerie.' From all points of the compass men, women and children, emerging from the forest, came pouring into the place, some upon horses, some in farm wagons, and troops of others on foot." 28 Seeing a performance at Newport, Belle Brittan wrote: "Everybody went -- all classes, ages, colors and conditions. There were as many as five thousand people there, all mixed up with the most democratic indiscrimination -- Fifth Avenue belles sitting on narrow boards with their dresses under their arms, alongside of Irish chambermaids and colored persons of all sizes and sexes."
Barnum now entered the circus field. It was not yet the Greatest Show on Earth, only a Grand Colossal Museum and Menagerie, but nothing in the 1850's could rival it. General Tom Thumb was a first drawing-card; there was choice of all the freaks and curiosities of the American Museum, and a menagerie drawn from the four quarters of the earth. Barnum had chartered a ship, sent abroad for his own animals. It was an epochal day in circus history when his ten elephants, fresh from Ceylon, paraded up Broadway harnessed in pairs to a gilded chariot and amid the cheers of an immense crowd were reviewed by Jenny Lind from the balcony of tfie Irving House.
THE CIRUS was another form of popular entertainment now gradually evolving
THE CIRUS was another form of popular entertainment now gradually evolving. It did not spring full-panoplied upon the world, this dazzling combination of animal exhibits, equestrian performances, band music, and crude comedy. Nor was it a revival of those elaborate spectacles, marked by the cruelty of the gladiatorial contest, whereby the rulers of Rome had sought to quell, the restlessness of the populace. The American circus, with all its distinctive features, was a native product. It was a combination of the little menageries and bands of itinerant acrobats which had put on their performances at the colonial taverns and the more sophisticated equestrian circuses which had been staged in city amphitheatres (the pit easily converted into a ring) since the close of the eighteenth century. It became primarily a traveling tent show, providing the rural population with an equivalent for the popular theatre and the variety-hall. It was one answer to the need for diversion of country people who found themselves isolated from the multiplying attractions of city life.
Among the traveling animal exhibits early in the century, the most ambitious was that of Hackaliah Bailey, of Somers, New York. Soon after the War of 1812 he toured New England with the famous elephant Old Bet. She created a tremendous sensation; everywhere crowds flocked to see her. To avoid giving a free show en route, Bailey had to travel by night. But learning that the elephant was coming the farmers lined the road with huge bonfires, and Old Bet literally traveled in a blaze of glory. Until she met her tragic end -- shot by an irate Maine farmer whose bigotry could not condone even the exhibition of an elephant -- she had a spectacular success.
It inspired other managers of traveling menageries. They began to make more extensive tours, aided by the slow improvement of roads, and animal exhibits became a feature of village entertainment. Barn shows were given, with admission usually 12 ½ cents, at which the farmers gaped wonderingly at strange apparitions from another world. Contemporary notices tell of one in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1816 at which a tiger, buffalo, and dancing dogs were exhibited; of another in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, twelve years later with a bear, a wolf, a camel, and a monkey.
In this same period acrobats also began to join forces to travel about the country together. These little groups of entertainers would send a clown ahead to announce their coming with a few antics on the village green (precursor of the circus parade), and the performance would be given at night. Not in a tent. A piece of canvas would be stretched about a small platform, the troupe's wagons drawn up to serve as box seats at twenty-five cents apiece; and tight-rope dancer, juggler, or sword-swallower would go through his fascinating routine on a stage lit by flaring pine torches.
For long the menageries and the acrobatic troupes maintained a separate identity. Sometimes they traveled together, the one staging its performance in the afternoon and the other in the evening; but there were two distinct shows. Gradually they began to join forces. The proprietors of the menageries added a few acrobatic performers; managers of the acrobats included animal exhibits. A more ambitious joint entertainment developed which was usually staged under canvas.
Among the traveling animal exhibits early in the century, the most ambitious was that of Hackaliah Bailey, of Somers, New York. Soon after the War of 1812 he toured New England with the famous elephant Old Bet. She created a tremendous sensation; everywhere crowds flocked to see her. To avoid giving a free show en route, Bailey had to travel by night. But learning that the elephant was coming the farmers lined the road with huge bonfires, and Old Bet literally traveled in a blaze of glory. Until she met her tragic end -- shot by an irate Maine farmer whose bigotry could not condone even the exhibition of an elephant -- she had a spectacular success.
It inspired other managers of traveling menageries. They began to make more extensive tours, aided by the slow improvement of roads, and animal exhibits became a feature of village entertainment. Barn shows were given, with admission usually 12 ½ cents, at which the farmers gaped wonderingly at strange apparitions from another world. Contemporary notices tell of one in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1816 at which a tiger, buffalo, and dancing dogs were exhibited; of another in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, twelve years later with a bear, a wolf, a camel, and a monkey.
In this same period acrobats also began to join forces to travel about the country together. These little groups of entertainers would send a clown ahead to announce their coming with a few antics on the village green (precursor of the circus parade), and the performance would be given at night. Not in a tent. A piece of canvas would be stretched about a small platform, the troupe's wagons drawn up to serve as box seats at twenty-five cents apiece; and tight-rope dancer, juggler, or sword-swallower would go through his fascinating routine on a stage lit by flaring pine torches.
For long the menageries and the acrobatic troupes maintained a separate identity. Sometimes they traveled together, the one staging its performance in the afternoon and the other in the evening; but there were two distinct shows. Gradually they began to join forces. The proprietors of the menageries added a few acrobatic performers; managers of the acrobats included animal exhibits. A more ambitious joint entertainment developed which was usually staged under canvas.
The humor of the old-time minstrel show
The humor of the old-time minstrel show was rough and ready, although the essentially clean and moral atmosphere of the performance was one of its greatest assets. The jigs and fancy steps danced to tambourine and castanets were lively and amusing. But in its songs, minstrelsy had something genuine and enduring. While everything else about it was ephemeral, its music won a hold which it has never lost. It was for these blackface comedians, these knights of the burnt cork, that Stephen C. Foster wrote "My Old Kentucky Home," "Old Black Joe," "The Old Folks at Home," and "O Susanna." It was as a minstrelshow walk-around that "Dixie," written by Dan Emmett, won its popular vogue. Lincoln heard it at a performance in 1860. "Let's have it again!" he shouted from his box. "Let's have it again!" Within the year Lincoln was President and "Dixie" the battle-song of the Confederacy.
Through its songs the minstrel show has won immortality, but in the form in which the nineteenth century so enjoyed it, it has almost completely faded away. The other types of popular entertainment developing in this period gradually expanded, or took on new shapes, but Mistah Tambo and Mistah Bones are today seldom seen. The limitations of minstrelsy were too marked. There was no room, for the change and diversification that the public in time demanded. There were no women in the cast. As interest began to decline in the decade after the Civil War, the minstrels drew further and further away from the carefree, homely atmosphere of the plantation life they had tried to depict. It had always been fanciful rather than realisticwho can say to what extent the popular conception of Negrob character was framed by minstrelsy, how influential it was in winning northern sympathy for the slave? -- but the minstrels of the latter part of the century bore no relation whatsoever to the plantation blacks. When the slender thread that bound their performances to real life was snapped, their shows were doomed.
Through its songs the minstrel show has won immortality, but in the form in which the nineteenth century so enjoyed it, it has almost completely faded away. The other types of popular entertainment developing in this period gradually expanded, or took on new shapes, but Mistah Tambo and Mistah Bones are today seldom seen. The limitations of minstrelsy were too marked. There was no room, for the change and diversification that the public in time demanded. There were no women in the cast. As interest began to decline in the decade after the Civil War, the minstrels drew further and further away from the carefree, homely atmosphere of the plantation life they had tried to depict. It had always been fanciful rather than realisticwho can say to what extent the popular conception of Negrob character was framed by minstrelsy, how influential it was in winning northern sympathy for the slave? -- but the minstrels of the latter part of the century bore no relation whatsoever to the plantation blacks. When the slender thread that bound their performances to real life was snapped, their shows were doomed.
THE MINMIEL SHOWS which were so popular in the 1840's and 1850's
THE MINMIEL SHOWS which were so popular in the 1840's and 1850's were something far more than an amusing act incorporated in the program of a variety bill or occasionally presented at Barnum's Museum. They were a unique form of entertainment, thoroughly American in their inspiration, whose appeal was universal. The gay, rollicking walk-arounds, the sad, sweet notes of the sentimental ballads, the grotesque exaggerations and tall stories, the incessant cross-fire of shrewd jokes, were so native to the soil that the democracy crowded to hear them. The minstrels won instant popularity in New England, spread throughout the Middle West, and went to California with the gold-rush. Every city had several bands of black-faced comedians. Road companies playing in local halls or under canvas toured back and forth throughout the country. The most eminent in comedy or tragedy toiled with but slight reward, mourned an English actor, while "fantazias upon the bones, or banjo, have called forth the plaudits of admiring thousands."
Minstrelsy made its formal bow before an unsuspecting public when Dan Emmett "novel, grotesque, original and surpassingly melodious Ethiopian band, entitled the Virginia Minstrels", opened at the Chatham Theatre, in New York, early in 1843. But it had had predecessors. The most popular (for the first black-face performer on the American stage is not known) was the Jim Crow act of the comedian Thomas D. Rice. From the first time it was given (the records variously stating it was at Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh about 1829) thunderous applause greeted the shuffling steps danced to the plaintive little song:
Wheel about, turn about, Do jis so, An' ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.
It was as popular in New York and Boston as in the cities of the Mississippi Valley; it was a success in London. Joseph Jefferson was introduced to the stage by way of Jim Crow. Rice brought him on, aged four, in a bag and dumped him on the floor:
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd have for you to know, I'se got a little darky here To jump Jim Crow.
The vogue for this act had prepared the way for the real minstrel shows. Their success, one magazine declared, was "unparalleled by any popular exhibition that has ever been offered in New York." Barnum early jumped aboard the bandwagon with his own Ethiopian Serenaders, but the most famous minstrel band was Christy's. Established at Mechanics Hall in New York in 1846, it gave its "unique and chaste" performance almost nightly for a period of ten years, drawing crowds which were always enthusiastic over the performers' tuneful songs, clever dancing, and engaging humor. At one time there were some ten minstrel shows playing simultaneously in New York; Boston had several companies; and Cincinnati was the minstrelsy center of the West. The Kentucky Minstrels, Bryant's Minstrels, the Nightingale Serenaders, the Washington Utopians, the Sable Brothers, Ordway's Aeolians. . . . Throughout the country -- traveling "a world of belated railway trains, steamboat explosions and collisions, and runaway stage horses" -- these blackface comedians sang and danced.
From the moment the interlocutor gave his stentorian command, "Gentlemen, be seated," and the end-men, resplendent in gaudy full-dress suits, wide white collars setting off their heavily blackened faces, took their places, happy audiences sank back to revel in a show whose spontaneity removed it far from the artificialities of so much of the contemporary theatre. Mistah Tambo and Mistah Bones spoke the language of the people -- for all their exaggerated dialect. Their jokes, timely and topical, were meant to be understood and laughed at by the man in the street. When they sang, it was a song all the world knew and could sing. Delighted audiences stamped and cheered when the minstrels swung into "The Essence of Old Virginnv" or "Old Dan Tucker":
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man, Washed his face in a frying pan, Combed his hair with a wagon wheel, Died with the toothache in his heel.
There were many other favorites: "Stop dat Knockin' at My Door," "Dandy Jim of Caroline," "Hard Times Come Again No More," "Big Sunflower," "Root, Hog, or Die":
I'se de happiest darkee on de top ob de earth, I get fat as possum in de time ob de dearth, Like pig in a tater patch, dar let me lie, Way down in old Virginny, where it's Root, hog, or die. . . .
Minstrelsy made its formal bow before an unsuspecting public when Dan Emmett "novel, grotesque, original and surpassingly melodious Ethiopian band, entitled the Virginia Minstrels", opened at the Chatham Theatre, in New York, early in 1843. But it had had predecessors. The most popular (for the first black-face performer on the American stage is not known) was the Jim Crow act of the comedian Thomas D. Rice. From the first time it was given (the records variously stating it was at Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh about 1829) thunderous applause greeted the shuffling steps danced to the plaintive little song:
Wheel about, turn about, Do jis so, An' ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.
It was as popular in New York and Boston as in the cities of the Mississippi Valley; it was a success in London. Joseph Jefferson was introduced to the stage by way of Jim Crow. Rice brought him on, aged four, in a bag and dumped him on the floor:
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd have for you to know, I'se got a little darky here To jump Jim Crow.
The vogue for this act had prepared the way for the real minstrel shows. Their success, one magazine declared, was "unparalleled by any popular exhibition that has ever been offered in New York." Barnum early jumped aboard the bandwagon with his own Ethiopian Serenaders, but the most famous minstrel band was Christy's. Established at Mechanics Hall in New York in 1846, it gave its "unique and chaste" performance almost nightly for a period of ten years, drawing crowds which were always enthusiastic over the performers' tuneful songs, clever dancing, and engaging humor. At one time there were some ten minstrel shows playing simultaneously in New York; Boston had several companies; and Cincinnati was the minstrelsy center of the West. The Kentucky Minstrels, Bryant's Minstrels, the Nightingale Serenaders, the Washington Utopians, the Sable Brothers, Ordway's Aeolians. . . . Throughout the country -- traveling "a world of belated railway trains, steamboat explosions and collisions, and runaway stage horses" -- these blackface comedians sang and danced.
From the moment the interlocutor gave his stentorian command, "Gentlemen, be seated," and the end-men, resplendent in gaudy full-dress suits, wide white collars setting off their heavily blackened faces, took their places, happy audiences sank back to revel in a show whose spontaneity removed it far from the artificialities of so much of the contemporary theatre. Mistah Tambo and Mistah Bones spoke the language of the people -- for all their exaggerated dialect. Their jokes, timely and topical, were meant to be understood and laughed at by the man in the street. When they sang, it was a song all the world knew and could sing. Delighted audiences stamped and cheered when the minstrels swung into "The Essence of Old Virginnv" or "Old Dan Tucker":
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man, Washed his face in a frying pan, Combed his hair with a wagon wheel, Died with the toothache in his heel.
There were many other favorites: "Stop dat Knockin' at My Door," "Dandy Jim of Caroline," "Hard Times Come Again No More," "Big Sunflower," "Root, Hog, or Die":
I'se de happiest darkee on de top ob de earth, I get fat as possum in de time ob de dearth, Like pig in a tater patch, dar let me lie, Way down in old Virginny, where it's Root, hog, or die. . . .
Jenny Lind sang "Casta Diva," Rossini's "I Turchi in Italia," the "Herdsman's Song," and the prize-winning "Greeting to America."
Accounts of her first appearance at Castle Garden state that seven thousand persons crowded the auditorium, and when Jenny Lind appeared on the stage, demurely dressed in white, the audience rose as one man to greet her with such prolonged cheering, handkerchief-waving, and clapping that it appeared doubtful if the performance could ever get under way. She sang "Casta Diva," Rossini's "I Turchi in Italia," the "Herdsman's Song," and the prize-winning "Greeting to America." Her success could not have been greater. "To Castle Garden," commented the Tribune's critic, "is reserved the sublime spectacle of a whole people, as it were, worshiping at the shrine of art. . . . Jenny Lind is evidently most herself and most inspired when she sings most for all."
That was the symbol of her triumph. Barnum knew very well what he was about. He was not concerned with Jenny Lind's contribution to American music (although she paved the way for successful tours by many other singers and musicians) or with any other phase of her artistic career. He had sensed the new market for entertainment, a market which took in the masses of citizenry, and he supplied a popular product. He dressed it up in the sort of package that he knew would please American taste, and as he traveled about the country with his prima donna, he lectured alternate nights on temperance.
During her nine months' tour, visiting every major city in the United States, Jenny Lind gave ninety-five concerts. The gross receipts were $712,161, affording Jenny Lind $176,675 and Barnum (including expenses) $535,486. 12 Popular amusement paid; it was becoming big business. Nor did the American people criticize Barnum for his financial success. That he could make money out of offering them entertainment-whatever it wasendeared him even more to them.
That was the symbol of her triumph. Barnum knew very well what he was about. He was not concerned with Jenny Lind's contribution to American music (although she paved the way for successful tours by many other singers and musicians) or with any other phase of her artistic career. He had sensed the new market for entertainment, a market which took in the masses of citizenry, and he supplied a popular product. He dressed it up in the sort of package that he knew would please American taste, and as he traveled about the country with his prima donna, he lectured alternate nights on temperance.
During her nine months' tour, visiting every major city in the United States, Jenny Lind gave ninety-five concerts. The gross receipts were $712,161, affording Jenny Lind $176,675 and Barnum (including expenses) $535,486. 12 Popular amusement paid; it was becoming big business. Nor did the American people criticize Barnum for his financial success. That he could make money out of offering them entertainment-whatever it wasendeared him even more to them.
The most spectacular triumph of Barnum's career -- more notable than the European tour with General Tom Thumb was his mid-century presentation of Jenn
The most spectacular triumph of Barnum's career -- more notable than the European tour with General Tom Thumb-was his mid-century presentation of Jenny Lind. The country had never known anything comparable to the excitement evoked by the tour of the Swedish Nightingale. Fanny Kemble had won the heart of America in the 1830's, Fanny Elssler had swept all before her in the 1840's. Jenny Lind became the idol of millions who would not have anything to do with the stage. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the South and the West, worshiped at her shrine.
"Not a day passes," wrote a contemporary diarist just before her appearance at Castle Garden, "without some article lauding her talents until Jenny Lind is in every mouth; Jenny Lind hats, Jenny Lind coats, cigars, oysters, etc., in short, everything is Jenny Lind. When she arrived on Sunday from England, thousands of people swarmed the wharf eager to glimpse the 'Divine Creature.' Her carriage to the hotel could hardly make its way through the dense crowds. At night she was serenaded, and by day the Irving House was besieged by men, women and children anxious to peek at her."
The newspapers estimated these crowds milling about her hotel at thirty thousand. They reported a street fight growing out of a struggle to recover a peach-stone which she had supposedly dropped from the balcony; the enterprise of a speculator who had secured what was declared to be one of her gloves, charging twenty-five cents to kiss the outside of it, fifty cents the inside. A competition for a Jenny Lind prize song, won by Bayard Taylor, attracted seven hundred and fifty entries. "New York is conquered," the press agreed, "a hostile army or fleet could not effect a conquest so complete." "The excitement is of the hottest temperature," one paper declared. "It is universally conceded that Jenny Lind is the greatest woman, Barnum is the greatest man . . . in the world." Tickets for the first concert were auctioned off at $225. Boston showed a supercilious scorn for such emotionalism on the part of New York-and was soon paying $625 for the first ticket at its own auction.
It was inspired showmanship. Barnum knew his public and played upon its emotions with a sure touch. America had not seen Jenny Lind (no more had Barnum before she landed in New York), had not heard her, knew nothing of her. He publicized her beauty, her generosity, her goodness, so eloquently that he made her a heroine whom all America could take to its sentimental heart. The popularity of twentieth-century movie stars can hardly be compared with it. Accounts of Lindomania reaching the staid office of the London Times aroused deep contern. If the American people could be so easily swayed by an appeal to their emotions, they would be at the mercy of the first political adventurer who attempted to exploit them.
"Not a day passes," wrote a contemporary diarist just before her appearance at Castle Garden, "without some article lauding her talents until Jenny Lind is in every mouth; Jenny Lind hats, Jenny Lind coats, cigars, oysters, etc., in short, everything is Jenny Lind. When she arrived on Sunday from England, thousands of people swarmed the wharf eager to glimpse the 'Divine Creature.' Her carriage to the hotel could hardly make its way through the dense crowds. At night she was serenaded, and by day the Irving House was besieged by men, women and children anxious to peek at her."
The newspapers estimated these crowds milling about her hotel at thirty thousand. They reported a street fight growing out of a struggle to recover a peach-stone which she had supposedly dropped from the balcony; the enterprise of a speculator who had secured what was declared to be one of her gloves, charging twenty-five cents to kiss the outside of it, fifty cents the inside. A competition for a Jenny Lind prize song, won by Bayard Taylor, attracted seven hundred and fifty entries. "New York is conquered," the press agreed, "a hostile army or fleet could not effect a conquest so complete." "The excitement is of the hottest temperature," one paper declared. "It is universally conceded that Jenny Lind is the greatest woman, Barnum is the greatest man . . . in the world." Tickets for the first concert were auctioned off at $225. Boston showed a supercilious scorn for such emotionalism on the part of New York-and was soon paying $625 for the first ticket at its own auction.
It was inspired showmanship. Barnum knew his public and played upon its emotions with a sure touch. America had not seen Jenny Lind (no more had Barnum before she landed in New York), had not heard her, knew nothing of her. He publicized her beauty, her generosity, her goodness, so eloquently that he made her a heroine whom all America could take to its sentimental heart. The popularity of twentieth-century movie stars can hardly be compared with it. Accounts of Lindomania reaching the staid office of the London Times aroused deep contern. If the American people could be so easily swayed by an appeal to their emotions, they would be at the mercy of the first political adventurer who attempted to exploit them.
BARNUM's American Museum
BARNUM's American Museum -- it was in New York, but it had its counterpart in other cities and its features were widely copiedbecame a national institution in the 1840's. No out-of-towner ever missed it; it was the delight of country visitors. They might occasionally have seen giants and dwarfs, jugglers and rope-dancers, pantomimes and acrobats, but here under one roof was a wealth of amusements (six hundred thousand curiosities) such as imagination could hardly picture. The visitor bored by the national portrait gallery could watch the three living serpents of enormous size being given their noonday meal. When he had exhausted the wonders of the model of Niagara Falls (with real water from the new Croton Reservoir), he could have his fortune told by the mysterious Madame Rockwell. There were statues of scriptural characters and waxwork figures depicting the horrors of intemperance; models of new machines and an anatomical Venus; an ever-changing selection of panoramas, dioramas, cycloramas, and georamas.
Urban workers and country farmers were not the only visitors. When a Canadian giant was exhibited, the aristocratic Philip Hone, one-time mayor, made careful measurements of this natural phenomenon, reporting in his diary that the 619-pound monstrosity had ankles three feet five inches around. He went repeatedly to see General Tom Thumb. Upon the midget's return from his triumphal foreign tour ("kissed by a million pairs of the sweetest lips in Europe"), Mr. Hone proudly noted that Tom Thumb spoke to him by name.
From the portals of the Museum went out scores of traveling exhibitions which gave Barnum his nation-wide fame. Some of them were authentic, some of them cleverly faked. There was no denying the genuineness of the giants and midgets. Possibly the bearded lady was a border-line case, although her whiskers were guaranteed "to put at a single glance all incredulity at defiance." But there were also Joice Heth, whom Barnum blandly claimed to have been the nurse of George Washington; the notorious Woolly Horse, supposedly captured by John C. Frémont; and in later years the famous white elephants of Siam. Few people really cared whether the elephants owed their color to art rather than nature, even when the whitewash began to fade. No one minded being taken in by the Prince of Humbugs.
When exhibitions began to pall, Barnum experimented with melodrama and variety acts in his sumptuous Lecture Room. He was prepared to stage anything-so long as it was highly moral-and he gradually evolved a program with two and three performances a day which won his show-place still greater popularity. In midsummer of 1843 we find him advertising Chang Fong, the Chinese juggler; the inimitable Winchell, famous for "Droll, quizzical, mirth-provoking impersonations"; a knittingmachine run by a dog; and the Ethiopian Serenaders, with "six performers, each one of whom is a professor of Music."
Urban workers and country farmers were not the only visitors. When a Canadian giant was exhibited, the aristocratic Philip Hone, one-time mayor, made careful measurements of this natural phenomenon, reporting in his diary that the 619-pound monstrosity had ankles three feet five inches around. He went repeatedly to see General Tom Thumb. Upon the midget's return from his triumphal foreign tour ("kissed by a million pairs of the sweetest lips in Europe"), Mr. Hone proudly noted that Tom Thumb spoke to him by name.
From the portals of the Museum went out scores of traveling exhibitions which gave Barnum his nation-wide fame. Some of them were authentic, some of them cleverly faked. There was no denying the genuineness of the giants and midgets. Possibly the bearded lady was a border-line case, although her whiskers were guaranteed "to put at a single glance all incredulity at defiance." But there were also Joice Heth, whom Barnum blandly claimed to have been the nurse of George Washington; the notorious Woolly Horse, supposedly captured by John C. Frémont; and in later years the famous white elephants of Siam. Few people really cared whether the elephants owed their color to art rather than nature, even when the whitewash began to fade. No one minded being taken in by the Prince of Humbugs.
When exhibitions began to pall, Barnum experimented with melodrama and variety acts in his sumptuous Lecture Room. He was prepared to stage anything-so long as it was highly moral-and he gradually evolved a program with two and three performances a day which won his show-place still greater popularity. In midsummer of 1843 we find him advertising Chang Fong, the Chinese juggler; the inimitable Winchell, famous for "Droll, quizzical, mirth-provoking impersonations"; a knittingmachine run by a dog; and the Ethiopian Serenaders, with "six performers, each one of whom is a professor of Music."
Barnum represented democracy in public entertainment much as Andrew Jackson had represented it in politics
WHILE THE THEATRE CONTINUED TO BROADEN ITS POPULAR appeal, it faced the increasing competition of other forms of commercial entertainment. By the 1850's almost every city had a museum with a jumbled collection of curiosities, dead and alive, and a program of concerts and variety acts which could be seen for twenty-five or fifty cents. At scores of music-halls bands of black-faced comedians broke happily into the "Lucy Long Walk Around" or plaintively sang "Old Black Joe" as a phenomenal rage for minstrelsy swept the land. And into towns and villages from Maine to Georgia, westward to the Mississippi, rolled the red and gold wagons housing the properties of what was to become one of America's great institutions-the circus.
Phineas T. Barnum stands out as the leading figure of this period in amusing the populace. No struggle between dramatic standards and popular taste ever troubled the master showman of them all. He was not one whit interested in art; he was interested in entertainment. He recognized the potential market in the restless urban masses. With uncanny prescience he sensed what they wanted, or could be made to want, and gave it to them. He gave it enthusiastically, generously, lavishly -- whether Jenny Lind, the country's pioneer baby show, or his Grand Colossal Museum and Menagerie. Nor did Mr. Barnum ever wait for his public to become bored; he believed in infinite variety. The Feejee mermaid gave way to General Tom Thumb, General Tom Thumb to the Bearded Lady, the Bearded Lady to Campagnolian Bell Ringers. His American Museum took in everything from trained fleas to panoramas of the Holy Land. James Gordon Bennett called him the Napoleon of Public Caterers: he always provided a good show, and the eager, unsophisticated, amusement-hungry public of his day loved it.
Barnum represented democracy in public entertainment much as Andrew Jackson had represented it in politics. Government in the interests of the common man, amusements in the interests of the common man. No one did more to promote the leveling influence of popular recreation. The theatre had tried to compromise. It staged its equestrian dramas, its burlesques, its extravaganzas, but it was always trying to get back to Shakespeare, looking a little down its nose at the raucous taste of the lower half-million. Mr. Barnum was out to take the lower half-million into camp, and he succeeded because his methods were direct and simple. The democratic masses followed his lead as docilely as the Irish visitors at his Museum followed the sign "to the Egress" -- and found themselves in the street. For though sometimes he outrageously fooled his public, put over elaborate hoaxes, they enjoyed it hugely.
It was all highly educational and strictly moral-the exhibitions in his museum, the strange curiosities touring the country under his sponsorship, the variety acts staged in his sumptuous lecture-room. When the old lady from Dubuque asked him when the service began, the great showman soberly told her that the congregation were already taking their seats. Spellbound country folk who delighted in his presentations of The Drunkard and Uncle Tom's Cabin would have been horrified at the suggestion that they had attended the theatre.
This skilful exploitation of the prejudices of his day was one of the secrets of Barnum's success. The gospel of work, the urge for self-education, religious disapproval of amusements, never hampered his activities. The theatre struggled against the spirit of the times. Barnum capitalized it. The "chaste scenic entertainments" of his lecture-room were generously staged for "all those who disapprove of the dissipations, debaucheries, profanity, vulgarity, and other abominations, which characterize our modern theatres." Not a thought would be breathed in his museum, let alone act performed or word uttered, that could bring a blush to the cheek of modesty. The Puritan in entertainment, Barnum proudly recorded that "even Shakespeare's dramas were shorn of their objectionable features when placed upon my stage." He saw sermons in circus elephants and preached them to the discomfiture of rival managers. No one better understood the temper of the Victorian era.
Phineas T. Barnum stands out as the leading figure of this period in amusing the populace. No struggle between dramatic standards and popular taste ever troubled the master showman of them all. He was not one whit interested in art; he was interested in entertainment. He recognized the potential market in the restless urban masses. With uncanny prescience he sensed what they wanted, or could be made to want, and gave it to them. He gave it enthusiastically, generously, lavishly -- whether Jenny Lind, the country's pioneer baby show, or his Grand Colossal Museum and Menagerie. Nor did Mr. Barnum ever wait for his public to become bored; he believed in infinite variety. The Feejee mermaid gave way to General Tom Thumb, General Tom Thumb to the Bearded Lady, the Bearded Lady to Campagnolian Bell Ringers. His American Museum took in everything from trained fleas to panoramas of the Holy Land. James Gordon Bennett called him the Napoleon of Public Caterers: he always provided a good show, and the eager, unsophisticated, amusement-hungry public of his day loved it.
Barnum represented democracy in public entertainment much as Andrew Jackson had represented it in politics. Government in the interests of the common man, amusements in the interests of the common man. No one did more to promote the leveling influence of popular recreation. The theatre had tried to compromise. It staged its equestrian dramas, its burlesques, its extravaganzas, but it was always trying to get back to Shakespeare, looking a little down its nose at the raucous taste of the lower half-million. Mr. Barnum was out to take the lower half-million into camp, and he succeeded because his methods were direct and simple. The democratic masses followed his lead as docilely as the Irish visitors at his Museum followed the sign "to the Egress" -- and found themselves in the street. For though sometimes he outrageously fooled his public, put over elaborate hoaxes, they enjoyed it hugely.
It was all highly educational and strictly moral-the exhibitions in his museum, the strange curiosities touring the country under his sponsorship, the variety acts staged in his sumptuous lecture-room. When the old lady from Dubuque asked him when the service began, the great showman soberly told her that the congregation were already taking their seats. Spellbound country folk who delighted in his presentations of The Drunkard and Uncle Tom's Cabin would have been horrified at the suggestion that they had attended the theatre.
This skilful exploitation of the prejudices of his day was one of the secrets of Barnum's success. The gospel of work, the urge for self-education, religious disapproval of amusements, never hampered his activities. The theatre struggled against the spirit of the times. Barnum capitalized it. The "chaste scenic entertainments" of his lecture-room were generously staged for "all those who disapprove of the dissipations, debaucheries, profanity, vulgarity, and other abominations, which characterize our modern theatres." Not a thought would be breathed in his museum, let alone act performed or word uttered, that could bring a blush to the cheek of modesty. The Puritan in entertainment, Barnum proudly recorded that "even Shakespeare's dramas were shorn of their objectionable features when placed upon my stage." He saw sermons in circus elephants and preached them to the discomfiture of rival managers. No one better understood the temper of the Victorian era.
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