During the colonial period theater was a place for gentry, during the early republic a place for political debate and contest between classes, but in the Jacksonian era, roughly 1825 to 1850, theater belonged to the common man. The rowdy nineteenth-century audiences so often recounted in colorful tales were the young working men of this era. Now the working class constituted a large enough market to sustain their own theaters, and the young men were the most avid theatergoers among them. These young men exercised sovereignty not through patronage, as gentry had, but through vocal expression of their will and enforcement through physical assault. This was the ultimate “active” audience. They participated in collective action more than public debate. They brought the street into the theater, rather than shaping the theater into an arena of the public sphere. Elites would be increasingly concerned about containing them.

The privileged were disinclined to engage these ruffians and instead increasingly sought refuge in more exclusive gatherings. Gustave de Beaumont, travel companion of Tocqueville, claimed that, in Philadelphia in 1831–32, “Persons more distinguished in fortune and position do not make theatergoing a habit; only something out of the ordinary will attract them there – for example, the presence of a celebrated guest actor.” While this may have overstated their absence, clearly they had reduced their past support of theater. Classes were increasingly at odds with each other in theaters and increasingly the upper classes sought their own theaters, segmenting entertainment by class.