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B.F. Keith and the Origins of American Vaudeville

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Robert C. Allen
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Extract

The origins and early development of American vaudeville remain shrouded in the fog of nineteenth-century theatre history. Most historical accounts focus upon the evolution of vaudeville from entertainments performed in honky-tonks, beer gardens, and “concert saloons” of the 1860s and 1870s. Itinerant artists were hired to keep customers in a drinking mood with jigs, songs, acrobatics, and jokes. According to Douglas Gilbert, the audience for “variety,” as the sum of these peripatetic performers was then called, consisted of “tosspots, strumpets, dark-alley lads, and shimmers.” Few “respectable” men would dare venture into such places because of the drunkenness of the audience and the salacious nature of the entertainment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , November 1980 , pp. 105 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1980

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References

NOTES

1 Gilbert, Douglas, American Vaudeville: Its Life and Times (New York: Dover, 1940), p. 10.Google Scholar

2 Zellers, Parker, “Tony Pastor: Manager and Impresario of the American Variety Stage,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Iowa, 1964, p. 87.Google Scholar

3 New York Clipper, December 14, 1872, p. 294.

4 Boston Herald, January 14, 1883, p. 3.

5 Boston Herald, February 11, 1883, p. 7.

6 Boston Herald, February 25, 1883, p. 9.

7 Boston Herald, April 1, 1883, p. 7.

8 Boston Herald, May 20, 1883, p. 11.

9 Ibid.

10 Harris, Neil, Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1973), p. 34.Google Scholar

11 Tucker, Louis L., “Ohio Show-Shop: The Western Museum of Cincinnati 1820–1867,” in A Cabinet of Curiosities, ed. by Bell, Whitfield J. Jr, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), p. 75.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 85.

13 Harris, p. 33.

14 Ibid., p. 104.

15 O'Dell, George C.D., Annals of the New York Stage, Vol X (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), P. 484.Google Scholar

16 Allston Brown, T., “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, August 5, 1893, p. 348.Google Scholar

17 King's How to See Boston: A Trustworthy Guide Book (Boston: Macullen, Parker, and Co., 1895), p. 104.

18 Ibid., p. 108.

19 Duis, Perry R., “The Saloon and the Public City: Chicago and Boston 1880–1970,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1975, pp. 164, 488–489.Google Scholar

20 McLean, Albert, “Genesis of Vaudeville: Two Letters from B.F. Keith,” Theatre Survey 1 (1960), 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Boston Herald, September 16, 1883, p. 11.

22 New York Clipper, December 29, 1883, p. 697.

23 New York Clipper, June 7, 1884, p. 187, Boston Herald, June 1, p. 10; June 15, p. 10.

24 New York Clipper, July 26, 1884, p. 198.

25 Handbill, September 27, 1884, Rare Book Room, Boston Public Library.

26 Temporarily, at least; he did leave for Providence several years later.

27 Boston Herald, December 28, 1884, p. 10.

28 New York Clipper, January 10, 1885, p. 679.

29 New York Clipper, March 21, 1885, p. 4.

30 Boston Herald, April 18, 1885, p. 10; April 26, p. 10; May 10, p. 10.

31 Clapp, William W., “The Drama in Boston,” in Memorial History of Boston: 1630–1880, ed. Windsor, Justin, Vol. IV (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1883), pp. 358–360.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 365.

33 McGlinchee, Claire, The First Decade of the Boston Museum (Boston: Bruce Humphries, Inc., 1941), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., p. 45.

35 Keith and Batchellcr's did business from ten in the morning until ten at night.

36 Quoted in McLean, p. 85.

37 Quoted in McLean, p. 86.

38 Boston Herald, July 12, 1885, p. 10.

39 Boston Herald, August 30, 1885, p. 10.

40 New York Clipper, July 11, 1885, p. 265.