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Touring Patterns on California's Theatrical Frontier, 1849–1859
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
From its beginning, America was a frontier. Initially, the Eastern Seaboard was a frontier for Europe, and this was still true in 1750 when professional theatre began to be a regular feature of American life. Within a century the variables changed, but were still bound together in the frontier equation. By 1850 the trans-Mississippi West had become a frontier for urban centers in the East. In particular, the North-Central region of California sprang into popular consciousness: here was the ultimate undeveloped area to which one could migrate in the search for economic competence. As America's first major mining frontier it offered a prospect of sudden wealth which was far more appealing than the slow seasonal accumulation of agriculture, and which did not require the large initial investment of industry.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1974
References
Notes
1 The standard work is Gagey, Edmund M., The San Francisco Stage (New York, 1950)Google Scholar; much useful additional information can be found in San Francisco Theatre Research, ed. Estavan, Laurence, 18 vols. [numbered I–XVII, XX] (San Francisco, 1938–1942)Google Scholar.
2 The standard works are MacMinn, George R., The Theatre of the Golden Era in California (Caldwell, Idaho, 1941)Google Scholar, and Rourke, Constance, Troupers of the Gold Coast (New York, 1928)Google Scholar.
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