American Theater

The 19th century was a time of change for Americans. The civil war took place in the 19th century which divided our country into two sides. Theater plays helped the people get through the war and hard times throughout all of history. The 19th century was a time of great change for American theater (19th century).
The Civil war is just one historical event of the 19th century. The civil war began on April 12, 1861 (Axelrod 4). It lasted four years (Axelrod intro). Slavery was one of the many causes of the war, but it was not the cause of the war (Axelrod 3). Over 1.5 million soldiers fought for the union army or the “north” and approximately 850,000 fought for the confederate army or the “south” (Axelrod intro). There were over 1.1 million causalities during the war which equaled 36% of America’s total population. A total of about 21% of the nation’s young men were killed during this war (Axelrod intro). The civil war did not really affect the theater; however, some theaters were forced to shut down for a year (19th century). Culture is also a big deal in the 19th century. The Population was greatly increasing and Americans had better standards of living (19th century). Small towns and communities became popular with plays and drew in many rural communities (Poole 141). Those small towns also created a theater culture creating ideas of what it means to be an “American” (Poole 141). Another factor that helped the spread of theaters and dramas were small businesses that promoted the plays (19th century). One of the more popular 19th century American plays was Uncle Tom’s Cabin (19th century). The new 19th century culture created many performance places called opera houses (Poole 141). Agriculture is also important in the 19th ...

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...t is when a counts daughter sleeps with a servant then commits suicide (Stokenstrom 39). “Like what the hake who does that” (George). 19th century plays usually involved divided heritage (Stokenstrom 39). Miss Julie was finished by Strindberg in August 1888 (Stokenstrom 39). Strindberg was determined to experiment new theater forms and expressions in this play (Stokenstrom 42). Strindberg viewed the theater as “in crisis” and he believed it lost its representability (Stokenstrom 40).
The 19th century was a time of change for the American theater. Miss Julie was a play made by Strindberg to try to change how dramas are viewed so this just proves that people in the 19th century were looking for change and improvement. I believe that Strindberg saw everything changing around him and figured what the hake I'm going to try something different too and wrote Miss Julie.