Vaudeville was a premier source of entertainment for many Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century. Vaudeville theaters around the United States consisted of a variety of acts from singers and comedians to animal trainers and human marvels. In this paper I will take a look at some of the most intriguing acts I could find. Such acts include celebrities, humans performing incredible feats like surviving being shot by a cannon multiple times or spewing flames, and the so called missing link between man and ape.
When looking for some of the more interesting Vaudeville performers one that immediately stuck out to me was that of Painless Parker. Painless Parker or Edgar Parker, his original name, was a practicing dentist who distracted his patients from the pain of tooth pulling by the use of showgirls, brass bands, and even some whiskey or cocaine-based “hydrocaine” (Meier). After graduating from the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia in 1892, Parker returned to his hometown in Canada to practice dentistry (Meier). Soon after he discovered there was not much business to be had in Canada and took his practice to the road to the United States becoming the “P.T. Barnum of dentistry” (Enemark and Thuras).
In the United States, Parker's Vaudeville act traveled throughout the country in his horse-drawn wagon to not only give medical care but to give them a show too (Meier). Parker promised painless extraction of teeth for fifty cents and if the extraction was not painless he would refund his patient five dollars, which is equivalent to $115 dollars today (Enemark and Thuras). Parker became world renowned for his painless extractions which had several procedural aspects. These were the showgirls, singing, dancin...
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Felton, Bruce. What Were They Thinking?: Really Bad Ideas Throughout History. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot, 2007. Google Books. Google, Inc. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.
"Krao the Missing Link." British Library. The British Library Board, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Meier, Allison. "Curious Fact of the Week: When Dental Work Came with Song, Dance, and Cocaine." Atlas Obscura. Atlas Obscura, 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Pednaud, Tithonus. "Frank 'Cannonball Richards – Punching Bag'." The Human Marvels. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
Pednaud, Tithonus. "Krao - The Missing Link." The Human Marvels. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Vitelli, Romeo, Dr. "The Missing Link." Providentia. N.p., 04 Oct. 2009. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Wallechinsky, David. The People's Almanac Presents The Book of Lists. Toronto: Bantam, 1978. Print.
Vaudeville was very popular from the late 1800s to the early 1900s in North America. Vaudeville shows were made up of many random acts that were placed together in a common play bill. Some acts were, for example, plays, clowns, jugglers, comedians, etc. Once the radio was introduced, vaudeville’s started to become less popular as the radio’s popularity started to increase. The radio started out with maximum five programs but as the demand for radios increased so did the amount of programs, which went up to almost 500. Radios was the place families and friends gathered to hear the news, sporting events, music, entertainment, etc. One show millions of people listened to was The Burns and Allen Show, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen. Allen was the one who had all the punch lines and was very silly and Burns was the straight man, serious, and was the one who allowed Allen the opportunity to say her punch lines. Burns and Allen were one of the few people who succeeded in different medians and brought changes to the way entertainment was performed.
Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly. Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Shakespeare’s shows have been performed throughout the world including Great Britain. They have been seen in the Globe Theatre in London since the Elizabethan times.
Slapstick enables the beleaguered audience to stay here on earth and have the best good time; with a perfect sense of completeness, the clown’s martyrdom becomes the good time the audience is having. The significance of the silent era in film history cannot be overstated. During the first decades of the twentieth century, a truly commercial popular art emerged bound closely to the image of a modern America. Movie making luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton lead the way of comic cinema with their unforgettable films. Regardless of the development of synchronized sound, the era drew to a close, but the modes of production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption inaugurated during the silent film era persisted, creating the film industry, as we know it
Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Google Books. Web. 1 May 2014.
Since theatre was established as an art form, it has constantly been changing and developing as new methods of theatre styles came to light. This is also true with how musical theatre developed into how we know it today. Vaudeville and burlesque were forms of theatre in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that forged the way for the American musical to emerge. The elements that writers used from vaudeville allowed for not just musical acts to be performed during the course of the story, but eventually became a way for the story to further be told. The American musical was not always as big as it is today, and vaudeville and burlesque acts made it possible for such a type of performance style to develop. Musical writers used multiple elements, not just the song element, in their stories. This change did not just happen overnight. The evolution from vaudeville and burlesque was a gradual one, taking years to further develop the performance styles into the Broadway musical we can see today.
Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs and Jon Gjerde. edit., Major Problems in American History: Volume 1 to 1877. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.
The variety of dental instruments that have been invented since the beginning of basic dentistry till modern times is enormous. Dentistry has been around since the Ancient Egyptians, the firsts known dentist was Hesy-Re, who has inscribed on one of his tomb walls “the greatest of those who deal with teeth”. Onward from Hesy-Re, the focus on dental health became a concern, however, it was not till about the end of the 1700’s that dentistry was regarded as true profession. Dentistry during the American Civil War was not the initial interest of the time, the focus was of course on the injured men who would come off the battle field. When one thinks of Civil War medicine they may tend to think of amputations and treating bullet wounds. However,
Flory, Harriette, and Samuel Jenike. A World History: The Modern World. Volume 2. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 42.
There were many factors that contributed to the changes made to the Broadway theaters in the 20th Century. Broadway faced many problems during the time period of 1945-1955, resolved by numerous different solutions. This included impacts of World War II and the Great Depression, the decline in audience interest and the loss of many actors and producers.
After the treatment and procedure is complete, patients leave with healthier, more beautiful teeth, giving them the confidence to ask someone out on a date or the confidence to smile on an important job interview. Dentistry is and has been for centuries, an important aspect of people’s ...
Perry, M., Davis, D., Harris, J., Laue, T. V., & Warren, D. J. (1985). A history of the world (Revised Edition ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Elizabethan times in the 1600s was a progression for the world of the theater. A period named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, it is from this period that modern day society has its foundation for the entertainment industry. From the violence that was prevalent because of the Black Death, people turned to the theater for its poetry and romance. During this time period, there were two types of theatrical performances that were available for the people’s viewing, comedies or tragedies. These two genres were never really intertwined until the time of William Shakespeare. His play, Romeo and Juliet, is an example of both a comedy and a tragedy. It starts off as a comedy with Romeo weeping like a baby because of his love Rosaline, who did not love him back and ends as a tragedy when Romeo and Juliet, a pair of star crossed lovers, commit suicide because the lost of each other. It was also during Shakespeare’s time that writer were finally acknowledged by the people. Before this time, writers were not considered upper classman. Another group of people that began to rise into a higher social class were the actors. Actresses were not present back then because women were not allowed on stage. It was considered unladylike to have a female actor. Men played all the parts. Theater owners were dependent on actors to make them a profit. Rehearsals for the plays were fairly short, only lasting for about a week. The performances themselves would only show for three to four days.
Ideology, Knowledge and the escalation of new ideas led to a better life and society that made positive impacts on Western Civilizations. There were many idea’s that were explored and implement into the daily lives of the people and for the most part it turned out to be a good impact. Although there were some bad ideas that caused suffering to the society at the time. They learned from what they witnessed and created something that would work better for the most part. In this essay I am going to use some primary sources that support my idea that society benefited from the new “ideas” but I will also use an example to explain how it caused a negative impact too.
Although it started out as just another type of dance, Kabuki eventually emerged into an important and fascinating theatre where elaborate makeup and costumes combined to put on entertaining performances for audiences throughout the centuries.