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Tom Shows
Tom show is a general term for any play or musical based (often only loosely) on the 1852 novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The novel attempts to depict the harsh reality of slavery. Due to the weak copyright laws at the time, a number of unauthorized plays based on the novel were staged for decades, many of them mocking the novel's strong characters and social message, and leading to the pejorative term "Uncle Tom". Even though ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, far more Americans of that time saw the story in a stage play or musical than read the book."People & Events: Uncle Tom's Cabin Takes the Nation by Storm" ''Stephen Foster'', The American Experience, PBS, accessed April 19, 2007. In 1902, it was reported th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers cues to the audience of the drama being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, ''melodramas'' are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnum's American Museum
Barnum's American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway, Park Row, and Ann Street in what is now the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P. T. Barnum, who purchased Scudder's American Museum in 1841. The museum offered both strange and educational attractions and performances. Some were extremely reputable and historically or scientifically valuable, while others were less so. History In 1841, Barnum acquired the building and natural history collection of Scudder's American Museum for less than half of its appraised value with the financial support of Francis Olmsted, by quickly purchasing it the day after the soon to be buyers, the Peale Museum Company, failed to make their payment. He converted the five-story exterior into an advertisement lit with limelight. The museum opened on January 1, 1842. Its attractions made it a combination zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and freak show, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most populous city in the country. The city boundaries encompass an area of about and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. It is the seat of Suffolk County (although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999). The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest MSA in the country. A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Providence, Rhode Island, is home to approximately 8.2 million people, making it the sixth most populous in the United States. Boston is one of the oldest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany metropolitan statistical area, which has a population of 1,170,483. At the 2020 census, the population of Troy was 51,401. Troy's motto is ''Ilium fuit, Troja est'', which means "Ilium was, Troy is". Today, Troy is home to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest private engineering and technical university in the US, founded in 1824. It is also home to Emma Willard School, an all-girls high school started by Emma Willard, a women's education activist, who sought to create a school for girls equal to their male counterparts. Due to the confluence of major waterways and a geography that supported water power ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B'hoy And G'hal
''B'hoy'' and ''g'hal'' (meant to evoke an Irish pronunciation of ''boy'' and ''gal'', respectively) were the prevailing slang words used to describe the young men and women of the rough-and-tumble working class culture of Lower Manhattan in the late 1840s and into the period of the American Civil War. They spoke a slang, with phrases such as "hi-hi", "lam him", and "cheese it". Etymology The word b'hoy was first used in 1846. In the United States it was a colloquialism for "spirited lad" and "young spark". The word originates from the Irish pronunciation of boy. Theatrical examples The prototypical artistic representation of a b'hoy came in 1848, when Frank Chanfrau played the character Mose the Fireboy in Benjamin A. Baker's ''A Glance at New York''. Mose is a pugilistic Irish volunteer fireman. T. Allston Brown gives this description: He stood there in his red shirt, with his fire coat thrown over his arm, the stovepipe hat — better known as a "plug" — drawn down over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital media, digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as ''The Daily (podcast), The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones (publisher), George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times, 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked List of newspapers by circulation, 18th in the world by circulation and List of newspapers in the United States, 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is Public company, publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 189 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cordelia Howard
Cordelia Howard ( – ) was a child actor on the American stage. Her most famous role was as Little Eva in the stage adaptation of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin.'' One commentator wrote "The name of Little Cordelia has become synonymous with that of Little Eva." Cordelia Howard was born on in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of actor and theatrical producer George C. Howard and actress Caroline Emily Fox Howard. Her first stage role was in 1850, as a fairy sprite in the opera ''The Mountain Sylph.'' She originated the role of Little Eva in George L. Aiken's 1852 stage adaptation of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin,'' with her mother as Topsy and her father as Augustine St. Clare. The play was immensely popular, and Howard starred in Little Eva for hundreds of performances, continuing in the role until she was a teenager. She also starred as Little Dick and Pearl in stage adaptations of ''Oliver Twist'' and ''The Scarlet Letter,'' as well as the title character in the temperance play '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spirit Of The Times
The ''Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage'' was an American weekly newspaper published in New York City. The paper aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The ''Spirit'' also included humorous material, much of it based on experience of settlers near the southwestern frontier. Theatre news was a third important component. The ''Spirit'' had an average circulation of about 22,000, with a peak of about 40,000 subscribers.Gorn 67. Life of the paper William T. Porter and his brothers started the ''Spirit of the Times'' in 1831. They sought an upper-class readership, stating in one issue that the ''Spirit'' was "designed to promote the views and interests of but an infinitesimal division of those classes of society composing the great mass . . . . " They modeled the paper on ''Bell's Life in London'', a high-class English journal. Subscriptions rose from $2 to $5 in 1836, followed in 1839 by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowery Theatre
The Bowery Theatre was a playhouse on the Bowery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populist, pro-American management of Thomas Hamblin in the 1830s and 1840s. By the 1850s, the theatre came to cater to immigrant groups such as the Irish, Germans, and Chinese. It burned down four times in 17 years, a fire in 1929 destroying it for good. Although the theatre's name changed several times (Thalia Theatre, Fay's Bowery Theatre, etc.), it was generally referred to as the "Bowery Theatre". Founding and early management By the mid-1820s, wealthy settler families in the new ward that was made fashionable by the opening of Lafayette Street, parallel to the Bowery, wanted easy access to fashionable high-class European drama, then only available at the Park Theatre. Under the leadership of Henry Astor, they formed the New York Associati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late 19th century, banning discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965. In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of ''Plessy vs. Ferguson'', in which the Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine concerning faciliti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. There have been attempts to legitimize racist beliefs through scientific means, such as scientific racism, which have been overwhelmingly shown to be unfounded. In terms of political systems (e.g. apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices or laws, racist ideology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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