| Before we examine the modern American entertainment industry, |
| Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, rock concerts, television, and all that, |
| let's take a short look at the beginnings of organized entertainment in America. |
| Almost since the very beginning of the country, |
| Americans had been able to enjoy itinerant performances of one kind or another, |
| shows that travelled around to find their audiences, in towns and villages across the continent. |
| Travelling medicine shows, offering jugglers and music along with their snake oil and miracle tonics, were popular. |
| Then there were Buffalo Bill Cody's 'Wild West Shows', |
| with trick riders and dramatic re-enactments, which toured the country, |
| as did several circuses like Barnum and Bailey's. |
| And then there were the showboats, paddle-wheelers carried music and comedy up and down our river systems, |
| up and down the Mississippi River and the Missouri River, and the Ohio River. |
| Meanwhile, town halls, saloons and music halls, dime museums and burlesque houses, |
| all sprang up across the country, wherever people had some money to burn and were looking for a little fun. |
| But then, after the Civil War, after 1865, |
| America's social structure began to change, change radically. |
| The country began to grow economically, and its cities began to grow, |
| and an American middle class began to develop, with increased spending power and leisure time. |
| This was also a time of industrial growth, and transportation and communication technologies improved rapidly. |
| Businesses became large and national in scope. |
| And it was at this same time that entertainment became an industry, with the appearance of Vaudeville. |
| Vaudeville was something new, the first mass entertainment, |
| in that it no longer catered to just the gullible or to those looking for the risque. |
| From its inception, it was geared toward middle-class men and women and families |
| and it very quickly spread nationwide. |
| Its performance halls were alcohol-free and its hall managers demanded decorum, |
| no spitting on the floor or jeering the acts, |
| and its performers were denied the use of bawdy material. |
| Vaudeville was the first family entertainment. |
| Theatre historians usually date Vaudeville's beginning at October 24th, 1881, |
| when a former circus ringmaster, Tony Pastor, |
| first offered 'polite' variety programs in his New York City theatres. |
| Pastor hoped to draw his audience from the uptown shopping traffic, |
| from the salaried workers and their wives and children. |
| He barred alcohol sales and risque material from his theatres, |
| and he offered luxurious facilities, |
| and he gave out door prizes like hams and coal to his patrons, |
| and his idea proved so successful that other theatre managers soon followed suit. |
| Incredibly, by the 1890s, |
| Vaudeville has already developed into regional and national chains of theatres, |
| with sophisticated booking and contract systems. |
| At its height, Vaudeville performed before a broad range of theatre sizes and economic classes, |
| the so-called 'small time', and 'medium time', and 'big time'. |
| And it was the 'big time' that all of its entertainers hoped to rise to: |
| the Big Time, with its palatial urban theatres and its salaries of several thousand dollars a week! |
| An act could be just about anything that was entertaining and inoffensive, |
| escape artists like the great Houdini, |
| high divers, contortionists, hypnotists, lap dancers, trained animals, |
| every imaginable kind of novelty act. |
| And of course, there were the headliners, |
| the singers and dancers and comedians whose popularity drew the customers. |
| Some of their careers outlasted Vaudeville. |
| WC Fields, Will Rogers, Al Jolsen, Kate Smith, |
| Eddie Cantor, George Burns, Jack Benny, |
| these names you might not recognize now, |
| but they were some of the greatest Vaudevillians, who went on as far as the early years of movies and then television, |
| and set the performance standards in those media as well, |
| who set many of the performance styles we still enjoy today. |
| At the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1902, |
| the new medium of the motion picture, an early silent movie, |
| was first incorporated into a Vaudeville bill between the live acts. |
| Thirty years later, on November 16th, 1932, |
| New York's Palace Theatre, the capital of Vaudeville, |
| offered its first exclusively cinematic presentation, |
| and this is considered Vaudeville's official end, |
| the point in time where movies overtook live performances in the hearts of American audiences. |
| For Vaudeville itself, it was a relatively brief stardom, |
| only about fifty years from start to finish, |
| but actually, the spirit of Vaudeville lived on. |
| Its performers moved into the movies or onto Broadway, |
| and then many of these stars moved on to television. |
| And we'll be looking at these media next. |