The Pleasure Gardens of Antebellum America and the Performance of American Identities
Item
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Title
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The Pleasure Gardens of Antebellum America and the Performance of American Identities
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:d28c45a9b287:11400
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identifier
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11478
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Creator
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Stubbs, Naomi J.,
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Contributor
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Judith Milhous
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater history | American studies | Theater studies | Recreation | American | Class | Culture | Pleasure gardens | Popular entertainments | Race
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Abstract
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Pleasure gardens (outdoor, privately-owned entertainment venues) were popular in a number of European cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically-overlooked, the American exemplars have been assumed to be inconsequential and mere imitations of the English venues. However, I argue that pleasure gardens were important venues for citizens of the newly-formed nation to define through performance what it meant to be American. Focusing on performance as role playing and as providing opportunities to test identities, this study examines the practices of proprietors, patterns of patronage, and staged entertainments of twelve American pleasure gardens operating within five east-coast cities.;The unique manner in which pleasure gardens addressed concerns with the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the nation is explored by examining the geographic locations of the various sites. Investigating but ultimately dismissing the claim that American pleasure gardens were the same as English venues, I then examine how American national identities were tested through simultaneous adoption and rejection of English associations. I add to this discussion a study of the use of the gardens for patriotic events and activities. I then turn to focus on class roles and the relationship between class and performance, followed by a study of how issues of racial and ethnic American identities were addressed within the gardens through enactments, plays, and dances. This study concludes by examining the legacy of pleasure gardens in American popular entertainment, positing concert saloons, roof garden theatres, vaudeville, world's fairs, public parks, and amusement parks as successors to pleasure gardens.;Though American pleasure gardens have been largely neglected to date, and difficult to pin down due to scarce resources, this study highlights the value of studying these "rural retreats." In addition to their centrality to performances of American identities during a time of fervent national identity negotiation, I demonstrate that the pleasure gardens of America have contributed to such fundamental aspects of American culture as fireworks on the Fourth of July, vaudeville, and theme parks.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Theatre
