Chapter 11—Amusing the Masses

Benjamin McArthur

There is a distinction between recreation and amusement. Recreation, when true to its name, re-creation, tends to strengthen and build up.... Amusement, on the other hand, is sought for the sake of pleasure and is often carried to excess; it absorbs the energies that are required for useful work and thus proves a hindrance to life’s true success. —Education, 207.WEGW 177.1

America underwent the most fundamental changes of its history in the last half of the nineteenth century. Growth was the order of the day. The nation expanded to fill a continent, aided by a railroad system that linked Atlantic with Pacific. Population figures bounded upward, surpassing 50 million in 1880. Urban centers grew at a tremendous rate, owing in part to the massive European immigration. Moreover, American business and industry had entered its epic phase of expansion, with industrial output multiplying many times over. Taken together, these changes of scale added up to changes of kind: America was being transformed from a predominantly rural and agrarian nation to an urban and industrial one.WEGW 177.2

Not surprisingly, many who had come of age in an earlier period found these changes disturbing. For Ellen White (as for many others) one of the developments of greatest concern was the new prominence of commercial amusements in American life.WEGW 177.3

Popular amusements—theatricals, circus shows, sporting activities, and a host of other entertainment pursuits—were not new, of course, to the later nineteenth century. In various forms they had been enjoyed for centuries. But in the decade following the Civil War these amusements took on a new dimension, becoming a part of American life to a degree not seen before.WEGW 177.4

The reasons for the entertainment explosion are readily understood. Commercial amusements were, first and foremost, a result of urbanization. In rural societies people depended on themselves and their neighbors for recreation. Hunting, fishing, shooting matches, and horse races were favorite pastimes that were clearly related to skills of everyday life. Community gatherings for husking bees, house and barn raisings, and country fairs provided opportunity for music, dancing, drinking, and gossip. Rural entertainments were strongly rooted in the patterns of agricultural work and society from which they flowed.WEGW 178.1

The city, by contrast, encouraged a strict separation of its recreations from the other aspects of life. One might say that economic specialization (which is at the heart of urban life) led to a similar specialization in the realm of entertainment. City dwellers, rather than organizing their own entertainments, began looking to others to provide entertainment for them. Actors, black-faced minstrels, circus performers, vaudevillians, and athletes constituted an ever-larger group of entertainment specialists, not to mention the army of theater owners, managers, and promoters behind the scenes. The amusement industry became big business.WEGW 178.2

City life encouraged amusements in other ways. The repetitive yet intensive nature of office and factory work demanded a release through pleasure-seeking in free hours. Following the dull routine of a week’s labor, workers needed the stimulation of a baseball game or melodrama or sideshow at Coney Island. And the workweek, though long by today’s standard, was shortening for most urban Americans, from roughly 70 hours a week in the 1850s to about 60 by the end of the 1880s.WEGW 178.3

Furthermore, the Saturday half-holiday and Labor Day vacation offered leisure previously known only on Sundays. And for the prosperous middle class, the summer vacation became a popular institution in the years after the Civil War. In short, urban life provided both the opportunity and the incentive for amusements.WEGW 178.4

Late nineteenth-century American society offered a great many leisure activities, but space permits discussion of only a handful. We will examine several types of theatricals, (melodramas, vaudeville, and minstrel shows), the circus, and professional and college athletics. A brief look will also be taken at other amusements on which Ellen White comments directly, such as bicycling and the disreputable environment of pool halls, bowling alleys, dance halls, and saloons.WEGW 178.5

On the stage of America’s theaters one could see a wide range of offerings. The most respectable of all theatricals were the legitimate stage plays, particularly those classics of English drama by Shakespeare, Sheridan, or Goldsmith. Though Shakespeare was popular (usually in abridged form), the favorite of theatergoers were the action-packed melodramas, which flew off the pens of nineteenth-century dramatists in seemingly endless numbers. These plays were predictable in plot and structure (much like today’s television dramas), differing from one another only in the novel gimmicks upon which the plot turned. Each play had a hero and heroine, a villain, an ingenue and her young sweetheart, some ethnic or otherwise laughable characters for comic relief, and utility players to round out the cast.WEGW 179.1

In the world of melodrama, virtue triumphed over vice. Distinctions of right and wrong, good and bad, were clearly drawn. There was no question regarding the nobility or wickedness of each character. Melodrama intended not to present its viewers with moral dilemmas but rather to reaffirm the widely shared Victorian standards of morality.WEGW 179.2

The most popular American melodrama was undoubtedly the stage adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. First produced in 1852, its greatest popularity actually came after the Civil War, when theatrical companies devoted exclusively to playing it toured the nation. Uncle Tom’s Cabin exemplified the extreme sentimentality that formed the core of melodrama’s appeal. This polemic against slavery was filled with family separations, unjust cruelty, and tearful death scenes. It played upon the emotions of its audience, piling crisis upon crisis until at last offering catharsis in its climactic scene. Slavery may have been dead, but it long continued to exert a strong tug on the country’s heartstrings.WEGW 179.3

As the years rolled on, the Uncle Tom shows had to elaborate on the plot to hold their audiences. Shows sometimes had two Uncle Toms, Simon Legrees, and Little Evas, hoping to double the public’s pleasure. Some shows also devised elaborate stage mechanisms whereby at the death scene of Little Eva she would be lifted up into the stage heavens accompanied by surrounding angels.WEGW 179.4

The years 1850 to 1920 are often considered the golden age of the American theater. Acting companies formed in New York City, then set out on tour of the country, traveling by train from city to town, playing to both large audiences in elegant theaters and small audiences in humble meeting halls. Some of the great names of the stage performed during these years. Edwin Booth (elder brother of John Wilkes Booth) was perhaps the finest tragedian ever to cross an American stage, most notable for his performance of Hamlet. Even more beloved was Joseph Jefferson III, who spent most of his career portraying Rip Van Winkle. Among the star actresses, Mary Anderson stood out, noted for her beauty and refined manner. Her career as a Shakespearean performer ended voluntarily upon her marriage. John Drew, Ethel Barrymore, Maude Adams, and William Gillette were just a few of the other stars that the public hungrily flocked to see.WEGW 180.1

Actors and actresses suffered under the stigma of their profession. They were thought to be an emotional, highly charged group of individuals. A life of pretending to be someone else was said to breed instability and a tendency for alcohol.WEGW 180.2

Moreover, the stage and its inhabitants had long been associated with immorality. The incidence of divorce and remarriage was high among actors in an age when such things were rare. Their reputation for the risqué was aided by the tendency of later nineteenth-century plays to portray romantic love more candidly and to deal with issues such as divorce. It was all very tame by modern standards, but to contemporaries such language and action indicated licentiousness. Consequently, respectable citizens generally did not keep company with actors.WEGW 180.3

But if they would not associate with them in private, the public loved to watch them onstage. As the 1800s drew to a close the Puritan legacy of hostility to the theater waned. Conservative Christians aside, most Americans had shed their aversions and embraced theatrical entertainments. Drama’s growing respectability was aided by purging prostitutes from the galleries; through much of the century prostitutes had found the theater a convenient place to ply their trade. The theater’s newfound decency encouraged proper middle-class women to patronize it.WEGW 180.4

In addition to plays, theaters sometimes hosted minstrel shows. The minstrel show was a genuine American contribution to the entertainment world—White men who darkened their faces and assumed the stereotyped behavior of Blacks. Minstrelsy appeared in the 1830s, shaped by Thomas Rice’s popular “Jim Crow” dance; it emerged in the 1840s and 1850s as the hottest show on stage. E. P. Christy’s Christy Minstrels, Dan Emmett’s Virginia Minstrels, and the Ethiopian Serenaders were among the leading troupes, but there were scores of companies touring the nation. The Civil War and the ending of slavery scarcely reduced the demand for blackface entertainment; in the 1870s and 1880s the biggest companies ever assembled, such as Haverly’s United Mastodon Minstrels, traveled the circuit. A number of these later minstrel companies were composed of genuine Blacks, who found applause and relative wealth through self-deprecating humor.WEGW 181.1

The minstrel show was fast-paced and composed of both comedy and music. Though later shows varied the format, in its purest form minstrelsy had a well-defined order. The five or so performers, in resplendent costume, sat on chairs facing the audience. The interlocutor, with his hilariously stilted language, served as leader and emcee, while the two end men, Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones, poked fun at his pomposity and recited outrageous puns. After a spell of this dialogue came a stump speech by one of the performers, a nonsensical discourse full of malaprops.WEGW 181.2

In addition to talk, music filled the show. Both sentimental and comic songs were performed. Some of America’s most beloved tunes were written originally for minstrel shows, including James B. Bland’s “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” Dan Emmett’s “Dixie,” and Stephen Foster’s familiar melodies.WEGW 181.3

The minstrel show generally maintained an air of propriety, avoiding the coarseness that could be found in other entertainments. It composed a bit of genuine Americana, and has influenced subsequent entertainment forms. Yet for all of that, it must be recognized that minstrelsy was based on an insidious caricature of Black culture. Its humor was a measure of the racism present in American life.WEGW 181.4

Another theatrical form, one which began in the 1870s and remained popular through the 1920s, was vaudeville. Vaudeville emerged from the less respectable variety and burlesque shows of earlier years. Theater owner and vaudeville pioneer Tony Pastor recognized that if he staged a more refined entertainment he could attract families and thus enlarge his audience. His prediction proved true; his theater rapidly became a center of family entertainment.WEGW 182.1

Imitators in New York and other cities followed his lead, and by the 1890s a network of vaudeville circuits covered the country. New York had 31 vaudeville houses in 1910, and Chicago had 30, testifying to its enormous popularity. Palatial theaters were constructed, utilizing rich draperies and gilded trim, to heighten the fantasies of patrons.WEGW 182.2

The hallmark of vaudeville entertainment was its variety. Animal acts, acrobats, jugglers, comedy teams, short sketches, balladeers, minstrels, bicycle riders, and roller skaters—almost anything one could imagine—were seen on vaudeville stages. Shrewd stage managers arranged the nine-act bill so that audience interest was maintained and built to a climax right before the final act.WEGW 182.3

The secret of vaudeville’s huge financial success was its continuous format, that is, a show was staged continuously from midday until night, going through a complete show several times. This allowed patrons to come and go at leisure, perhaps fitting an hour’s diversion into an otherwise busy afternoon of shopping or work. The modest admission discouraged few.WEGW 182.4

The fast-paced vaudeville show reflected the similarly fast-paced nature of city life. The audience, many of whom were recent arrivals in the city, unconsciously learned from the performers how one should dress, speak, and, in general, relate to urban life. Vaudeville, then, had a significant educative function, indicating that amusements were moving beyond being simple diversions to becoming an important influence on the American public.WEGW 182.5

A cousin to these theatrical entertainments was the circus. The modern circus evolved out of the combination of several amusements that had existed for centuries: menageries (displays of wild and exotic animals), equestrian performers, acrobats, and jugglers. By the late eighteenth century, some of these itinerant groups had merged, and with the addition of clowns, freaks, and sideshows, the circus as we know it had been born.WEGW 182.6

The golden age of the circus dates to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when some 40 circuses toured the country, led by the giants, P. T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth and James A. Bailey’s London Circus. Barnum’s circus was a mammoth affair, requiring 60 railroad cars to move it and employing an army of roustabouts to set up and take down the show. The administrative skill in running this detailed operation was so great that United States military officials came to study it in hopes of duplicating its efficiency.WEGW 183.1

Like some other amusements, the circus suffered an image problem caused by the pickpockets and thieves who mingled among circus patrons, the frequent fights between circus workers and customers, and the generally low repute in which circus folk were held by society. But as with the theatricals, circus promoters made a vigorous effort to clean up their shows and make them family entertainment.WEGW 183.2

Few events could match the excitement of the circus’s visit to town. Its arrival was announced by a parade down Main Street, a display to whet the appetite of every child and parent. Those lured under a big top were rarely disappointed. Viewers were dazzled by the profusion of entertainments going on simultaneously in the three rings: lion tamers, trained horses, death-defying acrobats, capering clowns, and always the elephants, whose simple presence was a never-ending fascination.WEGW 183.3

Outside the main tent, patrons could frequent the exotic sideshows, visit the candy and lemonade concessions, and absorb the carnival atmosphere. More than any other amusement of the day, the circus enveloped the patron in an atmosphere of the fantastic and the remote. In our day of television and motion picture, the exotic has become everyday, but to nineteenth-century Americans the circus provided visual experiences of things unknown to them.WEGW 183.4

Along with the theater and circus, Americans developed a taste for sports. Of course, certain sports had long been popular, but beginning around midcentury, America underwent a sports revolution that grew into the national obsession we know today.WEGW 183.5

The sporting scene became notable both for its variety and for its thorough organization, which was a marked departure from the informality of earlier games. Professional baseball and college football, in particular, gave evidence of the new importance of athletic contests in national life.WEGW 183.6

The origins of American baseball are shrouded. The legend of Abner Doubleday’s invention of the game is clearly overblown; more probably, the sport evolved out of several earlier English children’s games. At any rate, our form of baseball emerged in the mid-1840s, when Alexander Cartwright organized an amateur team and laid down the playing rules. In the 1850s and 1860s, leagues were formed, and amateur clubs traveled a circuit of towns to compete with one another. Though it had begun as a gentleman’s game, baseball became a favorite pastime of the Union Army during the Civil War and was thus democratized. The game captured the heart of the American male and soon became proclaimed the national pastime.WEGW 184.1

But with the growth of the game and the increasing pressure to win came the practice of hiring skilled players, and professionalism crept into the formerly amateur game. In 1869 the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first fully salaried baseball team. Their amazing success (they compiled a 50-0-1 record in 1870) encouraged other teams to follow their lead. Yet professionalism brought its own problems. Betting flourished as an unsavory sidelight to the game, to the point where gamblers were said to control the players. Moreover, brawls between spectators and players occurred. And Sunday competition provoked the opposition of the nation’s religious element. Baseball came under a cloud.WEGW 184.2

The National League, established in 1876, set out to polish baseball’s tarnished image. It banned betting on club grounds, provided police protection during the games, and ended Sunday matches. The league also brought administrative order to what had been a chaotic situation. Baseball entered a new era of prosperity and public favor. Large ballparks in cities such as Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York accommodated thousands; those who could not attend read accounts of the game in the newspaper sports pages. The modern age of mass spectator sports had begun, heralding a phenomenon that would rival the great games of Rome.WEGW 184.3

Though professionalism came to dominate baseball, amateur sports by no means declined. In fact, it was in the last few decades of the century that belief in the positive effects of amateur athletics reached its peak. For a number of years many observers had warned that Americans were getting soft, becoming, in the words of one writer, “a pale, pasty-faced, narrow-chested, spindle-shanked, dwarfed race.” To check this decline, a gospel of physical fitness began to be preached, and Americans responded by participating in team and individual activities.WEGW 184.4

In no place did the rise of amateur sports have as great an impact as in American colleges. The traditionally sedentary habits of college students gave way to energetic athleticism, as gymnasiums altered campus landscapes and physical education joined the academic program. Intercollegiate competition in sports such as softball, baseball, and rowing became focal points of student life. Advocates of college sport noted a general improvement in student health, a lessened consumption of tobacco and alcohol, and a reduction of student rowdyism, which they attributed to the athletic interest.WEGW 185.1

No sport better symbolized the new spirit of competitive play on the campus than football. College football appeared in the early 1870s on various Eastern campuses. Early games contained elements of both soccer and rugby, but in the 1880s Walter Camp, the father of American football, systematized the rules and gave the game its characteristic form. Ivy league schools such as Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Harvard dominated the game, challenged only by the Midwestern teams of Michigan and Chicago.WEGW 185.2

Besides devising the rules, Yale coach Walter Camp provided football with its code of sportsmanship. Camp’s ideal described the gentleman amateur who played vigorously but cleanly, who strove to win but stayed within the rules, who was courteous to rivals and applauded their good play, who played not for money but for personal satisfaction.WEGW 185.3

Yet Camp’s elevated philosophy of amateur sport often seemed to be missing from the reality of college football. Football became a huge spectator sport in its own right, and with it came a heightened emphasis on winning. A spirit of professionalism crept into the game, as teams sought out the best players, and coaches ran athletes through long training sessions. By the 1890s the game had provoked many critics to decry the “win at all cost” attitude, the hiring of athletes for supposedly amateur contests, and the tremendous influence that the athletic programs exerted in the colleges.WEGW 185.4

Most of all, football came under attack for its brutality. The style of play in the early days depended upon massed strength; plays such as the “flying wedge” threw players at one another without benefit of padding or headgear. The very future of the game was in question after a number of deaths occurred. President Theodore Roosevelt, though a defender of the sport, demanded that changes be made to make the game safer. Reformers, led again by Camp, preserved college football by outlawing massed plays, introducing the forward pass, giving referees greater authority to control the play, and enforcing rules against professionalism. The dangers of football were not totally removed, however, and criticism continued.WEGW 186.1

The rough-and-tumble world of competitive sports may have drawn the most attention, but a quieter revolution in sports was also under way, one that involved a far greater number of people. The increase in leisure and the new emphasis on outdoor activities resulted in the blossoming of participatory sports in the last half of the nineteenth century. Lawn tennis, golf, archery, ice and roller skating, croquet, and bicycling captured the public’s imagination. The rise of cycling, in particular, deserves a closer look.WEGW 186.2

Bicycling first became popular in the later 1870s and 1880s. That it caught on at all is surprising, considering the inherent dangers of the high-wheeled cycle and the treacherous roads it ran on. In the early 1890s, however, changes in bicycle design made the vehicle safer. The new “safety cycle,” with its equal-sized wheels, pneumatic tires, and improved brakes, encouraged reluctant cyclists to try their luck. Moreover, the cycling industry instituted a massive promotional campaign extolling the adventure of riding. Just as important, the price of the bicycles came down from the lofty $125 of earlier models to a more affordable $35 or $50.WEGW 186.3

The result was a cycling craze that peaked between 1893 and 1896. Ridership increased from an estimated 150,000 in 1890 to 4 million in 1896. Bicycle makers multiplied, yet demand continued to outstrip production. The passion for cycling crossed social lines, as members of “society” took up riding, and prominent literary and public figures took their turn astride the two-wheeler. Women eagerly adopted cycling as a respectable form of exercise at a time when their opportunities for physical recreation were limited.WEGW 186.4

The bicycle became the subject of poetry, fiction, and song, and the popular press carried articles by physicians, who advocated riding as an antidote to a sedentary lifestyle. The social aspect of cycling was important. Most riders belonged to local clubs that sponsored outings in the nearby countryside. The sight of a score or more of riders, all attired in the cap and breeches of their club, going through their drills, became a common one during these years. There was even a national cycling organization, the League of American Wheelmen, which successfully lobbied for better roads.WEGW 187.1

Though intense, the cycle craze was short-lived. By the later 1890s sales had fallen off, and national interest in cycling declined. The public had discovered a new vehicle, one with four wheels instead of two, and though the fascination with the bicycle had been temporary, the love affair with the horseless buggy proved enduring.WEGW 187.2

The amusements described thus far—theatricals, circuses, sports—all attained a general respectability. But mention should also be made of the underworld of entertainment, those places of amusements that most respectable persons shunned. These included dance halls, pool halls, dime museums, bowling alleys, concert saloons, and beer gardens. Such places proliferated in the cities of the late nineteenth century, and their presence led many Americans to speak out against the evils of city life.WEGW 187.3

Some dance halls and concert saloons were comparatively reputable, but many were fronts for prostitution and gambling. Stories abounded of young men and women lured into lives of vice in these establishments. The billiard rooms and bowling alleys, it was said, were strictly male resort hangouts for petty criminals and teenage gangs. By reputation, most were associated with gambling, liquor, smoking, and profane language.WEGW 187.4

If the dime museums generally lacked the sordid associations of the other places, they nevertheless exuded a seediness all their own. These museums promised patrons the bizarre and the spectacular. Freaks, both animal and human, were the favorite attractions: Siamese twins, tattooed ladies, sword swallowers, contortionists, and snake charmers were among them. Medical dime museums offered glass jars with misshapen or diseased anatomical parts, and wax human figures with hideous deformities. Horrified patrons would then be confronted by a lecture offering spurious medical advice and expensive bottles of patent medicine that they would be duped into buying. The dime museums gradually disappeared in the twentieth century, but their exhibits became standard features of carnivals and amusement parks.WEGW 187.5

In the world of sports, horse racing and boxing were widely followed, yet both had earned unsavory reputations. Horse racing had long been the sport of kings, and there remained a high interest among America’s monied aristocracy in the sport. But the growing influence of gamblers on racing cast a cloud over it.WEGW 188.1

Boxing found even less favor in the public eye. The wantonness of the sport, particularly in the early days when the bare-knuckled combatants pounded each other until one could not rise, violated the sensibilities of most civilized people. Moreover, prize fighting was dominated by gamblers and other social outcasts. In many places, state and local authorities banned boxing matches; consequently, contests had to be held in out-of-the-way places.WEGW 188.2

The rise of John L. Sullivan, the great Irish-American pugilist, in the 1880s, gave boxing a widespread public following it had not known before. “The Boston Strong Boy” became the greatest sports hero of the age, yet it was not until his successor, Gentleman Jim Corbett, introduced the Marquis of Queensberry Rules that boxing began to shed its blatant brutality.WEGW 188.3

It is apparent from this brief survey that as the nineteenth century neared its end, Americans had a range of entertainments to choose from and that they liberally indulged in many of them. It should not be thought, however, that the older suspicions of amusements had completely disappeared. In fact, it was just as leisure increased and commercial entertainments proliferated that the debate over their propriety heightened. Thus, to close out this chapter we must look at the way in which America’s moral guardians responded to their growth.WEGW 188.4

The dominant response to most amusements was one of disapproval. This negative reaction sprang from two related sources: the strain of religious disapproval that warned against the allurements of immoral entertainments, and a more widespread middle-class concern that leisure pursuits detracted from the serious business of work and production. The Victorian age exalted the work ethic, and for the spokesmen of American culture—ministers, authors, editors—the increase of leisure posed a challenge to the discipline needed to build a nation.WEGW 188.5

Yet as the nineteenth century neared its end, with cities burgeoning and people relentlessly seeking a release from drudgery, cultural and religious leaders began to admit that modern life required recreation. In moderation, leisure could be beneficial, Americans were now told. The question then became Which entertainments were fit and which were not?WEGW 189.1

Two general qualities marked the unfit amusements: professionalism and commercialism. Professionalism meant that paid performers, be they actors or athletes, entertained a passive audience. This trend toward “spectatoritis,” as one commentator labeled it, was thought to degrade the national character. Rampant commercialism also undermined the public’s moral fiber in that promoters appealed to the lowest common denominator in their quest for maximum profits.WEGW 189.2

Since most theatricals embodied both of these traits, they clearly remained outside the pale of the eyes of religious leaders. In fact, the Methodist and Baptist denominations, in 1877 and 1889, respectively, passed formal declarations against theater attendance. Moreover, the increasing frequency of Sabbath (Sunday) recreation aroused other objections. Sabbatarian organizations battled against Sunday baseball, theatricals, museum openings, and even picnicking. Consequently, although acknowledging the value of entertainment, cultural leaders were dismayed by most amusements and felt they must be reformed.WEGW 189.3

At the heart of the reformers’ program was their concept of the term recreation. They took its literal meaning, “re-creation,” as signifying leisure’s true purpose: the renewal of one’s strength for further work. Recreation was valuable not for its own sake but only as it enabled one to take up anew the task of service to God and man. Accordingly, acceptable amusements would be those that built up body and mind, not those that merely entertained.WEGW 189.4

In practical terms this belief took several forms. It meant encouraging participation in active sports, so that qualities of sportsmanship and teamwork could be developed. It also meant cultivating an appreciation for fine literature, lectures, recitals, and museums—diversions that uplifted.WEGW 189.5

Even drama could be beneficial if amateur groups performed plays of merit. The promotion of these activities was undertaken by several organizations of the day. YMCA and YWCA organizations opened recreation centers in inner cities as wholesome alternatives to street corners and pool halls; settlement houses (such as Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago) provided social clubs for inhabitants of the most congested neighborhoods; playground associations inspired city governments to construct networks of playgrounds where children enjoyed supervised play; philanthropic bodies such as the Russell Sage Foundation spent thousands of dollars surveying the amusement situation and offering suggestions for improvement. These groups did much to expand the opportunities for recreation in American cities. But the “amusement problem,” as it was then termed, refused to go away.WEGW 190.1

In summary, American society was getting its first heady taste of the spiritous amusements, yet still feeling the pricks of conscience about their enjoyment. There was, perhaps, a certain inevitability about the development of commercial entertainments. A population squeezed together in cities and caught up in a round of intensive work sought stimulation in its leisure hours, which the aforementioned amusements provided. Yet there was widespread misgiving about the character of such entertainment and its impact on the public, a concern that continues today.WEGW 190.2