Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Entertainment
Salem, Massachusetts, is rooted deep in the stony New England heritage of America. The capacious and functional houses that ringed the common remain, superbly maintained reminders of their prosperous Yankee history.
What started as fun and games at spring roundups is now a multi-million-dollar sport called rodeo
The crowd roars. The bell clangs. The chute gate swings wide and a beleaguered animal dashes into the arena to put on an exciting exhibition of pain and panic.
In the hands of a rococo Yankee named Clyde Fitch, the American stage came of age with a gasp of scandalized shock
The first-night audience that poured out of Wallack’s Theatre in 1900 must have appreciated the cold February air, for they had just watched a thoroughly shocking play.
Harry Houdini, the American magician and escape artist who became famous in the first quarter of this century, spent a great deal of his time exposing frauds.
Pilgrims and Puritans, naturally, hated the water, but by the turn of the century certain pleasures had been rediscovered
For some two hundred years the Europeans who planted themselves on our Atlantic shoreline turned their backs on the sea or merely farmed it.
They had no chair lifts, and they called their skis snowshoes, but they were the fastest men alive
What may come as a surprise is that this swell swoop has been going on for over a century.
For almost two decades at the turn of the century illustrated songs charmed nickelodeon audiences.
On the theory that the greatest show is people, George Tilyou turned a rich man’s resort into a playground for the masses
On every warm summer week end on Coney Island a great swarm of people may be found heading for a slow-moving line that leads always to the same entertainment device.
Featured Authors
