Receipt from a turn of the century Tuscaloosa department store. |
Tomorrow we will examine how
department stores and vaudeville houses fit into emerging urban life in
America. It will be the last time we turn to Gunther Barth's study of modern urban
culture. Then again, maybe not. For sure, we will want to keep in mind so much of what
we have learned over the past eight weeks and put it to good use
as we read excerpts from Martha Sandweiss' examination of nineteenth century
geologist Clarence King and the memoir of nineteenth century Cincinnati hairdresser Eliza Potter, among other readings.
For now, we may collectively wonder
how the vaudeville house allowed urban dwellers to see something about
themselves onstage in the same way that the metropolitan press permitted the
same group to do something similar. What did audience members see onstage? What made them laugh?
Finally, what legacies did vaudeville and department stores leave us?
It's worth it to think about such an idea. Today, so much entertainment comes
through a smartphone or Netflix or Youtube. Shopping is done online or
elsewhere (However, I do remember when 1960s and 1970s variety televisions were quite popular. I loved Hee Haw and any show featuring the Jackson Five including The Carol Burnett Show, which definitely builds on the foundation of vaudeville. I also remember when my mother shopped at stand-alone department stores like Burdines in downtown Miami in the 1970s. In time, we - like everyone else - headed to malls).
While we think over possible answers and even new questions, I invite you to take a look at two images from the University of Alabama's digitized Hoole Collection. The first: a 1914 receipt from from Tuscaloosa's Savage Department store. The store must have had quite a following as five years earlier, The Tuscaloosa News featured a store advertisement announcing the arrival of fall and winter hats, which were the "very latest" from New York and Paris.
Similarly,
a search of the Hoole archive also turned up vaudeville sheet music
composed in 1921 by Jeff Branen and Lloyd Evans (Seeing as Barth says
emerging urban life is between the 1830s and 1920, give or take a
decade, both primary sources are within range).
Was this music in the household of a former Tuscaloosa resident or relative of a former resident? Was the music ever performed publicly? If so, where and for whom?
Finally, why do things like baseball and vaudeville - which begin in cities - resonate with people who live in rural spaces; and vice versa; why are television shows about Alaska - Northern Exposure was a big favorite of mine during the 1990s - or the Great American Country network so popular to urban dwellers? Is this another instance when we can see how the frontier and countryside things are things for which we yearn no matter how "modern" and "urban" we become?
We may also reflect on more basic questions, among them: How did newspapers help department stores? Or why were vaudeville
and department stores inviting spaces for women and children?
Then again, questions that possibly lead to troubling conversations may have answers worth pursuing, too. Indeed, how does the
diversity in department stores and vaudeville encounter the heterogeneous public to which Barth
turns to describe nineteenth century American urban dwellers?
Who enters these spaces? Who cannot?
How did technology contribute to both developments becoming big business?
Who enters these spaces? Who cannot?
How did technology contribute to both developments becoming big business?
Turn of the century vaudeville sheet music. |
Burdines began as a Bartow, FL, dry goods store. |
While we think over possible answers and even new questions, I invite you to take a look at two images from the University of Alabama's digitized Hoole Collection. The first: a 1914 receipt from from Tuscaloosa's Savage Department store. The store must have had quite a following as five years earlier, The Tuscaloosa News featured a store advertisement announcing the arrival of fall and winter hats, which were the "very latest" from New York and Paris.
However, lest the "ladies of Tuscaloosa and West Alabama" thought the prices at Savage, which was located at 612-614 Greenburg Avenue, were out of reach, the store promised a shopper of modest means that she could have "a new style, nobby and attractive fall hat" at a "small cost."
Who
were the patrons of this store owned by "J.A. Savage & Son?" Where
did they wear such fancy hats? How were their lives different and
similar to say the women described in bigger cities such as New York and
Chicago? While these
are questions for which we have no likely answers, we might think them
through just the same if for no other reason than the opportunity to
once more situate Tuscaloosa into the narrative of emerging urban life.
Was this music in the household of a former Tuscaloosa resident or relative of a former resident? Was the music ever performed publicly? If so, where and for whom?
Finally, why do things like baseball and vaudeville - which begin in cities - resonate with people who live in rural spaces; and vice versa; why are television shows about Alaska - Northern Exposure was a big favorite of mine during the 1990s - or the Great American Country network so popular to urban dwellers? Is this another instance when we can see how the frontier and countryside things are things for which we yearn no matter how "modern" and "urban" we become?
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