The Spatial Organization of Theatrical Entertainment. Data Sets from German Trade Publications, 1890s to 1920s.

Abstract

This dataset contains data about the spatial organization of theatrical entertainment in the German-speaking world in the early twentieth century. It provides the locations and numbers of members of the Berlin-based International Association of Variety Managers (Internationaler Varieté-Theater-Direktoren-Verband I.V.T.D.V.) for the years 1913, 1919 and 1925. The dataset was created from international city lists printed in “Das Organ der Varietéwelt”, an important German-language trade publication of the variety theater industries, published by the I.V.T.D.V. Each spreadsheet includes the historical city names and countries (as they were listed in the sources, not always reflecting most recent historical changes); today’s names and countries of these cities; the number of association members in each of these cities (not counting multiple mentions of individual members per city); and the geographic coordinates of each city (longitude/latitude) from geonames.org. This data was used to create some of the maps published in Dietze, Antje (2020). Wie organisiert man die Vergnügungsindustrie? Internationale Verbände der deutschsprachigen Varietéwelt, 1880–1929. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 46 (1), 87–121. (2023-04-18)

Biographical Note

Dr. Antje Dietze (SFB 1199, Leipzig University, Germany)

Antje Dietze studied cultural studies in Leipzig and Paris, earning her PhD in 2012 from Leipzig University for a work on the role of cultural organizations and artistic practice during the post-socialist transition in Germany. As part of her current research she spent 2014/15 as a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) P.R.I.M.E. research fellow at the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at the University of Montreal (Canada). Her research interests include entertainment and the arts, cultural industries, and cultural change within the study of culture and transnational history, focusing particularly on Europe and North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.