Americanization of Show Business? Shifting Territories of Theatrical Entertainment in North America at the Turn of the 20th Century

Abstract

In the period from the 1880s to the 1910s, Canada experienced a strong wave of Americanization of its theatrical institutions. Taking a closer look at these transnational theatrical relations, this chapter revisits the role of the Canadian connections in the process of drawing the boundaries of modern entertainment industries in North America. The first part argues that these developments do not fit in national frameworks or in the concept of Americanization as the transnational export of American cultural products. The consolidation of theatrical industries such as legitimate theater, vaudeville, and burlesque ran along regional lines that crossed national borders and covered parts of both the United States and Canada, including Montreal. Taking the example of large-scale business conflicts in the field of burlesque, the chapter then investigates how entrepreneurs in the city not only actively integrated their businesses into wider North American theater networks, but also challenged the dominance of US-Americans in the industry. These changing spatializations of theatrical entertainment did not only include the transcontinental expansion and subsequent drawing of new regional boundaries within the emerging industries. They also entailed new forms of organizing space, as the business evolved toward increasing centralization, rationalization, and exclusive territorial control.

Biographical Note

Dr. Antje Dietze ( SFB 1199 & Leipzig University)

I am a senior researcher in the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 1199) “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition”. I teach courses in transnational history and transregional studies at the Global and European Studies Institute, the Institute for the Study of Culture and the Graduate School Global and Area Studies at Leipzig University. In 2014/15, I was a German Academic Exchange Service P.R.I.M.E. research fellow at the Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes at Université de Montréal, Canada. My main areas of research include the social and cultural history of Germany, Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th century, entangled histories of Cold War and post-socialist cultures, as well as the transnational history of the cultural economy. My current research project investigates the production and circulation of mass entertainment in North America and Europe from the 1830s to the 1930s.