A concert saloon is an establishment offering various kinds of entertainment, including alcohol, with some also providing gambling and prostitution. Brooks McNamara explores the concert saloon in New York from the Civil War to the early years of the twentieth century. He focuses on the theatrical aspects of the concert saloon and examines the sources of saloon shows, changes in direction during the century, performing spaces and equipment, and employees and patrons.

A concert saloon is an establishment offering various kinds of entertainment, including alcohol, with some also providing gambling and prostitution. Brooks McNamara explores the concert saloon in New York from the Civil War to the early years of the twentieth century. He focuses on the theatrical aspects of the concert saloon and examines the sources of saloon shows, changes in direction during the century, performing spaces and equipment, and employees and patrons.

Many of todays hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nukem), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokmon), and scoring the most points (Tetris). Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise...

Day of Jubilee: the Great Age of Public Celebrations in New York, 1788-1909 examines civic performances designed to honor prominent individuals, mark political events and issues of significance in New York City, or signal the completion of great projects that have touched the lives of New Yorkers. The great jubilees of recent years, including the ticker tape parades for the astronauts and championship sports teams and the annual May's Thanksgiving Day parade, all drew on traditions established in the nineteenth century. Brooks McNamara sees these events as an extension of the...

The blackface minstrel show occupies a central and contested space in the history of American popular culture. Its imitations and parodies helped shape society's perceptions of African Americans--and of women--and made their mark on national identity, policymaking decisions, and other entertainment forms such as vaudeville, burlesque, the revue, and, eventually, film, radio, and television. Gathered here are rare primary materials-- including firsthand accounts of minstrel shows, minstrelsy guides, jokes, sketches, and sheet music--and the best of contemporary scholarship.

The immensely entertaining history of the rise and fall of an American institution, the medicine show

In 1682, William Penn offered the "Free Society of Traders" a nearly twenty-thousand-acre tract of land made up from the then communities of Warwick, New Britain, and Hilltown. The area grew slowly and, in 1745, William Doyle applied for permission to operate
an inn at a well-traveled crossroads. With the permission granted, Doyle's town was created. Spared destructive battles of the American Revolution, the town retained its rustic charm and appeal. By the
beginning of the nineteenth century, Doylestown, as it had become known, had blossomed and was beginning to attract merchants and...