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A close up black and white image of a clown face showing a sinister smile.

The Creepy Clown Emerged from the Crass and Bawdy Circuses of the 19th Century

Today’s creepy clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.
by Madeline Steiner via The Conversation on October 25, 2022
Alcorn State University's Origional Golden Girls.

Sass And Shimmer: The Dazzling History Of Black Majorettes And Dance Lines

Beginning in the 1960s, young Black majorettes and dance troupes created a fascinating culture. This is the story of how they did it.
by Alecia Taylor, Brooklyn White via Essence on October 10, 2022
Ink drawing of Buster Keaton's face against pale pink background

Keep Your Eye on the Kid

Buster Keaton made his own kind of sense out of the perplexities of existence in ways baffling to those among whom he found himself.
by Geoffrey O'Brien via New York Review of Books on September 29, 2022
Pamphlet for "The Drunkard, or, The Fallen Saved" play with alcohol bottles drawn next to the title
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Temperance Melodrama on the Nineteenth-Century Stage

Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on September 21, 2022
Lithograph entitled "A View of the Pearl Fishery" depicting enslaved persons rowing in water next to tents on the shore.
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African Swimmers in American Waters

Although most enslaved people worked in the fields, captive workers with strong swimming and diving skills were also exploited by plantation owners.
by Kevin Dawson, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on September 16, 2022
Vintage photograph of two little girls sitting on a mid-century television set.

The Lost Art of Striking a Pose With Your TV Set

In midcentury America, the machine itself became a character.
by Lynn Spigel via Slate on August 14, 2022
Black-and-white glamour photo of Josephine Baker, smiling in her stage attire.

Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted—and the Spy It Needed

When the night-club sensation became a Resistance agent, the Nazis never realized what she was hiding in the spotlight.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on August 8, 2022
Tourists explore cells in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Photo by Mark Murrmann.

The Gruesome Attraction of Prison Tourism Is Being Challenged at Last

“I’m amazed at how numb many of us can be about these sites.”
by Hope Corrigan via Mother Jones on June 9, 2022
Actors on stage in "One-Third of a Nation." Library of Congress.
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The Living Newspaper Speaks

Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on May 25, 2022
Oprah Winfrey speaking at a podium.
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Oprah’s Shows on the L.A. Riots Reveal What We’ve Lost Without Her Program

The power of daytime talk shows — especially “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
by Leah Wright Rigueur, Kellie Carter Jackson via Made By History on May 2, 2022
John Bubbles dancing and Buck Washington playing keyboard, performing in Brooklyn, New York, 1930.

Never the Same Step Twice

Previous generations of dancers arranged their steps into tidy, regular phrases; John Bubbles enjambed over bar lines, multiplying, twisting, tilting, turning.
by Brian Seibert via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022
Couples dancing at marathon
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Dance Marathons

In the early twentieth century, dance marathons were an entire industry—and a surprisingly hazardous business.
by Betsy Golden Kellem, Carol Martin, James T. Farrell via JSTOR Daily on April 21, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, paying a visit to a hospital with wounded soldiers.

How Propaganda Became Entertaining

Ukraine’s wartime communications strategies have roots in World War II.
by Kathryn Cramer Brownell via The Atlantic on March 27, 2022
Professional wrestling ring surrounded by audience.

“You Know It’s Fake, Right?” Fandom and the Idea of Legitimacy in Professional Wrestling

Promoters and performers in pro wrestling began increasingly prizing entertainment value over maintaining the appearance of legitimate contests.
by Aaron D. Horton via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on January 10, 2022
Comedian Charlie Hill on stage with a microphone.

‘Part of Why We Survived’

Is there something in particular about coming from a Native background that makes a person want to write and perform comedy?
by Ian Frazier via New York Review of Books on December 23, 2021
Women wearing bathing suits and sashes stand in a row on the Atlantic City boardwalk in 1921, competing in a pageant.

How the Swimsuit Showdown Shaped the Miss America Contest

A new behind-the-scenes book, “There She Was,” and a Smithsonian collecting initiative celebrate the pageant’s centennial.
by Amy Argetsinger via Smithsonian on December 13, 2021
Man dressed as a clown with face paint, bald on top with big tufts of hair on the sides, and a bulbous nose.
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The Strangely Enduring Appeal of Bozo the Clown

How a clown won over several generations of children.
by Jeffrey Allen Smith via Made By History on December 9, 2021
Title card of the article styled like a Tina Turner album cover.

Manhattan in East St. Louis

The Club Manhattan could hold about 250 people. They did not know it at the time, but they were the earliest witnesses to the rise of the Queen of Rock & Roll.
by Maureen Mahon via Oxford American on December 7, 2021
Jewish actress and filmmaker Ellen Richter, striking a pose on screen while two men give her suspicious looks.

The Silences of the Silent Era

We can’t allow the impression of a historical lack of diversity in the art form to limit access to the industry today.
by Pamela Hutchinson via Current [The Criterion Collection] on November 30, 2021
Portrait of Zalumma Agra.

Circassian Beauty in the American Sideshow

Among P. T. Barnum's “human curiosities” was a supposed escapee from an Ottoman harem, marketed as both the pinnacle of white beauty and an exotic other.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via The Public Domain Review on September 16, 2021
Gladys Knight and the Pips performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show"

The Misunderstood Talent of Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight and the Pips have always been more beloved by fans than by music historians, but they are essential to the evolution of soul.
by Emily J. Lordi via The New Yorker on August 13, 2021
A performer on stage

The Mermaid in the Fishbowl

The rise of optical illusions and magical effects.
by Stephen R. Wilk via OUPblog on June 27, 2021
A "trick" photograph of a woman holding six heads

Snap Judgment

A brief history of trick photography.
by Kim Beil via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 6, 2021
A collage featuring pictures from the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the 1920s, including people wearing masks and nurses on one side and flappers on the other.

What Caused the Roaring Twenties? Not the End of a Pandemic (Probably)

As the U.S. anticipates a vaccinated summer, historians say measuring the impact of the 1918 influenza on the uproarious decade that followed is tricky.
by Lila Thulin via Smithsonian on May 3, 2021
Performers in "Black America" posing in their costumes

Black America, 1895

The bizarre and complex history of Black America, a theatrical production which revealed the conflicting possibilities of self-expression in a racist society.
by Dorothy Berry via The Public Domain Review on February 24, 2021
Protesters holding signs in support of ending Britney Spear's conservatorship
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Britney Spears’s Plight Reflects a Long History of Men Controlling Women Stars

Since the 19th century, men have served as gatekeepers in the entertainment industry, controlling women’s careers.
by Sara Lampert via Made By History on February 24, 2021
A Seminole man puts his hand inside the mouth of an alligator

How Florida’s Seminole Tribe Transformed Alligator Wrestling Into a Symbol of Independence

Once a means of survival, and then an exploitative spectacle, the sport can also embody a synergy with a top predator in Florida’s changing landscape.
by Adam Piron, Murat Oztaskin, Adam Khalil via The New Yorker on January 27, 2021
Two people watching Cliff Edwards perform on the ukelele.

Ukulele Ike, a.k.a. Cliff Edwards, Sings Again

Ukulele Ike, otherwise known as Cliff Edwards, was a major American pop star and an important early force in jazz. It’s time to give him another hearing.
by Donald Fagen via Jazztimes on December 7, 2020
A women in a newsroom covering the election
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Good TV Demands Results on Election Night, but That’s Bad for Democracy

The history of tuning in to televised election returns.
by Kathryn Cramer Brownell via Made By History on November 3, 2020
A graphic for the Federal Theatre Project.

Can We Save American Theater by Reviving a Bold Idea from the 1930s?

The Federal Theatre Project put dramatic artists to work — and we could do it again.
by Wendy Smith via The National Book Review on November 1, 2020
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