American Entertainment History

When Broadway Was the Runway explores the central and largely unacknowledged role of commercial Broadway theater in the birth of modern American fashion and consumer culture. Long before Hollywood's red carpet spectacles, Broadway theater introduced American women to the latest styles. At the beginning of the 20th century, theater impresarios captured the imagination of their largely female patrons by transforming the stage into a glorious site of consumer spectacle.

Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: "Method acting." The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imagining the Method investigates how popular understandings of the so-called Method—what its author Justin Rawlins calls "methodness"—created an exclusive brand for white, male actors while associating such actors with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book maps the forces giving shape to methodness and policing its boundaries.

The origins of rock music claim several founding fathers, with each perspective holding merit and directly contributing to the golden age to follow in rock music. Perhaps the first and ultimately the most successful of this category - those artistic explorers who most effectively blurred racial and political lines through their music - was Chuck Berry.

It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is as old as recorded music itself. In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United States.

Fifty years ago, a little boy was cast in a movie with some of Hollywood's brightest stars. The movie: It's a Wonderful Life; the boy: Jimmy Hawkins; today, he tells his story. Through personal recollection, careful research, and interviews with cast and crew, actor Jimmy Hawkins, who played four-year-old Tommy Bailey, takes you behind the scenes for a first-hand look at the American movie classic It's a Wonderful Life.

Bob Dylan is many things to many people. Each Bob Dylan joins a collective cast that has made up his persona for more than 50 years. No version of Dylan turns out uncomplicated, but the postmillennial manifestation seems peculiarly contrary - a tireless and enterprising antiquarian; a creator of singular texts and sounds through promiscuous poaching; an artist of innovation and uncanny renewal. The collection of essays does justice to this difficult Bob Dylan by examining his method and effects through a disparate set of viewpoints.

At the peak of the civil rights movement, Lydia Abarca was the first ballerina in a Black ballet company to grace the cover of Dance magazine. Alongside founding members Shelia Rohan and Gayle McKinney-Griffith and first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells, Abarca invited a bright light to shine on Black professional classical dancers. Grit, determination, and exquisite artistry propelled these swans of Harlem to dizzying heights as they performed around the world for audiences that included celebrities, dignitaries, and royalty.

In 1948, the Orioles, a Baltimore-based vocal group, recorded "It's Too Soon to Know". Combining the sound of Tin Pan Alley with gospel and blues sensibilities, the Orioles saw their first hit reach #13 on the pop charts, thus introducing the nation to vocal rhythm & blues and paving the way for the most successful groups of the 1950s. In the first scholarly treatment of this influential musical genre, Stuart Goosman chronicles the Orioles' story and that of myriad other black vocal groups in the postwar period.

The First 60 Years: The History of Afro-American Musical Theater and Entertainment chronicles the contributions made by Black Americans to the entertainment industry in America from 1871 through 1930. This book describes, among other subjects, the types of traveling circuses performers worked on and the types of material performed there. This book also chronicles the history and the beginnings of Black Vaudeville in America, the creation of the blues, and the beginnings of Black theatrical entrepreneurship that took place in America during its most racist times.

An independent nation now exists forged in the fires of battle and founded upon lofty principles. But treaties with indigenous people have been broken, women had no rights, and slavery was still legal. Can integrity be legislated? Can equality be lived? Can truth be heard? Can individual rights be secured? These questions are answered in A Voice for the People.

Summer 1787. After a long, difficult, and devastating war for independence was won, the Articles of Confederation–our first form of government–was falling apart at the seams. Controversy and dissention reigned supreme as Congress convened at Independence Hall. Fiery passions, ablaze with visions of a new form of government “by and for the people,” hovered on the horizon. Would the sun of a New Age sink under a cloud of doubt and dissention? Or would it represent the dawn of a new era breaking over the world as A Rising Sun.

In early 1960’s Palo Alto, Jerry Garcia randomly opened a dictionary to a fable in which an appreciative soul repays the generosity of a traveler by delivering him a fortune, a “gift of the grateful dead.” After a traumatic car accident that injured him and killed a close friend, Garcia had recently resolved to build the life he wanted, which meant making music. He had practiced relentlessly and caromed across the northern California folk and bluegrass scene, gathered up some fellow musicians and formed a band. Now they had their name.

The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist. Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood.

Few actresses lived their lives in the public eye more than Marilyn Monroe, and yet her life remains shrouded in mystery to this day. While it's common knowledge that Marilyn's life is a rags-to-riches story, her life is bookended by hazy details surrounding her early life and even more mysterious death.

Explore the intricate workings of two pivotal institutions at the heart of America's financial system—the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Reserve. "The Foundations of American Finance: The IRS and the Federal Reserve" offers a comprehensive examination of how these entities shape the nation's economic landscape. This book delves into the historical roots and evolution of the IRS and the Federal Reserve, revealing their critical roles in managing taxation and monetary policy.

The crowd sways to the melodic strumming of a bossa nova guitarist. A vocalist belts out lyrics that blend English and Spanish. These are the sounds of Latin music. Before Latin music exploded into the mainstream in the 1990s, it was on the sidelines of American pop. Ritchie Valens fused Latin dance music with rock. Julio Iglesias popularized Latin ballads in the United States. And Gloria Estefan was the first crossover artist. But after Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" exploded onto the pop scene in 1999, Latin music took center stage.

American schools are not designed to educate Black children. Black children often succeed despite their schools instead of because of them. School can be a fantastic experience that propels Black students ahead in life, but only if both teachers and parents know what Black children's unique needs are and how to meet them. You will love this audiobook because an award-winning educator with more than two decades in the classroom uses his personal experiences to provide easy-to-understand methods to save Black children from America's education system that too often ignores their needs.

Throughout his career, Johnny Cash was depicted - and depicted himself - as a walking contradiction: social protestor and establishment patriot, drugged wildman and devout Christian crusader, rebel outlaw hillbilly thug and elder statesman. Leigh H. Edwards explores the allure of this paradoxical image and its cultural significance. She argues that Cash embodied irresolvable contradictions of American identity that reflect foundational issues in the American experience.

New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond offers a deep dive into the blues venues and performers in the city from the 1940s through the 1990s. Interviews in this volume bring the listener behind the scenes of the daily and performing lives of working musicians, songwriters, and producers. The interviewers capture their voices—many sadly deceased—and reveal the changes in styles, the connections between performers, and the evolution of New York blues.

Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the "Hollywood Renaissance" or "New Hollywood" period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema.