The first decade. The singing saloonkeeper
Girls! girls! girls! the entrepreneurial manager
Novelty acts in concert saloons: equestrians, trapeze artists, and acrobats
Tripping the light fantastic: dancers
Entertainment comes to the fore. Legal intervention: the anti-concert saloon bill and its aftermath
Variety in times of national conflict and economic turmoil
Just to please the boys: seriocomic singers
Dutch, Irish, minstrels, and other characters: male comic singers
Just ordinary workingmen: seriocomic songs for men
Champagne Charlie: the fantasy of leisure for the workingman
Sustaining business in difficult times. What's in a name? Vaudeville vs. variety in New York and in regional theater
Moral reform in regional variety: the fight to preserve community standards
Frontier revelry vs. respectable variety: industry, audiences, and sustainable leisure in economically difficult times
Conclusion: entertainment as industry.
