The Leisure Revolution - Recreation in the American City, 18201920.pdf

7/27/2019 The Leisure Revolution - Recreation in the American City, 18201920.pdf

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T h e Leisure Revolution: Recreation inthe Am er ican City, 1820-1 920

B y D A L E A . S O M E R S

The United States between 1820 and 1920 experienced a leisurerevolution. Throughout the colonial period and the early years of therepublic, Americans adhered fairly rigidly to the gospel of work, whichstressed the value of labor and frowned upon the pursuit of pleasure.Business appeared to be their overriding interest, and the acquisitionof money their driving force. Travelers seldom failed to comment onthe Yankees total dedication to labor and his avoidance of pleasure.The hypercritical Englishwoman Frances Trollope, who toured thecountry in 1832, declared: never saw a population so totally divestedof gayety; there is no trace of this feeling from one end of the Union tothe other. Another English traveler, Francis J. Grund, observed: TheAmericans are not fond of any kind of public amusement; and are bestpleased with an abundance of business. Their pleasure consists in beingconstantly occupied. Sir Charles Lyell, the English geologist wholectured throughout America in the 1840s, said the United Statesseemed to be a country where all, whether rich or poor, were laboringfrom morning till night, without ever indulging in a holiday. These


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126 JOURNAL. OF POPULAR CULTUR Eobservers probably exaggerated the sobriety of American life, butpleasure-seeking certainly occupied a low position in the typicalAmericans scale of values before 1820. Social life retained a casual-ness and a simplicity reminiscent of an older America.l

Enthusiasm for recreation on a great scale developed rapidly asthe United States shifted from a rural-agrarian to an urban-industrialsociety. As thousands of people, both native and foreign born,moved into the countrys burgeoning cities, they experienced pres-sures and problems unknown in rural areas or in the relatively smallcities of the colonial period. The century between 1820 and 1920was in many ways a period of adjustment, a time in which urbanAmericans learned to live in large cities and to cope with the intri-cacies of their cramped environment. They developed better trans-portation systems to reduce congestion; they experimented withpolitical reforms to curb the excesses of boodling politicians andrapacious businessmen; and they relieved the monotony and theugliness of cities by beautifying streets and by planning publicsquares and parks. This process of adjustment produced equallyprofound changes in urban recreation. Many features of city life,such as long, highly regimented workweeks, the remoteness of thecountryside (particularly before improvements in transporta tion),and the temporary loss of any sense of community that affectedmany new arrivals in Americas metropolises, rendered the simpler,unorganized, and often spontaneous diversions of rural America un-satisfactory or inaccessible to many residents of the city. As urbancenters grew, it quickly became apparent that old patterns of leisure,like other aspects of the countrys rural background, had to adapt tothe new requirements of an urban society.

People responded to the need for fresh pastimes in a variety ofways. They joined social clubs in ever increasing numbers; theyregularly visited the ballrooms and restaurants that multiplied sorapidly in nineteenth-century cities; they listened to lectures orvisited public libraries, which were almost exclusively urbaninstitutions; and some of them engaged in older pastimes, such asdrinking and gambling, with unprecedented eagerness. The peoplewill be amused, said the New Yorker Philip Hone; they must have


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THE LEISURE REVOLU TION 127some way of passing their evenings besides poking the fire and play-ing with the children.2 The major answer to this search for recreationwas the appearance and spectacular growth of commercial amusementsand organized pastimes, such as the theater, vaudeville, movies, andsports. Between 1820 and 1920 American cities gave birth t o a vastentertainment industry that offered amusement to all classes ofpeople on a variety of intellectual levels. This industry in turn pro-duced major changes both in attitudes toward the value of leisureand in a number of major social institutions. It is the purpose ofthis paper to present the general outlines of the growth of commercialand organized amusements and to suggest some of the effects thatthis leisure revolution has produced in American society.

Numerous factors stimulated the boom in leisure-time activities.A gradual reduction in the workday, a rising standard of living, andthe decline of Puritanical notions concerning the value of recreation-all aspects of the new urban-industrial society-were essential to thedevelopment of new diversions. The patronage of well-todo resi-dents, whose commitment to conspicuous leisure and conspicuousconsumption benefitted activities ranging from archery and ballet t oyachting and grand opera, was of vital importance. Foreign-born citydwellers, who brought their own native amusements and above all aEuropean dedication to the active pursuit of pleasure, also stimulatedurban interest in recreation. And finally, there was the role playedby promoters such as P. T. Barnum who realized that people whobought essentials such as food, clothing, and housing rather thanproducing these things for themselves would also purchase pleasure,particularly if it were attractively packaged and cleverly sold. Thisis a trading world, Barnum observed in his autobiography, andmen, women and children, who cannot live on gravity alone, needsomething to satisfy their gayer, lighter moods and hours, and hewho ministers to this want is in a business established by the Authorof our nature.3 Barnum and other entrepreneurs of recreationprospered, as this sta tement suggests, because they sensed and ex-ploited a market for leisure outlets in the restless urban masses thatincreased so rapidly after 1820.

One result of this widespread interest in amusement was the


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128 TOURNAL OF POPULAR CU LTUREemergence of a leisure-oriented society. As millions of urban resi-dents actively pursued pleasure, they began to substitute a leisureethic for the older work ethic; the gospel of work soon yielded tothe gospel of play. To call this a land of labor is to impute lastcenturys epithet to us, the president of Colgate University ob-served in 1926, for now it is a land of leisure. Work remainedimportant, of course, but people tended increasingly to value it interms of the free time it provided. What Americans wanted, whatthe leisure ethic emphasized was an abundant supply of free time,time without cumbersome restrictions o r work obligations, duringwhich the individual could freely choose his activities. Today, asthe sociologist C. Wright Mills has noted, work itself is judged interms of leisure values. The sphere of leisure provides the standardsby which work is judged; it lends to work such meaning as work has.This transposition of values, which constituted the leisure revolution,was almost entirely a product of the cities, for it was in urban centersthat conditions proved most conducive to change. In rural areas aProtestant-based prejudice against the misuse of time lingered on fora great many years. As late as 1892, for example, a Georgia Baptistperiodical warned: N o Christian can follow Jesus, and then befound in a circus. But in cities, which rural Americans often re-garded as centers of vice and wickedness, the gospel of play wonnearly universal acceptance by 1920. Josiah Strong, a prominentProtestant minister, rather reluctantly conceded in 1907 tha t inmetropolitan communities debilitated nerves crave excitement;hence that large number of saloons, gambling hells, dance halls, andtheaters in the most crowded portions of the city.4

The first leisure-time activity to respond to the needs of thecity was the theater. Initially a pastime for Americas aristocracy,the theater af ter 1820 provided entertainment for the masses.5 Well-to-do people continued to visit theaters, but producers relied in-creasingly on the support of middle-class and working-class pleasureseekers. Theater owners catered to these citizens by lowering thecost of admission and then by building huge, ornate theaters toaccommodate the increased volume of business. Opponents of thispolicy, such as the producer Noah M. Ludlow, warned that reducing


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THE EISURE REVOLUTION 129the price of admission would attract more visitors, but it would alsoproduce a diminution in intelligence and average respectability ofthe audiences. Nevertheless, the practice continued. In some citiesstage managers also produced plays on Sundays to attract peoplewho could not at tend on other days. Some people, particularlyreligious leaders, denounced this violation of the Sabbath, bu t theproducer Solomon F Smith defended Sunday theatricals against theobjections of a few religionists by trade and some keepers of beer-houses, coffee-houses, billiard-houses, nine-pin alleys, and otherestablishments not fit to be mentioned here because the hardymechanic, with his wife and children, the boatman, the visitingstranger, the apprentice, the clerk-these and others flocked to thetheater to enjoy an innocent recreation. 6

The democratization of the theater resulted in some startlingchanges in the character of the dramatic arts in this country. Crowds,particularly when compared to genteel colonial audiences, were un-ruly and ill-mannered. Riots occurred frequently, for rowdy fanswere quick to express displeasure if they found performances lessthan satisfactory. Even if playgoers resisted the impulse to attackthe actors, their conduct left much t o be desired. People in the pit,which was usually reserved for men, drank freely, chewed tobacco,and ate throughout the performance. Mrs. Trollope recalled tha twhen she attended a theater in Cincinnati to see a performance byFrances and Alexander Drake, the spitting was incessant, and themixed smell of onions and whiskey was enough to make one feeleven the Drakes acting dearly bought by the obligation of enduringits accompaniments. The galleries attracted a motley crowd thatincluded prostitutes who came to solicit customers. Hopkinson areligious journal published in Providence, noted: I t is a fact notto be concealed that the company of lewd women is expected anddesired at the Theatre. A place is assigned to them so prominentthat everybody can see it. It has been said, and it is undoubtedly afact, that tickets of admission, free of all expense, are sometimessent by the managers to these abandoned wretches. The freedomof the Theatre has been conferred upon them in consideration oftheir important and highly acceptable services Charles B. Parsons,


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13 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUREwho spent most of his acting career in the South before renouncingthe stage for the pulpit, indicated that this practice was not confinedto the North. Southern managers also placed a few of the e ite ofthe frail sisterhood on the free list in order to encourage theattendance of men.7

The levelling of the audiences also brought changes in thenature of dramatic productions. A perceptive ac tor wrote in 1867:The rapid increase in population in newly formed cities producesa style of patrons whose habits and associations afford no opportunityfor the cultivation of the arts. A New Orleans writer, less charitablein his evaluation, observed simply that the popular taste, in its de-mand for the ultra-humorous, is not very particular, and swallows allsorts of absurdity with infinite gusto. Experience seemed to con-firm both views. Efforts to develop an interest in opera, for example,met resistance in all bu t a few cities, partly because Americans didnot understand the language and partly, according to Philip Hone,because of popular opposition to private boxes which formed asort of aristocratical distinction. I like this spirit of independencewhich refuses its countenance t o anything exclusive. Another NewYorker, George Templeton Strong, found that nineteenth-centuryurbanites were equally uninterested in the symphony, though forsomewhat different reasons. After a night at the Academy of Musiche wrote: Nine-tenths of this assemblage cared nothing forBeethovens music and chattered and looked about and wished it wasover. However, its well to bring masses of people into contactwith the realities of music; it helps educate their sense of art, andHeaven knows they need it.8to place greater emphasis on entertainment other than the principalplays. In ante-bellum theaters singers, dancers, equestrian acts, jugglers,and acrobats appeared regularly before, after, and between the actsof dramatic performances. When these specialty acts began to over-shadow the plays in the 184 s and ~ O S ome managers separated thetwo. The result, after some years of development, was the appearanceof new forms of theatrical entertainment, including minstrelsy, lightmusicals, burlesque, and variety shows. Testimony from a number of

To satisfy the tastes of urban communities theater owners began


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 131sources indicated tha t these innovations easily won popular approval.Minstrels attracted large crowds as eager city dwellers flocked to seeblack-faced entertainers and to listen to music loosely based onplantation songs. A New Yorker who saw a band of EthiopianSerenaders at Palmos Opera House reported: Negro songs, glees,and other refinements of the same kind, helped along by wornoutconundrums, form this refined amusement, which is very popularand fills the theater, in which so lately the scientific strains ofItalian music floated over empty benches. Singers of popular tunes,once used merely as side attractions in playhouses, found that thedemand for entertainment enabled them to declare their indepen-dence from the legitimate theater. After a performance by JennyLind in 1852, a writer for To-Day declared: Our country has beenabout over-run with musical artists recently. Musical enthusiasm hasrather drawn at tention away from the drama. Burlesque, too, viedfor separate audiences. Initially a type of parody or musical travestyburlesque after the Civil War emphasized mainly the attract ions ofthe female form. Appletons Journal complained in 1869 tha t thisentertainment seeks to unite the coarsest fun with the most intoxi-cating forms of beauty. As these new pastimes rose in popularityduring the late nineteenth century, the democratization of thetheater took a new turn. By 1900 the legitimate theater of seriousdrama and polite comedy had been returned to the care of well-to-doresidents, while rank-and-file citizens patronized mainly thosetheaters that specialized in melodrama or that featured comedians,popular singers, soft-shoe dancers, or briefly clad girls.9

In the 1890s technology also presented the masses a new formof theatrical entertainment-moving pictures. The first movies wereshort pictures of inferior technical quality which people watched insmall, makeshift theaters known as nickelodeons, but as th e fadcaught on , serious producers, such as D. W. Griffith, gave the publicfeature-length pictures that utilized sophisticated film-makingtechniques still employed today.10from the strictures of clergymen whose congregations were depletedby Sunday movie-goers to the shrill cries of moralists who feared

Early motion pictures encountered stern opposition, ranging


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132 JOURNAL. OF POPULAR CULTUR Ethat all sorts of immorality occurred in darkened theaters. Thetitles of early films alone were enough to arouse the indignation ofAmericas moral custodians. Chicago nickelodeons in April of1907 featured movies bearing such titles as Gaieties of Divorce,The Bigamist, The Unwritten Law, Cupids Barometer, andBeware, My Husband Comes. The Chicago Tribune always aspokesman for traditional values and forever distrustful of novelties,declared that the nickelodeons possessed no redeeming featureto warrant their existence and asked for a law absolutely forbid-ding entrance of boy or girl under eighteen.l l Despite suchopposition movies quickly became a leading feature of Americanurban recreation. They were geared to popular taste; theateroperators showed films at times that enabled workingmen t o attend;and they were priced within the reach of virtually everyone. Movies,even more than the theater in the ante-bellum period, assumed thetask of providing entertainment for all elements in American cities.

Aside from amusing the populace, motion pictures very earlyin their history demonstrated their power to shape opinion and toarouse the public. D. W. Griffith in 1915 released his classic filmThe Birth of a Nation, a saga of the Civil War and Reconstructionbased on Thomas Dixons pro-southern novel Th e Clansman. Inmany ways this movie remains the most significant ever producedin the United States. It made instant stars of several people in thecast, including Lillian Gish, Donald Crisp, and Henry Walthall; itintroduced techniques and methods that have influenced film-making down to the present; and it established once and for allthat the movies could be a serious art form as well as popular enter-tainment. Nevertheless, the film-was something less than an un-qualified success. A Kentuckian by birth, Griffith fully shared thetypical white southerners attitudes towards Negroes. The Birthof a Nation presented black legislators as buffoons, and it sug-guested that every black man was a fiend whose highest ambitionin life was to defile pure white southern women. When the filmwas shown in Boston, it aroused a storm of controversy. Therecently organized National Association for the Advancement ofColored People, a militant group for its day, asked that the movie


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THE LE ISURE REVOLUTION 133be banned; President Charles W. liot of Harvard said the film pervertedwhite ideals; and Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of the aboli-tionist William Lloyd Garrison, called it a deliberate attempt tohumiliate 10,000,000American citizens and portray them as noth-ing but beasts. These attacks did little t o lessen the popularity ofthe motion picture, but they indicated that for better or worse themovies had come of age as a vehicle of communication and socialcommentary. 12

The American city had in the meantime produced still anothertype of recreation for urban residents-organized sports. Despitethe mass appeal of movies and various types of theatrical diversions,they were not altogether satisfactory substitutes for the outdoorleisure activities associated with rural living. An ante-bellumsouthern sportsman, dedicated to hunting and fishing, explainedthat only people who are in the habit of walking alone dusty andcrowded streets, gazing upon endless brick rows, listening withforced patience t o the business din and rattling vehicles, of acommercial city, can fully appreciate the pleasure felt, whenopportunity enables you to flee these turmoils, for the quietudeof a favorite country seat. Not everyone possessed the necessaryleisure time or money to embark upon lengthy expeditions intothe field, but many sports played in the city permitted restless,work-worn residents t o participate in or to observe outdooractivities that captured the essence of rural diversions. The riseof sports also pleased observers who believed that it was unhealthyfor people who spent their days cooped up in factories or officesto seek pleasure in crowded, poorly-lit and ill-ventilated theatersat night. A correspondent for Wilkes Spirit of the Times a sport-ing journal, observed in 1869 that the country needed athleticactivities, for I believe with due exercise of the body the ills wedelight in nursing will fade away, and an energy we so much needtake their place. Sports thus made great strides before 1920 bycatering to urban desires for pastimes that not only offeredpleasant recreation but also provided a means of improving thehealth and vitality of city dwellers and produced nostalgic recol-lections of rural outings.13


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134 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUR EThe growth of organized sports, once underway, was

phenomenal. Sporting clubs and teams, intercity leagues, andprofessional athletes appeared in rapid profusion in every city ofany consequence. The first result of this surge of interest in out-door activities was the growth of spectator sports. This activitysoon became an essential part of the nations entertainmentindustry as urban residents easily acquired the habit of assemblingby the thousands to watch others perform. Horse racing, whichbegan to attract large crowds at tracks from New York to NewOrleans in the 1820s and 3 s was the first great spectator sport ,but it was in time joined by others, including professional base-ball, yachting and rowing, prize fighting, and football. Popularinterest in these pastimes appeared overpowering almost fromtheir onset. After the first race for the Americas Cup in 1851,one observer decided that the victory by the yacht America wasquite creditable to Yankee shipbuilding certainly, but notworthy the intolerable, vainglorious vaporings that make everynewspaper take up now ridiculous. One would think yacht-building were the end of mans existence on earth. This reactionwas an accurate portent of things to come. Such was the appealof athletic pastimes that in 1887 Puck magazine printed aphrenological chart , entitled Sports on the Brain, which dividedUncle Sams cranium among more than twenty sports. The biggestbump went to baseball, which Mark Twain said was the verysymbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and pushand rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenthcentury. By the fin de siecle interest in sports had clearly reach-ed amazing proportions. I t seems t o be the weakness of theAmerican people to take nearly everything in crazes, a writerfor the Nation declared in 1893. There was the greenback craze,and the silver craze, and the granger craze, and the cholera craze,and now there is the athletic craze.14complain that this leisure-time activity, along with other urbanpastimes, made spectators of to o many people. AmericanJeremiahs argued that the rural tradition of universal participation

As organized sports rose t o prominence, critics began to


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 135~~ ~

had been lost in the mad rush toward cities. In its place, they said,had arisen passive observation, which seemed likely to leave theentire nation weak and debilitated. Dr . Oliver Wendell Holmes,one of the first t o voice this concern, wrote in 1858: I amsatisfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed, soft-muscled,paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our Atlantic citiesnever before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. Seventyyears later the historian John Allen Krout wrote that the rise ofathletic pastimes has not made us a nation of participants insports, bu t a nation of spectators at sporting events. Theremay be benefit in all this, but it hardens no muscles and reduces nowaist lines. Perhaps it would not be amiss in the coming years ifwe pondered well the question whether from the plethora of sportsour nation has reaped an adequate harvest. More recently, thepolitical scientist James C. Charlesworth has suggested that massspectation poses a dark threat to American democracy, for, ifpeople are trained to sit and watch professionals in sport and otherleisure activities, they will also sit and watch some ambitious busy-bodies take their government away from them and operate it . l5

These observers, although separated in time by more than acentury, all exaggerated the extent, or at least the impact, o f massobservation. Concern over the lack of participation perhapspossessed some merit in the early days of organized sport whenlong hours and short pay inhibited many potential players andencouraged them to participate vicariously by watching the featsof others. But even before the Civil War the argument that therise of sports made Americans a nation of onlookers had begun tolose much of its validity. Sports assumed major importance inAmerican life in the latter half of the nineteenth century not onlybecause they entertained urban crowds with commercial spectaclessuch as professional baseball, horse racing, and prize fighting, butalso because they gave people a chance to play. Billiards, bowling,amateur baseball, rowing, golf, tennis, track and field, and anumber of other athletic pastimes encouraged widespread partici-pation between 1820 and 1920. Critics who lamented the growthof mass spectation simply failed to count the number of games


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136 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUR Ethat took urban residents out of the grandstand and onto the play-ing field. Near the end of the century a writer for the Rev iew ofRev iews stated: There is an open-air movement almost revolution-ary in its degree. People are bicycling, yachting, running,jumping, fishing, hunting, playing baseball, tennis, and golf, to anextent which is new in this generation. A commentator for theSaturday Evening ost concurred: The American love of sportshas risen to a pitch never before known. This is the era ofsport. Practically every man and boy, every woman and girl, takespart, or wishes to take part, in some branch of it. And it isfortunate that the field is broad enough for all. Sports thusprovided entertainment for both participants and spectators; mostpeople played both roles at various times in their leisure hours.16

Although their tastes were varied, Americans seemed to beparticularly fond of sports that emphasized speed, strength, andrugged exercise. The almost classless and nearly universal appealof activities such as bicycling, prize fighting, and football, whichepitomized what Theodore Roosevelt called the strenuous life,indicated that people in this country seized upon sport, in thewords of the historian John Higham, as one way to break out ofthe frustrations, the routine, and the sheer dullness of an urban-industrial culture. Moreover, many observers believed thatphysically demanding athletic pastimes instilled in American youththe values and the training that enabled people to perform remark-able feats in all areas of life. Football, to cite one example, appearedto cultivate the qualities that would empower a man to survivethe ruthlessness of the business world or , as a writer for theSaturday Evening Post declared, that would enable a man to leada charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into SantiagoHarbor. When overemphasis on sports inspired college athletes toresort to questionable tactics in order to win, however, somecritics expressed doubts about pastimes that encouraged and re-warded unethical standards of behavior. Men trained in suchmethods through all the years of school and college life may be-come future leaders, one skeptic wrote, but they will be leadersin the art of evading taxes, manipulating courts, and outwitting


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 137~~ ~

the law of the land. Needless to say, warnings such as this onegenerally had little impact, for most people believed that thebenefits of sports far surpassed the disadvantages. Interest insports supposedly had a particularly salubrious effect in the South.A writer for Harpers Weekly declared: The Southerner is proneto drift, and by the pleasantest route. The athletic wave thathas swept over the South has put new spirit into the young men,and lessened the receipts of saloons to an appreciable degree.l7

could be no denying its conquest of the country. By 1920 theUnited States had two major professional baseball leagues as wellas a number of minor ones; horse racing annually attracted hundredsof thousands of fans; professional football was in its infancy; andprofessional prize fights were drawing record crowds. The NationalCollegiate Athletic Association had been organized in 1906 to ruleover a vast empire of collegiate and intercollegiate athletics; andthe Amateur Athletic Union, founded in 1888, supervised an equallylarge network of amateur competition. Americans had developedwhat Lord James Bryce called a passion for looking on at andreading about athletic sports. It occupies the minds not onlyof the youth at the universities, but also of their parents and thegeneral public. Baseball matches and football matches excite aninterest greater than any other public events except the Presidentialelection, and that comes only once in four years.l8 Sports clearlyhad claimed a position of importance alongside other types ofpopular entertainment.well on its way to becoming a leisure-oriented country. Thetremendous growth of commercial amusements and organizedsports between 1820 and 1920, predictably enough, had a profoundinfluence on various aspects of American society. Scholars have yetto examine fully the impact of these activities on national life, butsome results of the leisure revolution are readily discernible. Therise of the entertainment industry gave employment t o tens ofthousands of people; it contributed countless words and phrasesto the language; and it influenced clothing styles. Newspapers

Whatever the reasons for the appeal of organized sport, there

As this survey has suggested, the United States by 1920 was


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138 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUR Eadded special sections to report leisure activities; and publishersissued a number of sporting, theatrical and general leisure magazinesto chronicle the countrys pursuit of pleasure.19

Commercial amusements, particularly organized sports, alsoprovided a social safety valve that allowed great masses of peopleto blow off steam in a relatively harmless way. The density ofurban populations; the insistence that everyone engage in what wasconstantly described as the ruthless struggle for survival; the dis-appointment and disillusionment felt by the vast majority of peoplewho could never hope to rise to the top rungs of the economic andsocial ladders; the necessity for synchronizing and regimenting themovements of thousands of people in densely populated areas; andthe friction caused by the presence of thousands upon thousandsof people of diverse social, economic, ethnic, and racial back-grounds all produced a potentially explosive situation. The explosionfailed to occur partly because commercial amusements and organizedrecreation offered outlets for the tensions generated in urban centers.Residents relieved some of their personal and occupational frustrationsby joining amateur theatrical groups, by playing on athletic teams, orsimply by watching others perform. Participation in leisure activities,whether actual or vicarious, helped to restore a sense of individualismto people living in a mass society; it offered a degree of excitementand perhaps an element of chance to people whose lives were other-wise very orderly and highly routinized, not to say dull; and it direct-ed competitive impulses into relatively harmless, if not alwaysproductive, channels.20

Amusements also contributed to the democratization of societyby helping to lower barriers which have traditionally separated thevarious ethnic and economic groups present in great American cities.At a time when some features of urban life, such as rapid, poorlyplanned growth, an increase in specialization and the division oflabor, and the infusion of heterogeneous elements into the city, tend-ed to isolate people and to destroy all sense of community, commer-cial amusements acted as a countervailing force. The theater, themovie house, and the athletic arena served as great mixing bowlsthat brought together people of different classes and ethnic back-


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 139grounds and gave them similar interests. The entertainmentindustry, like urban politics and organized crime, also provided aladder of economic and social mobility for members of disadvantagedgroups. Finding other avenues of ascent closed to them, people insocietys lower levels could and did move upward by becomingprofessional actors, singers, comedians, and athletes. Success inthe entertainment industry seldom brought immediate member-ship in Americas social elite, but it certainly provided an egress fromproverty and humiliation for thousands of people. The commonpursuit of pleasure could not fully bridge economic and ethnicdivisions nor fulfill entirely its promises of social and economicmobility, but it nevertheless accelerated the trend toward fulldemocratic participation in all phases of American life.social mixer was in the area of race relations. Today it is a truismto say that Negroes have been able to achieve a degree of mobilityin the entertainment business denied to them in other occupations.Only a few years ago a writer for the Saturday Review observed:The world of sport has now become, along with the SupremeCourt decisions, the civil rights movement, the exploding postwareconomy, and world opinion, an undeniable force in moving theUnited States toward full integration. Whatever the truth of thisremark today-and friction on professional athletic teams and incollege athletic programs suggests certain flaws in the argument-the world of entertainment has not always been such a peacemaker.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several factorsbrought about a drastic decline in the position of Negroes in Americanlife and in relations between blacks and whites. Indifference on thepart of the Federal government; the broad appeal of the philosophyof Social Darwinism, which encouraged a belief in racial superiority;the influence of writers such as Madison Grant, who stressed thenecessity of maintaining the purity of the great race of Anglo-Saxons; and national adventures in imperialism, which broughtmany non-Anglo-Saxons under American domination, all combinedto convince large segments of the white population that they deserveda position of supremacy in America. As a result Negroes found

The most conspicuous failure of commercial recreation as a


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14 TOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUREthemselves in an increasingly hostile society.discriminatory policies in the entertainment industry that theyencountered in other areas of national life. Places of amusementthroughout the country and particularly in the South regularlysegregated customers according to race. Theaters, saloons, grand-stands, billiard parlors, tenpin alleys, and a variety of other publicfacilities required black citizens to occupy special sections or t ofrequent establishments built exclusively for them. An anonymousNegro in 1887 complained to George Washington Cable, a whitesoutherner who spent his life battling racial discrimination: Aperson having a few drops of African blood in his veins no matterhow white he may be is considered a Nigger and has to be coopedin the cockloft of a theatre or stay at home. So it is, themoral suffering of a man having a little negro blood in his veins issomething terrible-for he is always in hot water-fear of beinginsulted by being ejected from public places.21

I f public entertainment facilities drew a rigid color line forspectators, as this letter indicates, racial barriers were no less formi-dable for black participants. Throughout the nineteenth centuryand well into the twentieth Negro actors (or whites in blackface)appeared in plays and later movies only in demeaning roles. Blackathletes found the doors t o professional teams and sports lockedagainst them. Negro baseball players, permitted to play on pro-fessional teams for several years after the Civil War, were graduallyexcluded from the National and American leagues. Negro jockeys,who for years rode thoroughbreds throughout the country withoutopposition, were gradually driven off tracks until by the 1930sthere were only thirteen active black riders out of a total of morethan nine hundred. White prize fighters, led by John L. Sullivan,refused to enter the ring with black pugilists. When the Negrofighter George Dixon, champion of the featherweights, beat JackSkelly, a white fighter, in a title match in New Orleans in 1892 , alocal paper spoke for much of the nation when it observed: It isa mistake to match a negro and a white man, a mistake to bringthe races together on any terms of equality, even in the prize ring.

Black Americans experienced the same restrictions and


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 141Jack Johnson, who became champion in 1908, inspired a nation-wide quest for a white hope that ended only when Jess Willarddefeated the black heavyweight in 1915. By 1920 it was evidentthat contact between the races in all phases of the entertainmentindustry occurred on the same basis as in other fields of endeavor:Whites insisted upon black subordination. For all their allegedequality of opportunity, theaters, movies, and sports merely re-flected prevailing views.22

leisure revolution was American Protestantism. Throughout thenineteenth century Protestant ministers consistently resisted thetrend toward mass recreation. They, even more than businessleaders, stressed the true Christians obligation to work hard and toavoid the temptations of pleasure. As late as 1890, for example,a Texas Methodist wrote: Life is short, and no time is to be lostin youths valuable years. Sport, fun, and frolic, have nochapter in youths Book of Life in our day; learning and doingfill up the entire volume. This sentiment, which remained strongin rural areas well into the present century, seemed to manyobservers to be woefully outdated in the urban-industrial societythat had emerged in the nineteenth century. As a result ministersin metropolitan communities began, albeit reluctantly and belated-ly, to face the challenges and the realities of the new society.23

When Protestant leaders honestly confronted the problemsand questions raised by industrialization and urbanization, theyproduced a new creed known as Social Christianity or the SocialGospel. Part of this new approach was a candid appraisal of theneed for leisure-time activities in urban communities. Leaders ofthe Social Gospel, such as Josiah Strong, Washington Gladden, andWalter Rauschenbusch, conceded, in Strongs words, that Placesof amusement and recreation are an important part of environmentin the city. Since people were going to seek enter tainment, thesemen reasoned, it was important to offer Christian pastimes thatwould rescue people from what Strong called coarse threatricals,gambling hells, promiscuous public dances, and drinkingsaloons. The duty of the Church with respect t o popular amuse-

Another area of American life that felt the impact of the


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142 IOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTUR Ements is not done when it has lifted up its warning against theabuses tha t grow out of them, and laid down its laws of temperanceand moderation in their use, Gladden wrote in his famoustreatise Applied Christianity. It has a positive function to fulfillin furnishing diversions that shall be attractive, and, at the sametime, pure and wh0lesome.2~

Churches responded to this call to duty in a variety of ways.Ministers spoke and wrote in defense of proper amusements. TheYoung Mens Christian Association and the Young WomensChristian Association played important roles in Christianizingcertain urban amusements. Th e major Protestant solution to thisrecreational need was to equip churches with gymnasiums, libraries,and rooms for games, concerts, and other pastimes. Theseinstitutional churches, as they were called, provided the populacewith what Strong described as Sanctified Amusements.Rauschenbusch, writing in 1919, predicted tha t the developmentof such wholesome social pleasures would ultimately mean thatthe so-called pleasures of the saloon and sex hell will be relegatedto the place from which they ascended. By 1920 Protestantleaders of nearly all denominations had learned that urban churchescould flourish only if they ministered to the temporal as well asthe spiritual needs of their parishioners.25

Women, like the churches, benefitted from the leisurerevolution and particularly from the rise of organized sports. TheAmerican woman, trying to free herself from the confining aspectsof Victorian society, saw participation in sports as a convenientmethod of vivifying her struggle for equality with men. Croquet,tennis, archery, golf, and especially bicycling were activities thatpermitted women to participate as actively as men. Mrs. Reginaldde Koven wrote in Cosmopolitan in 1895: To men, rich andpoor, the bicycle is an unmixed blessing; but to women it isdeliverance, revolution, salvation. I t is well nigh impossible tooverestimate its influence in the matters of dress and socialreform. The Boston Rescue League sought to stem femaleenthusiasm for sports by pointing out that thirty per cent of thefallen women who came to the league for aid had been


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 143bicycle riders at one time. And Mr. Dooley, the fictional creationof Finley Peter Dunne, also added a word of warning about athleticsfor women. In the nex eighty or ninety years if I make up memind to leave this boistherous life an settle down, the lady thatIll rayquist to double me rent an divide me borrowin capacitywill wear no medals f r athletic spoorts. Fr, Himmessey, Imafraid I cud not love a woman might lose a fight to. Suchadmonitions, of course, went unheeded. By the early years of thetwentieth century the athletic woman had become a symbol of theNew Woman, and everything from clothing styles to voting require-ments began to change. It was but another indication of thetremendous impact of the leisure revolution that had occurred inAmerican cities between 1820 and 1920 26

NOTESlFrances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans London and

New Y ork, 183 2), 171 ; Francis J. Grund , The Americans in T heir MoralSocial and Political Re latio ns New York and L ondon , 19 68 ; 2 vols. in one;reprint of edit ion first published in Bostion, 18 37 ), 76-77; Sir Charles Lyell,A Second Visit t o the U nited States of North Am erica New York andLond on, 184 9), 11, 91. For similar com men ts, see Trollop e, Domest icManners 242, 244; James S. Buckingham, America Historical Statistic andDescriptive New York, 18 41 ), 11 ,4 34 4, 351-52; and Thomas Low Nichols ,Forty Years ofAmerican Life London , 1864 ) , I, 401-402.

2Allen Nevins ed.), The Diary ofP hilip Hone 1828-1851 New York,1927) , 11 572.

3P.T. Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs; or Fo rty Years Reco llectionso f P . T . Barnum Hartford, 1871), 72. For general a cco unts dealing with thesubject of leisure, see Nels An ders on, Work and Leisure Glen coe, Ill., 196 1);Charles K. Brightbill, The Challenge of Leisure En glew ood Cliffs, N. J., 1 9 6 0 ) ;Charles K. Brightbill, Ed uc atin gfo r Leisure-Centered Living Harrisburg, Pa.,19 66 ); Sebastian de G razia, Of Tim e Work and Leisure New York, 1 962 ) ;Arnold W. Green, Recreation Leisure and Politics New York, SanFrancisco, Toro nto, London, 19 64 );Max Kaplan, Leisure in Am erica: ASocial Inquiry New York and London , 196 0) ; Eric Larrabee and RolfMeyersohn eds.), Mass Leisure Glencoe, Ill., 1958) Bernard Rosenberg andDan iel M. White eds .), Mass Culture Glenc oe, Ill., 1 957 ). An excellentacc ou nt of the play-element in western civilization is Joh ann Huizinga, H o m o


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144 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURELudens: A Stu dy o f the P lay-Element in Culture Boston, 1955; Beacon Pressedition). The best general history of pleasure seeking in America is FosterRhea Dulles, A History ofRec rea tion : America Learns to Play New York,1965; second edition).

4George B. Cutten, Th e Threat o f Leisure New Haven, 1926), 17; C.Wright Mills, White Collar: Th e Am eric an Middle Classes New York, 1956),236; Josiah Strong, The Challenge o f the Cit y New York and Cincinnati,1907), 115. The Georgia Baptist periodical is quoted in William R. Hogan,Sin and Sports, in Ralph Slovenko and James A. Knight eds.), Motiwationsin Play Games and Sports Springfield, Ill., 1967), 123.the most useful are Hugh F. Rankin, Th e The ater in Colonial Americ a ChapelHill, 1965); ames H Dorman, Jr., Theater in th e An t e Bellurn Sou th 18151861 Chapel Hill, 1967); Francis Hodge, Yanke e Theater: The Image o fAmerica on the Stage 1825-1850 Austin, 1964); Bernard Hewitt, TheaterU .A., 1668 1957 New York, 1959); Howard Taubman, T h e Mak ing o f th eAmerican Theater New York, 1965); and Arthur Hornblow,A History o f theTheater in A m e r i c a f r o m I t s Beginnings to the Present Tim e 2 vols.; Philadelphia,1919). 6Noah M. Ludlow, Dramatic L ife A s I Found I t New York, 1966;reprint of edition first published in St. Louis, 1880), 545; Solomon F. Smith,Theatrical Managem ent in the West and So ut h f o r T hirty Years. In terspersedwi th Anecdo ta l Sketches New York, 1868), 232-33.

7Trollope, Dom estic Manners 116;Hopkinson 111 February, 1829),327, quoted in Frank L. Mott, A History o f America n Magazines 1741 1850Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 430-31; [Charles B. Parsons], The Pulpit and the

Stage; or Th e T w o Itinerancies. An Historic Biographic Philos ophic Miscellany.B y ne W h o K n o w s Nashville, 1860), 65, quoted in Dorman, Theater in theAn te Be l lu m S o u th 237. F o r descriptions of riots, often provoked by Britishactors who allegedly made disparaging remarks about America, see Nevins ed.),Diary ofPh il ip Hone I 49-51,134; 11,866-70; and Allen Nevins and Milton H.Thomas eds.), The Diary o f George Tem pleton Strong New York, 1952), I ,351-53. See also Dorman, Theater in the An t e Bellurn S outh 232-57; Dulles,History o f Recreation 103-107; and Richard Moody, The Ast or Place RiotBloomington, Ind., 1958).

8William Davidge, Footligh t Flushes New York, 1867), 202, quoted inDulles, History o f Recreation 100;New Orleans Bee January 7 , 1861; Nevinsed.), Diary o f Philip Hon e I 183;Nevins and Thomas eds.), Diary o f GeorgeTempleton S trong 11 311.

9Nevins ed.), Diary o f PhiZip H on e 11 710; To-Day I January 3,1852), 16, quoted in Frank L. Mott, A History of Am er ic an Magazines 1850-1 8 6 5 Cambridge, Mass., 1938), 194;AppZetonsJournaZ, I July 3, 1869 , 40,

5There are a number of good histories of the American theater. Among


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 145quo ted in Frank L. M ott, A History o f Ame rican Magazines 1865-1885 Cam-bridge, Mass., 19 38 , 206 . See also Dulles, History o f Recreation 114-2 0, 215-19;Carl Wittke, Ta mb o and Bones: A History o f the America n Minstrel StageDurh am, N. C., 1 93 0) ;Hans Natha n, Dan Em m et t and th e Rise o f Early NegroMinstrelsy Norm an, Okla. , 196 2); and Gilbert Chase, Americas Music: Fromth e Pilgrims to the Present New York, Toron to, London, 19 55 ), chapters 13 ,14, 1 6, 21, 22, 23.One Nights: A History o f the Motion Picture New York , 196 4; reprin t ofedition first published in 1924);Leo Rosten, Hollywood: The Movie ColonyTh e Movie Makers New York , 194 1) ; Lewis Jacobs, Th e Rise of the AmericanFilm: A Cultural History New Y ork, 19 68 ; second edition); Richard Griffithand Arthu r M ayer, Th e Movies: The Sixty-Year Story of the World o f Holly-woo and I t s Ef f ec t on America fr o m Pre-Nickelodeon Days to th e PresentNew York , 195 7) ; Lloyd Morris, N o t So L o ng A g o New York, 1949), Part

One; Arthur Knight , Th e Liveliest A rt : A Panoramic History o f th e MoviesNew York, 195 7); and Dulles, History o f Recreation chapter 17.

ll T he movie titles an d the quo te from the Chicago Tribune are fromRamsaye, A Million and One Nights 473-74.

12F or accounts of the controversy surrounding The Birth of a Nation,see Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights 635-44, especially p. 64 3 for thereactions cited a nd q uote d in this paragraph; and M orris, N o t So Long Ago66-74. The film, incidentally, was revived throu gho ut the So uth in the 1 950 st o arouse opposition t o school integration and the civil rights m ovementgenerally.

13Spirit of the Times New York), XXI July 26, 1851), 271 ; WilkesSpir it of the Times New York), X X I September 1 1 , 1869) , 53.

14Nevins and Th om as eds.), Diary o f George Te mp leton Strong 11 65-66;Puck, XXI June 1 , 1887) , 236 ; Samuel L. Clemens, Welcome Home: Toa Baseball Team R etur ning fro m a World To ur by Way of the Sand wich Islands1889), in Mark Twains Speec hes Vol. 28 of Th e Writ ings o f Mark TwainNew York, 192 3), 14 5; The Athletic Craze, Nation LVII December 7,

1893), 423.Atlantic Monthly I May, 1858), 881;John Allen Krout, Am erican Themesedited by Clifford Lord and Henry R. Graff New York and Lon don, 1 963),1 2 5 ;James C. Charlesworth, A Comprehensive Plan for the Wise Use ofLeisure, in James C. Charlesworth ed.), Leisure in Am eric a: Blessing orCurse? Philadelphia, 19 64 ), 39-40.A History o f Am erican Magazines 1885-1905 Cam bridge, 195 7), 36 9; HarryT. Paxton ed.), Sport U . S. A.: Th e Best f r o m the Saturday Evening Post

1For general acco un ts of the movies, see Terry Ramsaye, A Million and

1501iver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,

16Review of Reviews XIV July, 1896), 58, quoted in Frank L. M ott ,


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146 TOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE~New York, 1961), 4.

in John Weiss ed.), Th e Origins of Modern Consciousness Detroit, 1965), 27;Saturday Evening Post, CLXXI November 19, 1898), 330, quoted in Mott,History o f Am erican Magazines 1885-1 905 375; Clarence F. Birdseye,Individual Training in Ou r Colleges New York, 1907), 162, quoted inFrederick Rudolph, Th e Am erican College and University: A History NewYork, 1962), 382; Casper W. Whitney, Amateur Sport, Harpers WeeklyXXXVII December 23, 1893), 1239.

18James Bryce, America Revisited: The Changes of a Quarter Century,Out l ook LXXX March 25, 1905),738-39.

l9F or an indication of the impact of commercial amusements and sportson American life, see Max Lerner, Am erica A s a Civilization: Life and T houg htin the U ni tedSta te s Today New York, 1957), chapter 11 ; Frederick W. Cozensand Florence Scovil Stupf, Sports in American Life Chicago, 1953); RobertH. Boyle, Sport-Mirror o f Am erican Life Boston and Toronto, 1963) ;JohnR. Betts, Sporting Journalism in Nineteenth-Century America, AmericanQuarterly V Spring, 1953), 39-56; John R. Betts, The TechnologicalRevolution and the Rise of Sport, 1850-1900, Mississippi Va lley HistoricalReview XL September, 1953), 231-56; Frank L. Mott, A His tory o fAmer icanJournalism New York, 1958; second edition), 297-98,443, 578-79; Mott,History of Am erican Magazines 1741-1850 165-69, 172-73,427-30,435-37,479-82; Mott, History o f Am erican Magazines 1850-1865 194-204; Mott,History o f Ame rican Magazines 1865-1885 192-222; Mott, History ofAm erican Magazines 1885-1905 250-62, 371-82.

20Frederic Logan Paxson, The Rise of Sport, Mississippi ValleyHistorical Review I V September, 1917), 145; Arnold J. Toynbee, A S t u d yo f History 11 vols.; London, 1934-1959), IV, 242; Lewis Mumford, Technicsand Civilization New York, 1934), 303-307.21Richard L. Tobin, Sports as an Integrator, Saturday Review LJanuary 21, 1967), 32 ; Justice to George Washington Cable, February.24,

1887, George Washington Cable Papers Special Collections, Tulane UniversityLibrary).Patterson comp.), Anthology of the American Negro in the Theater NewYork, Washington, London, 1968), section one; David Q. Voigt, AmericanBaseball: Fro m Gentlemans Sp ort to the Commissioner Sys tem Norman,Okla., 1966), 278-79; Charles B. Parmer, For Gold and Glory: Th e Story ofThoroughb red Racing in America New York, 1939), 150-51; AlexanderJohnston, Ten-And Out : The C omple te S tory of the Prize Rin g in AmericaNew York, 1947; third edition), 94, 182-202; Finis Farr, Black Champion:f i e L ife a nd T im e s o f J a ck J o h n s o n New York, 1964).

17John Higham, The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s,

22New Orleans Times-Democrat September 8 , 1892. See also Lindsay


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THE LEISURE REVOLUTION 14 723H. A. Graves, An dre w Jackson Pot ter: Th e No ted Parson of the

Texa s Frontier Nashville, 1890),448 , quoted in Hogan, Sin and S ports ,122 . Hogans article is an excellent acco unt of the change in Pro testa ntattitudes toward recreation, especially sports , in the n ineteenth an d twe ntiethcenturies.Christianity: M oral As pec ts of Social Questions Boston and New York,1886) , 270.izing the Social O rder New York , 1919) , 44 0 ,4 42 .Am eric an Magazines 1885-1905 378; Philistine I July, 1895), 63, quotedin ibid.; Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley At is Best edite d by Elm er Ellis

New York, n.d.), 184 . See also And rew Sinclair, Th e Emancipat ion of theAmerican Woman New York, 19 65 ), 107; and Ernest R. Groves , T h eAmerican Wom an: Th e Feminine Side of a Masculine Civilization New Y ork,1944) , 386.

24Strong, Challenge of the Ci ty 115;Washington Gladd en, Applied

25Strong, Challenge of the Ci ty 22 3; Walter Rauschenbusch, Christian-26Cosmopoli tan XIX August , 18 95 ), 386, quo ted in M ott , History of

Dale A. Som ers is Associate Professor of Histo ry, Georgia Sta te University,Atlanta, Georgia.

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