Author: Violet McNeal
Publisher: Feral House
ISBN: 1627310932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Violet McNeal ran away from her family’s rural Minnesota farm in the late 1880s and fell under the spell of conman and patent medicine “doctor” Will Archimbauld who hooked her on opium and promises of fame and fortune. Violet soon learned to become Princess Lotus Blossom and was the best pitchman, nostrum seller, and conwoman to roam the west in a torch-lit wagon. Four White Horses and a Brass Band is Violet’s story of life on the road with the medicine show and reveal the secrets of conman’s trade. Sick and nearly dead with addiction by age 30, she submits to the tortures of withdrawal and the “cure” to create a new life. First published in 1947, the Feral House edition features an extensive afterword on the history of the patent medicine trade and evolution of the lure of miracle cures and healers. Also included are a glossary of the grifter’s cant and samples of scripts used by Violet and other infamous “doctors”.
Author: Laura Browder
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807860603
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
In the 1920s, black janitor Sylvester Long reinvented himself as Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, and Elizabeth Stern, the native-born daughter of a German Lutheran and a Welsh Baptist, authored the immigrant's narrative I Am a Woman--and a Jew; in the 1990s, Asa Carter, George Wallace's former speechwriter, produced the fake Cherokee autobiography, The Education of Little Tree. While striking, these examples of what Laura Browder calls ethnic impersonator autobiographies are by no means singular. Over the past 150 years, a number of American authors have left behind unwanted identities by writing themselves into new ethnicities. Significantly, notes Browder, these ersatz autobiographies have tended to appear at flashpoints in American history: in the decades before the Civil War, when immigration laws and laws regarding Native Americans were changing in the 1920s, and during the civil rights era, for example. Examining the creation and reception of such works from the 1830s through the 1990s--against a background ranging from the abolition movement and Wild West shows to more recent controversies surrounding blackface performance and jazz music--Browder uncovers their surprising influence in shaping American notions of identity.
Author: Brooks McNamara
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781617037290
Category : Medicine shows
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Here is the fascinating though ofttimes shady history of the medicine show, an American show-business institution that dispensed hoopla and nostrums to a credulous clientele. When medicine shows died out, the nation lost one of its most rollicking entertainments.
Author: United States. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corrections
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Author: United States. Department of Justice
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Author: Camille F. Forbes
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0786722355
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
It is not hard to argue that every black performer in show business owes something to Bert Williams. Discovered in California in 1890 by a minstrel troupe manager, Williams swiftly became a regular player in the troupe. Traveling on from the rough-and-ready "medicine shows" that then dotted the West, he rose through the ranks of big-time vaudeville in New York City, and finally ascended to the previously all-white pinnacle of live-stage success: the fabled Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. Inspite of his triumphs-he brought the first musical with an all-black cast to Broadway in 1903-he was often viewed by the black community with more critical suspicion than admiration because of his controversial decision to perform in blackface. Modest, private, and conservative in his personal life, Williams left political activism and soapbox thumping to others. More than the simple narration of a remarkable life, Introducing Bert Williams offers a fascinating window into the fraught issues surrounding race and artistic expression in American culture. The story of Williams's long and varied career is a whirlwind of inner turmoil, racial tension, glamour, and striving-nothing less than the birth of American show business.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
Author: Ann Anderson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures," guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were seldom miraculous, the medicine show was an important part of American culture and of performance history. Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, and P.T. Barnum all took a turn upon the medicine show stage. This study of the medicine show phenomenon surveys nineteenth century popular entertainment and provides insight into the ways in which show business, advertising, and medicine manufacture developed in concert. The colorful world of the medicine show, with its Wild West shows, pie-eating contests, clowns, and menageries, is fully explored. Photographs of performers and of the fascinating handbills and posters used to promote the medicine show are included.
Author: James Harvey Young
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400869005
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
Contents: Preface. Acknowledgments. Part One: Early Days. Part Two: Heyday. Part Three: Themes. Part Four: Legislation. Part Five: Epilogue. Index. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Author: Janet Benge
Publisher: YWAM Publishing
ISBN: 9781576582589
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
"Each true story in this series by outstanding authors Janet and Geoff Benge is loved by adults and children alike. More Christian Heroes: Then & Now biographies and unit study curriculum guides are coming soon. Fifty-five books are planned, and thousands of families have started their collections! Horrified by the poverty and human misery in industrial England, General William Booth and his Salvation Army brought the gospel and life-changing social services to the outcasts of society (1829-1912).
