{"product_id":"vaudeville-and-the-making-of-modern-entertainment-1890-1925-9781469660554","title":"Vaudeville and the Making of Modern Entertainment, 1890-1925","description":"Today, vaudeville is imagined as a parade of slapstick comedians, blackface shouters, coyly revealed knees, and second-rate acrobats. But vaudeville was also America's most popular commercial amusement from the mid-1890s to the First World War; at its peak, 5 million Americans attended vaudeville shows every week. Telling the story of this pioneering art form's rise and decline, David Monod looks through the apparent carnival of vaudeville performance and asks: what made the theater so popular and transformative? Although he acknowledges its quirkiness, Monod makes the case that vaudeville became so popular because it offered audiences a guide to a modern urban lifestyle. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eVaudeville acts celebrated sharp city styles and denigrated old-fashioned habits, showcased new music and dance moves, and promulgated a deeply influential vernacular modernism. The variety show's off-the-rack trendiness perfectly suited an era when goods and services were becoming more affordable and the mass market promised to democratize style, offering a clear vision of how the quintessential twentieth-century citizen should look, talk, move, feel, and act.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMonod, David:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - David Monod is professor of American social and cultural history at Wilfrid Laurier University.","brand":"University of North Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50510728003858,"sku":"9781469660554","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3d9e3e8f-4cbf-4866-847f-54b91f7f8414.jpg?v=1730932921","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/vaudeville-and-the-making-of-modern-entertainment-1890-1925-9781469660554","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}