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Author Stubbs, Naomi J., 1981- author.

Title Cultivating national identity through performance : American pleasure gardens and entertainment / Naomi J. Stubbs
Published New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

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Description 1 online resource
Series Palgrave studies in theatre and performance history
Palgrave studies in theatre and performance history.
Contents Performing nation: the pleasure gardens as a space for defining America -- Performing place: the rural/urban tension -- Performing class: the challenge to and reaffirmation of class divisions and hierarchies -- Performing race: Native Americans and African Americans within the gardens -- Beyond the pleasure garden
Summary Combining the charms of the country with the convenience of the city and delivering a healthy dose of both entertainment and education, American pleasure gardens were ubiquitous between the Revolution and the Civil War. Patrons of these entertainment venues would have expected to see plays, concerts, fairs, mechanical and artistic exhibits, fireworks, volcanic eruptions, and - perhaps more crucially - they would have expected to see and be seen. As outdoor entertainment venues in American cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pleasure gardens presented citizens with public spaces where they could explore what it meant to be American. The very nature of American pleasure gardens provided an effective location for the exploration of and experimentation with American identities, due to their nature as simultaneously rural and urban, modern and nostalgic, British and American, white and racialized, and democratic and class-conscious. Stubbs examines how these once popular venues helped form American identity using nation, class, race, and the agrarian ideal as touchstones and argues the gardens allowed for the exploration of what it meant to be American through performance, both on and off the stage
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-171) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Gardens -- United States -- History
Gardens -- Social aspects -- United States
Amusements -- United States -- History
Performance art -- United States -- History
Landscape art & architecture -- c 1800 to c 1900 -- USA.
Theatre studies -- c 1800 to c 1900 -- USA.
Other performing arts -- c 1800 to c 1900 -- USA.
GARDENING -- Essays.
GARDENING -- Reference.
GARDENING -- Vegetables.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Horticulture.
Architecture and Planning.
Amusements
Gardens
Gardens -- Social aspects
Manners and customs
Performance art
SUBJECT United States -- Social life and customs. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140527
Subject United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781137326874
1137326875
9781349460021
1349460028
9781137326867
1137326867