W.C. Fields Juggles

W.C. Fields performs one of his best routines, 1934.

Princess Rajah Dance

According to vaudeville historians Joe Laurie, Jr. and Douglas Gilbert, Princess Rajah started as a "cooch" (an early form of belly dance) dancer at Coney Island in the 1890s. She was booked for a time at Huber's Museum in New York City before Willie Hammerstein presented her in her vaudeville debut at Hammerstein's Victoria theatre on 42nd Street. In addition to her dance with a chair, she also performed an Oriental dance with snakes. Princess Rajah was a featured act in the "Mysterious Asia" concession on the Pike at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. She later married agent Clifford C. Fischer. - Library of Congress

Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters

(NYTBR) ... Not since the heavenly dressing crew worked its miracle in “Cabin in the Sky” has anyone labored as hard to rehabilitate Waters’s image as Donald Bogle has in writing “Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters.” Bogle, a historian of ­African-American entertainment and the author of several good books on the subject (including the influential “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films”), has researched Waters thoroughly and presents, fastidiously, the great many facts of her long life and career. She began singing at age 21 in 1917 and remained active on television until 1972, five years before her death. The ­story he tells is a complex one of an almost tyrannically ambitious artist who broke racial barriers through a delicate and treacherous combination of will and accommodation. Continued

Photo of Ethel Waters by Carl Van Vechten

Le cochon danseur - el cerdo bailarín - dancing pig

"Les prouesses d'un cochon danseur habillé en petite fille. Corto francés de 1907, producido por Pathé, donde se aprecian las habilidades dancísticas de un cerdo... (?)"

Via boingboing

Hersheypark

(Wikipedia) - In 1903, Milton S. Hershey, founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company, surveyed a site along Spring Creek that would be suitable for his park. Hershey Park opened on April 24, 1907, with a baseball game played on the new athletic field. The beautifully landscaped park was an ideal spot for picnicking, boating and canoeing. Vaudeville and theatre productions were performed on a rustic bandstand and pavilion.
A merry-go-round was installed and opened on July 4, 1908. A 1,500-seat tiered amphitheatre was built next to the pavilion. The entrance sign proclaimed, “Ye who enter here leave dull cares behind.” Continued

Photo: HersheyPa.com

Recalling When Entertainment Joined Education: “Chautauqua!”

(NYTimes) - ... Chautauqua was one of the great American popular educational movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Starting modestly on a campsite in western New York State as an effort to train Sunday school teachers, it expanded into a national phenomenon. The movement brought lectures by the great speakers, preachers and thinkers of the day (William Jennings Bryan was one of the hottest tickets) to the expanding middle class, along with folk music, historical costume drama and dance, all under a circus tent. Continued

Eubie Blake

(Wikipedia) - James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was a composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. With long time collaborator Noble Sissle, Blake wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along in 1921; this was one of the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as, "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find A Way", "Memories of You", and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The musical Eubie!, which featured the collective works of Blake opened on Broadway in 1978. Continued

Photo: Maryland Historical Society

Father of the ‘Follies’

(NYTBR) - A century is a mere blink in the history of mankind, but it’s a long time in the history of show business. Just about a hundred years ago, a Chicago-born talent manager started a franchise called the “Follies” that set New York on its ear. He apotheosized the showgirl and changed the entertainment rulebook by making the revue an ethnic stew. He later went on to produce “Show Boat,” the first great American musical. But who knows much about Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. today? Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Songs of the 60's: Dunbar's Maryland Singers

Redpath Chautauqua Collection, Library of Congress