19th century American drama : popular culture and entertainment, 1820-1900
This unique and authoritative collection of America's most popular entertainment form opens a door on U.S. culture that has been closed until now due to the challenge of access. The wide-ranging materials in Nineteenth-Century American Drama will shed light on areas of study generally supported to this point only by imprints and newspapers: daily life in the United States; politics, both local and national; culture in all of its forms; and the shifting and evolving tastes of Americans from across the country. Subjects covered by these works include women's movements, temperance, street life, westward expansion, slavery and abolition, immigration, wars and countless others. Also included here are hundreds of prompt books and manuscripts--annotated copies that help reveal the changing intentions of authors and the artistic views of directors. Together, these unique materials written by both the famous and the obscure provide students and scholars with rich new opportunities to study the dramatic arts and the American past from diverse perspectives."--Quick facts page (viewed March 26, 2018)