MenuVaudeville Wars Notes: Part 3
Notes for other pages of Vaudeville Wars can be found by clicking on the appropriate link in Notes.
Page numbers below refer to page numbers in the printed book. When a paragraph in the book does not contain a note it is identified by placing quotation marks around key words in the first sentence. In cases where there is a note in the published version, references have been added after the cited note, often followed by the word "see."
Part Three Consolidation and Revolt
7. Streamlining the Booking Process
1. Variety, May 2, 1919, 38. 2.
2. Robetta and Doreto to R. H. Mohr, November 27, 1894, Vaudeville Letters, uncatalogued file, HTC-MH; W. C. Fields to M. Shea, March 8, 1902, May 2, 1902, correspondence, box 2, MSTC.
pp. 95-96 "The most difficult task"
Alfred L. Bernheim, The Business of the Theatre (New York: Actors' Equity Association, 1932), 35-37.
3. Montgomery and Stone to M. Shea, October 10, 1901, correspondence, box 2, MSTC.
4. The Three Keatons to M. Shea, n.d., correspondence, box 2, MSTC. See Buster Keaton Collection, Miscellaneous File, CLAC; Stein, ed., American Vaudeville, 149.
5. Variety, December 10, 1910, 36, NYM, August 9, 1879, 5.
pp. 96-97 "Albee believed that the booking process"
The following were initial attempts to create booking partnerships: On the Board of Managers of Vaudeville Theatres see NYC, January 26, 1895, 747; NYDM, December 15, 1894, 6; on the Association of Vaudeville Managers of America see Fields and Fields, From the Bowery to Broadway, 94; Grau, Business Man in the Amusement World, 193, 315, Grau, Forty Years Observation of Music and Drama, 30-32; Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management, 191; OCAT, 325; NYC, December 22, 1894, 69.
p. 97 "Albee was influenced"
On the Theatrical Syndicate see Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, 46-63; Margaret Knapp, "Introductory Essay"; Peter A. Davis, "The Syndicate/Shubert War," Inventing Times Square: Commerce and Culture at the Crossroads of the World, ed. William R. Taylor (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991), 123-24; 147-57; Monroe Lippman, "The Effect of the Theatrical Syndicate on Theatrical Art in America," Quarterly Journal of Speech 26(April 1940):275-82; Brooks McNamara, The Shuberts of Broadway: A History Drawn from the Collections of the Shubert Archive (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 14; Jack Poggi, Theater in America: The Impact of Economic Forces, 1870-1967 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), 11-20; CGAT, 168-69, 191-92, 268, 456; OCAT, 664; NYDM, February 29, 1896, 17, March 7, 1896, 17, April 22, 1905, 2; NYS, October 31, 1924, 1, 19.
6. Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management, 266-67, 472. See Berson, San Francisco Stage, 92; Gagey, San Francisco Stage, 167-69; "Michael B. Leavitt," San Francisco Theatre Research, 2 (series 1):109-26; NYM, October 5, 1882, 3, February 12, 1887, 3; SFC, December 13, 1882, 2, December 17, 1882, 2, December 24, 1882, 7.
p. 97 "The syndicate's formation"
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), 315-26.
pp. 97-98 "The control of mass markets"
Chandler, Visible Hand, 234-35; Gomery, Shared Pleasures, 34-36.
7. NYMT, September 1, 1912, 1. See Snyder, "American Vaudeville---Theatre in a Package," 35-46.
pp. 98-99 "A circuit, moreover, had more power"
On Miner see CGAT, 316-17; Fields and Fields, From the Bowery to Broadway, 63, 67, 79; Gilbert, American Vaudeville, 14; Henderson, City and the Theatre, 153, 155-56; Isman, Weber and Fields, 56-58; OCAT, 48-49; NYC, August 4, 1884, 10, September 7, 1889, 435, March 3, 1900, 7; NYDM, April 2, 1892, 8; NYM, August 9, 1884, 12. On Mishler see Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, 37; NYC, December 20, 1890, NYDM, February 2, 1889, 19, August 12, 1893, 9; NYM, July 17, 1880, 12, January 10, 1880, 7.
p. 99 "In March 1899"
NYC, June 9, 1900, 326.
p. 99 "The conversation between Murdock and Albee"
On Murdock see Gordon, Max Gordon Presents (New York: Bernard Geiss Associates, 1963), 85; Laurie, Vaudeville, 348-53; John J. Murdock clipping file, NN-BRTC; Billboard, October 7, 1911, 3; NYDM, April 14, 1900, 18; NYT, December 9, 1948, 33; VO 4:December 15, 1948.
p. 99 "Back in New York"
On Hyde and Behman see Laurie, Vaudeville, 356, 417-18; Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management, 322; OCAT, 364; Billboard, July 12, 1904, 5; NYC, October 18, 1890, 511; NYDM, March 8, 1902, 13, October 20, 1906, 15; NYM, November 5, 1881, 12; Variety, December 20, 1912, 75.
8. William Moulton Marston and John Henry Feller, F. F. Proctor: Vaudeville Pioneer (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1943), 15, 68. On Proctor see also Timothy D. Connors, "American Vaudeville Managers: Their Organization and Influence," PhD diss., Dept. of Speech and Drama, University of Kansas, 1981," 38-47; CGAT, 384; Grau, Business Man in the Amusement World, 301-6; Laurie, Vaudeville, 365-70; Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management, 195-96; NYM, June 11, 1887, 9; October 13, 1888, 500; NYT, September 5, 1929, 29; VO 2:September 11, 1929.
9. Marston and Feller, F. F. Proctor, 50. See Henderson, City and the Theatre, 147-49.
p. 101 "Two years after Keith assumed"
On the Pleasure Palace see Birkmire, The Planning and Construction of American Theatres, 30--40; Marston and Feller, F. F. Proctor, 50-52, 69; Michael Miller, "Proctor's Fifty-Eighth Street Theatre," Marquee 5(Third Quarter 1973): 8; James S. Moy, "Proctor's Pleasure Palace and Garden of Palms, 1895-1898," Nineteenth Century Theatre Research 8 (Spring 1980), 17-27; "List of Players and Vaudeville Bills Season 1898," Proctor's Pleasure Palace, PP; NYDM, March 16, 1895, 2, July 27, 1895, 18.
p. 101 "In 1900, Proctor added two new theaters"
Marston and Feller, F. F. Proctor, 55-64; "A Brief Treatise on the Merits of the Proctor Players, Plays and Playhouses," pamphlet, Proctor clipping file, NN-BRTC; NYC, April 6, 1901, 139, September 12, 1901, 152; NYDM, May 26, 1900, 18.
pp. 101-2 "Given the rivalry"
NYC, June 9, 1900, 326. 23. For photographs of the AVM managers at their meeting see Marks, They All Sang, 129; Vaudeville News and New York Star, October 25, 1926, n.p; Variety, January 8, 1930, 96.
10. "Morris Meyerfeld, "Dreamer and Doer;" SFC, August 16, 1908, 17.
p. 102 "Joining the discussion"
On Moore see James H. Moore clipping file, NN-BRTC; Grau, Business Man in the Amusement World, 316-17; JCOTG, 163, 167; Bruce McKelvey, Rochester: The Quest for Quality, 1890-1925 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), 14, 29, 215--216, 217, 220; Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management, 161, 203; NYDM, July 9, 1898, 16. 5. On Anderson see Grau, Businessman in the Amusement World, 67, 69; Billboard, September 8, 1906, 4, October 23, 1909, 4; NYC, February 28, 1903, 2, May 4, 1907, 307, November 9, 1907, 1065, February 19, 1910, 43, March 13, 1915, 20, March 20, 1915, 18; NYDM, March 17, 1915, 7; NYMT, June 3, 1910, 1, June 13, 1910, 1, March 19, 1915, 10; Variety, June 16, 1922, 5; VO 1:March 12, 1915. On Chase see A. I. Mudd, "History of Polite Vaudeville in Washington, D. C," unpublished manuscript, copy, NN-L-BRTC; Chase's advertisement, Washington Times, October 30, 1905; JCOTG, 155; VO 2:20 April 1938. On Burke see NYC, February 14, 1914, viii; NYMT, July 10, 1910, 4; VO 1:January 5, 1927.
11. Elsie Janis, So Far, So Good!: An Autobiography (London: John Long, Limited, 1933), 19. See John E. DiMeglio, Vaudeville U.S.A. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1973), 165; MSTC; Michael Shea clipping file, NN-BRTC; EV, 463; Laurie, Vaudeville, 412-14; Stein, ed., American Vaudeville As Seen by its Contemporaries, 151--54; "Shea's Performing Arts Center, Buffalo," http://www.sheas.org (accessed March 22, 2005).
12. NYDM, May 26, 1900, 17. See also NYC, June 9, 1900, 326.
13. NYDM, June 9, 1900, 9. See also "Proctor Quits Vaudeville Trust," NYH, April 21, 1901, clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH; Billboard, April 27, 1901, 11; Marston and Feller, F. F. Proctor, 69; NYDM, April 27, 1901, 18, May 4, 1901, 14.
p. 103 "On May 29"
NYC, June 9, 1900, 32, June 30, 1900, 403; NYDM, June 9, 1900, 9, 326, July 6, 1900, 7, July 21, 1900, 16. On the Hoffman House see Morris, Incredible New York, 111, 177, 259, 295; Moses King, ed,, King's Handbook of New York City, 1893 (Boston, 1893; repr., 2d enl. ed., New York, Benjamin Blom, 1972), 1:226.
14. Janis, So Far, So Good!, 22. For a list of AVM theaters and parks see letter of J. K. Burke to J. Ledlie Hees, May 16, 1902, box 15, folder 54, WC-NMAH; and AVM letterhead, show journal (managers' report book), January--May 1902, p. 31, box 37, TPC-HRHRC-TxU.
15. Managers Report Books, February 9, 1903, KAC-IaU. See Curtis, W. C. Fields, 52-54, 59-62; Louvish, Man on the Flying Trapeze, 109-111, 489.
16. Managers Report Books, February 16, 1903, February 23, 1903, March 2, 1903, KAC-IaU.
17. NYC, June 9, 1900, 326; NYDM, July 6, 1900, 7. See Robert W. Snyder, The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 36-38.
8. The White Rats Strike
1. Fred Stone, Rolling Stone (New York and London: Whittlesey House, 1945), 112-13. See Armond Fields, Fred Stone: Circus Performer and Musical Comedy Star (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 75-78, 83-85.
2. George Fuller Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats (New York: Broadway Publishing, 1909), 74. On the history of the White Rats see Thomas Colley, "A Historical Study of the White Rats of America" (master's thesis, Wayne State University, 1967), copy, series 7, box 7, folder 162, AAAA-NN; Harry Cameron Francisco, "The White Rats Versus the Czars of Vaudeville" (master's thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1971); Lowell Stewart Harris, "Variety and Vaudeville: Sime Silverman's Influence on the Organization of Vaudeville" (master's thesis, University of South Florida, 1994).
3. Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 74. Player, March 1, 1912, 7; Variety, June 23, 1906, 4.
p. 107 "A romantic idealist"
Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 33-36; NYDM, May 22, 1897, 16, December 3, 1904, 2; Billboard, February 24, 1912, 3; WRB, October 23, 1901, 3.
4. Player, December 8, 1912, 18.
5. Fred Russell, The History of the Grand Order of Water Rats, (London: Grand Order of Water Rats, 1947), 3, copy, VATM; NYMT, February 18, 1912, 5. See Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 29-30; Variety, December 10, 1910, 19.
p. 108 "Back home"
Alfred Harding, The Revolt of the Actors (New York: William Morrow, 1929), 11-14; Benjamin McArthur, Actors and American Culture, 1880-1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 104-12, 217-18. 221-22; CGAT, 24; NYC, March 19, 1904, 79, February 20, 1908; 7, May 14, 1910, 334, February 15, 1913, x; NYDM, December 24, 1898, 44, 55-57; WRB, July 16, 1901, 4;
pp. 108-9 "Earlier attempts by vaudevillians"
NYDM, December 24, 1898, 57; Variety, December 12, 1908, 41.
6. NYC, August 4, 1900, 516. See McArthur, Actors and American Culture, 55-67, 123-28, 135-42.
7. Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 82.
pp. 109-10 "Primarily a fraternal benevolent association"
Nugent, It's a Great Life, 157-65; Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), 152, 154; Player, February 23, 1912, 4; WRB, July 16, 1901, 5-7, September 4, 1901, 4, September 25, 1901, 1.
p. 110 "By June 1901"
WRB, June 25, 1901, 3.
p. 110 "The White Rats initially barred"
Albert Auster, Actresses and Suffragists, Women in the American Theatre, 1880-1920 (New York: Praeger, 1984), 67-73; Kibler, Rank Ladies, 171-98; NYC, March 2, 1901, 4, June 24, 1911, 8; NYDM, January 26, 1901, 18; Variety, December 28, 1907, 2.
8. Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 73; Constitution and By-laws of White Rats Actors' Union of America, Incorporated, 1912, Pamphlets in American History, microfiche no. L2859, 16.
9. NYDM, March 9, 1901, 20. See Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 95-105, 116; Billboard, March 30, 1901, 10, April 13, 1901, 10; NYC, February 23, 1901, 1145; NYDM, January 26, 1901, 18, April 27, 1901, 18; WRB, July 23, 1901, 7.
10. Stone, Rolling Stone, 119. See Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 89-91.
p. 111 "To show their opposition"
NYC, June 19, 1909, 488, April 15, 1911, 5, June 24, 1911, 8, July 15, 1911, 5; Providence Journal, February 10, 1901, clipping scrapbook #28, KAC-IaU; Variety, March 31, 1916, 16.
pp. 111-12 "On February 17"
NYC, February 16, 1901, 1132, March 2, 1901, 16; NYDM, February 16, 1901, 18, 20, Variety, September 22, 1916, 15.
p. 112 "With negotiations at an impasse"
NYC, March 2, 1901, 7; Variety, May 23, 1919, 39.
11. Undated clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH.
12. Providence Evening Times, February, 23, 1901, clippings scrapbook #28, KAC-IaU; NYDM, April 12, 1901, 20; "White Rats Gain New Recruits Among Actors," February 22, 1901; "Strike of the Vaudeville Actors," NYT, February 23, 1901, clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH. See also NYDM, February 16, 1901, 18; Variety, September 22, 1916, 15.
13. Providence Journal, February 23, 1901, clippings scrapbook #28, KAC-IaU; NYT, February 24, 1901, 7.
14. Providence Journal, February 23, 1901, February 26, 1901, clippings scrapbook #28, KAC-IaU; "White Rats Are Standing Firm," NYT clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH.
15. February 25, 1901, clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH.
16. "White Rats' Strike Ended," NYT, March 7, 1901, clipping, Vaudeville Variety 1901 file, HTC-MH. See Golden, My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats, 159; NYC, March 16, 1901, 55, April 6, 1901, 134; NYDM, March 16, 1901, 18.
17. WRB, June 25, 1901, 3.