Entertainment

=Entertainment= 1. My topic is "What did people do for entertainment during the Westward Expansion?"

2.What I already know about the topic is:


 * What?:Art, music, and books were included in entertainment.


 * Who?:All men and women had to have some entertainment.


 * When?:People read books, listened to music, look at and created art in their past times.


 * Why?:If they did not have anything to entertain them, they would be very bored.


 * Where?: People mostly entertained themselves at home, work, friend's homes, or social gethering places.


 * How?: People had to buy boks, art or music. To make your own music and art or even books, you had to have the supplies.
 * How did this impact the class topic or vice versa?: Entertainment was very important in the 19th century. There was a lot of boring trips and times where people had nothing to do. Singing, playing and reading were easy ways to keep yourself occupied.

3. My research questions are:
 * Who were the people who participated in the entertainment business?
 * What was the most popular source of entertainment?
 * When did people discover different types of entertainment?
 * Where did different types of entertainment form?
 * Why was entertainment such a great way to spend your time?

Entertainment in the 1800's was very important. You should always have something to do and entertainment provided you with a way to do that.

A huge way to entertain yourself is music and dance. "Aside from the theatre, music itself was entertainment to many. People adopted ragtime in the 1890's as the musical style of choice and was accompanied by various dances. The two-step and the cakewalk marked a social dance explosion during the late 1800's. Dance is still a popular American leisure activity and Western popular music has been dominated by developments in the U.S. for decades."(Conner) Music has always been a fun way to express your self and always will be. Although the popular music changes, we will have music to unite us throughout everything. Dance has also been a great pastime. If you are not good at dancing, it is still fun! I personally love dancing and singing, so I am so glad that music is really popular. Our world would be so boring without music and dancing. We would have no way to express our feeling in a creative way except for drawing.

Theater is a great way to express yourself and entertain people either through comedy, drama or anywhere in between. "This was also the era of the musical comedy, a mixture of Western and European music and theatre. Some famous American musical composers are Jerome Kern, Geroge Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II. All of these men were influenced by eariler composers and their work is still being performed today." (Conner) Theater became very popular in this century. Oscar and Hammerstein made many spectacular musicals and we still preform many of them today, such as Cinderella. I am a theater freak so this topic is very important to me. I love theater and everything that goes along with it. It it so fun because you get to act like a competely different person! I know that i he 1800s, acting wasn't all that it is now, but it was still a fun way to entertain yourself.

Mass entertainment was a great way to let everyone be entertained. "During the 1800s, the main audience for art exhibits and performances of music and theater, was the wealthy. Mass entertainment, which appealed to a wider audience, came of age in the United States and Europe near the turn of the century."(ClassZone) Because of the rise of mass entertainment, more poor people could be entertained the same way wealthy people could. The country was trying to appeal to a wider audience at the turn of the century. I think it is great that poorer people could go to the same things that wealthy people did. It is not fair that peolpe who did not make as much money could not etertain themselves the same way that people with more money could.

"Communications technologies, such as the telegraph, made possible greater publicity for mass entertainment events. Reduced working hours gave working class people time to pursue leisure activities." (ClassZone) Because of the increase in communications technology, more groups of people could attend entertainment events. With the new, faster technology, people had more free time which they needed entertainment during. The growth of technology was a very great thing for America because it showed that everyone could have the same amount of entertainment no matter who you were.

"Whether it be a family evening at the circus, a viewing of a classic Shakespearean tragedy, or simply a peek at the animals in the metropolitan zoo, virtually all members of society found entertainment of the late 1800's new, exciting, and, most importantly, available. With this much excitement over the new concept of leisure, it is no surprise that modern society has invested in similar diversions. Working hand in hand, these new attractions brought excitement into the lives of many." (Conner) The ways that people entertained themselves were very inventive and exciting. This gave the chance to many men and women to relax and just enjoy their free time. For many people who had stressful lives, entertainment was a way that they could keep themselves from going competely insane! I love amusement parks and exciting pastimes so I can understand how this relieved men and women and let them cut loose.

"Almost half of a century prior to the advent of television, people began to find new and inventive ways to entertain themselves. The bulk of these leisure activities originated in large urban areas where the audience was growing and the wealthy congregated." (Conner) Before the inventions of television and such, people found other ways to entertain themselves. They were very creative with making new and exciting past times. I am so glad that television and radio and electricity was invented! I could not live without something entertaining me at all times!

"Amusement parks owed their creation to the development of electricity. America's most famous amusement park, New York City's Coney Island, thrilled millions of visitors with mechanized amusements like the roller coaster. The park was also considered exotic, with its performers from around the globe."(ClassZone) The amusement parks created a mystical and interesting place for viewers and visitors. Performers from all around the world made Coney Island feel like an extraordinary experience. Coney Island was a great invention to let people have fun. It was such an amazing invention and people were always fascinated with the sights. This gave people a new way to enjoy their free time. "Even in the early 1800s many American circus men were wanderers . They went from town to town in wagons drawn by horses and mules, exhibiting their acts and animals wherever they could draw crowds." (Encyclop) In the early 1800s, that type of entertainment was not popular. It did not become popular until the mid to late 1800s. I don't think I could live with out entertainment. It seems that life would be really boring!

"  In  the popular sideshow tent the circus ga**the**red its human freaks and o**the**r oddities. This was the home of the midget and the fat lady, the giant and the bearded lady, the Siamese twins and the tattooed man ."(Encyclop) Because of the circus, many ideals of "normal extracurricular activites" are changing. To go see a midget and bearded lady would be considered crazy in the early 1800s. As the country was changing, so was the entertainment.I think circuses are fun and very interesting, so I am glad that they became popular! Circuses are something that provide long-lasting wonder and a ton of amusement.

No matter what happens in our lives, we will always have entertainment. There is no way that the joy and happiness we recieve from all of our many ways of entertainment, could just vanish. Entertainment is very important to me because it has so much to offer. It provides good and wonderful times and fantastic memories. Everyone can have at least one thing in common, entertainment is essential in our lives. Without it, we would all be ticking bombs with no way to relieve our stress, which would lead to us all exploding!

code Anderson, Jill E. "Music(1815-1850)." //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Gale, 1997. Web. 26 Mar. 2010. code code . code code "The Circus in North America." //Encyclopædia Britannica//. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Web. 29 Mar. code code 2010. . code code Conner, Lindsay. "Entertainment of the Late 1800s." //Associated Content//. Associated Content, 2010. code code Web. 29 Mar. 2010. . code code "The Rise of Mass Entertainment." //ClassZone//. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. code code . code code Rubel, David. //The United States in the 19th Century//. New York, New York: Scholastic, 1996. Print. code