Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements [Paperback]

David Nasaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995

This study tells how "show business" was invented - a journey through the vanished pleasure palaces of urban middle-class America. There was a time when "going out" was only for the rich. But at the turn of the century, "going out" became part of everyday life for almost all urban Americans as vaudeville halls, phonograph parlors, penny arcades, nickel theatres, nightclubs, dance halls, ball parks and World's Fair midways cropped up. A new middle-class cosmopolitan culture emerged, Nasaw argues, as barriers of class, ethnicity and religion dissolved. Only blacks were excluded. With many anecdotes, this book chronicles that entertainment revolution and its demise when racial barriers fell.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An informative history of popular entertainment in the U.S. over the past two centuries.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Historian Nasaw chronicles the rise of amusement parks, vaudeville, world's fairs, baseball games, movie houses, and other public amusements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The origin of each amusement is sketched in a chapter or two, including in every instance a mention of how ethnic and class barriers were affected and how blacks were consistently excluded. The anecdotal style is engaging, but the narrative often only skims the surface. The chapter on baseball, for example, is a mere eight pages long. The last chapter, on the fall of public amusements, leaves one wondering if the decline was a consequence of racial integration and changing urban demographics or if in fact public amusements are as popular as ever, only in new forms. An optional purchase for history collections.
- Eric Hinsdale, Trinity Univ. Lib., San Antonio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465026540
• ISBN-13: 978-0465026548
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #250,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but not without flaws., September 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (Paperback)

Nasaw offers an interesting account of the rise of public amusements such as baseball, amusement parks, vaudeville and nickelodeons at the turn of the century. He argues that these amuseuements united European immigrants as "American", in part by denying access to African-Americans. Yet, Nasaw does not adequately weave his discussion of African-Americans into his narrative. Similarly, he does not discuss other ethnic groups such as Asian-Americans and Hispanics, among others to investigate their accessibility to public amusements. Nasaw also limits his account primarily to Chicago and New York, while trying to draw broad implications for the entire country. He has offered very interesting anecdotes and provided a broad history of different amusements at the turn of the century, however, his analytical framework is not without its flaws.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars GOING NOWHERE, June 19, 2001

By 

DANIEL M HARRISON (Crested Butte, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (Paperback)

I agree with the sentiments of the above reviewer, yet I wonder how such negative a review could elicit so many "stars" of evaluation. I tried to teach Nasaw's book in the context of a college course on sports and leisure, with moderate success. Aside from the discussion about white's perceptions of African Americans (a topic which, as the previous reviewer said are not themselves brought into the picture), there is little to no discussion of historical context or the social structure of the urban environments that produced these "public amusements." It seems that Nasaw's book is really part of a larger project, as there is much that needs to be filled in -- especially any detailed discussion of public amusements between 1910 and WWII and beyond. This book would be useful to the specialist of leisure of entertainment in that it is very well documented and covers a very wide territory of leisure practices. But too often the reader is left thinking "So what?" and Nasaw does little in the way of arguing WHY this particular book was written -- why he wrote it in this particular way. All in all, a rather boring and tedious book, though one which is not without its interesting historical facts.