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Tainted Money? Nineteenth-Century Charity Theatricals Eileen Curley In the latter half of the nineteenth century, treading onto a public stage in New York City was still seen as an immoral choice for a woman of society, and the occasional amateur who “went pro” was roundly criticized and often disowned by her family. Yet as amateur theatricals grew in popularity and the performers and audiences outgrew parlors, some aspiring actors found a way to exploit social constructions of gender roles and gain public performance opportunities under the guise of propriety: the charity theatrical. Theatricals, like charity concerts and readings, quickly became a fashionable way to raise money not only for the ¤nancially or morally bereft but for military units, collegiate athletic teams, churches, the Statue of Liberty, and an endless variety of clubs. The events were purported to be an evening dedicated to some good fun for the sake of a deserving charity. Beneath the surface, however , the import of these productions appears signi¤cantly less simplistic or easily resolved. Charity theatricals, as one segment of postwar benevolent activity, were simply one of many ways that women were able to use their revered and cultivated parlor skills to display their talents outside of the living room. Theatre, however, has historically maintained a morally ambiguous place in society, and theatricals have historically been the most problematic of women’s living-room entertainments; therefore, theatricals were burdened with an extra layer of moral ambiguity from which singing and handiwork seemed immune, even when those talents were displayed publicly in concerts and fairs. By performing charity theatricals in rented halls and public theatres, the social elite managed to engage in morally questionable behavior while maintaining an outward display of propriety. In a society that associated charity work with middle- and upper-middle-class femininity and public performance with the morally questionable acting profession, a charity theatrical, for women, became a moral display of femininity via a potentially immoral act. No longer safely ensconced in the parlors of their fathers and husbands, women subjected themselves to public scrutiny by both the audience and newspaper reviewers. Yet the widespread advertising and puf¤ng of some theatricals suggest that a condoned display of self was now expanding beyond parlors, society balls, and the society pages. Clearly, charity theatricals provided a sanctioned way for dramatically inclined members of the middle and upper class to display their talents on a public stage, but could simply sending the proceeds of the event to a charity protect the participants from being tainted by their activities? The history of charity theatricals in the United States is dif¤cult to chart. In New York, at least, a dearth of public notices about charity theatricals before the Civil War seems to support an 1855 New York Times observation that Americans had yet to widely adopt the British fashion of charity theatricals. “It is rather remarkable, that with our aptitude for imitating our trans-Atlantic neighbors, we have never followed the fashion which has prevailed in England the past ten years, of giving private theatricals for the bene¤t of charitable institutions.” The article goes on to credit Charles Dickens with “converting these harmless recreations to benevolent purposes,” and it suggests that the popularity of his charity theatricals created something of a fad for them in England.1 This growth in charity theatricals necessarily requires a private theatrical infrastructure, so it is not surprising that England came to charity theatricals before the United States did. Private theatricals have a long history as entertainment for the upper classes in England, but the ¤rst widespread evidence of their popularity in the United States emerges in the middle years of the nineteenth century. While it appears that private theatricals were growing in popularity prior to the Civil War, these events were largely con¤ned to spaces with restricted access and appear to have been held for charitable bene¤t only rarely.2 Two different but closely related postwar performance trends developed slowly—charity theatricals and public presentations of theatricals—and the popularity of the one seems to have fed that of the other.3 As such, a marked increase in charity theatricals occurs slightly before the new...

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