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AMUSEMENT WAS A COMMON REASON for women to go out in public at the turn of the twentieth century. During this period, working hours shortened and leisure time became more common, in large part because of the efforts of unions, which were particularly strong in San Francisco.1 Just as the production of goods had largely moved from the home to commercial establishments, so leisure also increasingly moved from the home and the neighborhood into commercial establishments , often serving the city as a whole.2 As the range of spectacles available expanded, theater owners concentrated their marketing on women, and as an increasing number of working women had some disposable income,more and more women went out to theaters and shows.3 In addition, women were spectators of the many parades and public celebrations of the turn-of-the-century city. In San Francisco as in other cities, amusement and spectacle brought women downtown and made them part of the observing and celebrating public, not only during the daytime hours, but increasingly in the evening as well. In this chapter 95 FOUR SPECTACLES AND AMUSEMENTS Well, I have just got back from down town where I went to the Orpheum with Kate and Henry. I enjoyed it, though there is a great deal of silly business, but some other things are interesting and amusing. After, I went down to the clothing store where I met Roth and got him a blue serge suit. . . . Then I went back to the Golden West Hotel where we had dinner. After, we walked around the streets and looked in the windows for a while. —Annie Haskell, August 15, 1903 I discuss women’s expanding participation in public spectacle as both spectators and participants and the consequences of their participation for their relationship to the city. Spectacle and amusement could take many forms: the theatrical spectacle of shows, the commercial spectacle of shops and store windows, and the civic spectacle of parades. Going to a show, window shopping, and watching a parade were all sources of amusement that took women to the downtown and other prominent public spaces of San Francisco. Although shows, windows, and parades were produced for different purposes, they were all consumed primarily as sources of amusement, and they all used the modern technologies of spectacle to draw spectators . Women’s experience of these public spectacles increased their claim to the city, especially to the nighttime city, but also reinforced the class and ethnic differences and the unequal statuses among women. Imagining Theatrical Entertainments Going out to see a show was a regular form of amusement for women who could afford it. During the period from 1890 to 1917, the nature of shows changed as vaudeville expanded and movies were introduced into the landscape of San Francisco theater.With changes in the nature of theatrical entertainment came a broadening of the female audience for shows and changes in how all women experienced going to shows. One significant aspect of these changes in theatrical entertainment , particularly movies, was the creation of new types of spaces that did not carry the gendered history of theaters and, thus, could be gendered in new ways. In the nineteenth century, women did not frequent theaters at night unescorted. Until the mid-nineteenth century, theaters were imagined as an overwhelmingly male space, with men sitting on the benches in the“pit”in front of the stage; poor men, blacks, and prostitutes in the gallery seats; high-class prostitutes in the“third tier,” the top row of boxes; and wealthier patrons, including “women who wished to be regarded as ladies,” seated only in the lower rows of boxes, the most expensive seats.4 Around 1850, theaters began to be sanitized; a combination of higher prices,design changes,subdued performances,and rules barring unescorted women chased out both prostitutes and lower-class men.5 By the 1890s women of a range of class positions sat in all the sections of theaters, which were newly defined only by class and not by respectability. During the day, theaters were imagined as a largely female space, which women could patronize with other women and with children without fear of compromising their reputations; matinee performances were patronized almost exclusively by women. By night, in contrast, theaters were mixed-gender spaces in which women needed to be protected from strange men by the familiar men who escorted 96 Spectacles and Amusements [3.133.79.70] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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