If you have ever wondered what people did for entertainment in the past, this is the book for you. LeRoy Ashby demonstrates how social, political, and cultural shifts impacted the way we viewed entertainment. Billy Joel’s song “We didn’t start the fire” is a brief time capsule through history and pop culture, but “With Amusement for All” is the definitive history on almost two centuries on the topic.
As noted, audiences once clamored to black face performances and heavily relied on newspapers for news and to be entertained. The marketing genius PT Barnum utilized a variety of acts and sideshows to fascinate the masses. Barnum’s star attractions including a woman he claimed was 160 years old, and nursed George Washington, bearded women, midgets, and other human oddities.
Topic included, but certainly not limited to:
– Composer Stephen Foster
– Wild west shows
– Dime novels
– Bare knuckle boxing headlined by John L. Sullivan, and later prize fighting
– Baseball, with fans interested in statistics, later infatuated by the long ball and Babe Ruth
– The invention of basketball, football
– Burlesque, Vaudeville
– Recorded music, motion pictures
– The Tramp and Harry Houdini
– The birth of Jazz
– The emergence of radio, and radio shows such as Amos ‘n’ Andy and Burns and Allen
– Amusement parks, fairgrounds, and the circus
– The explosion of comic books, and later comic bookstores
– Pop culture boasting morale of the nation during the second World War
– Walt Disney, John Wayne
– The TV boom of the 1950’s, and cable TV in the 80’s
– Playboy, Marilyn Monroe
– Elvis Presley, and rock ‘n’ roll music featuring the Beatles and The Rolling Stones
– 007, Saturday Night Live, MTV, HBO, ESPN, VCRs
– All in the family, sitcom mania
– Disco, punk rock, hip hop, rap
– Star Wars, ET
– Reality shows, talk shows on radio, Fox News
Ashby has all the bases covered, and Kevin Pierce provides captivating narration.