Overview
Playbills, photographs, and programs for tent shows mostly in Dallas, Texas.
Dates
- Creation: 1910-1916 and undated
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
This collection is not housed at the Houghton Library but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
.25 linear feet (1 box)Includes: photographs, playbills, and programs. Most of this material describes shows in Dallas, Texas. Includes the companies: Century Theatre (under canvass); Demorest Comedy Company; Denham Stock Company; Lightfoot Stock Company; and others.
Biographical / Historical
Tent shows, a form of traveling theater, were popular in the rural areas of the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in the Southwest, South, and Midwest. There were as many as four hundred tent companies touring when the practice peaked around 1920. Typically, these shows featured a three-act comedy or drama interspersed with "polite" vaudeville. Great emphasis was placed upon presenting inoffensive family entertainment; the master of ceremonies frequently boasted that "nothing would be seen or heard that might offend the taste of the most fastidious." Tent shows often offered a repertoire of from three to twelve plays. They reached their peak activity shortly before the Great Depression.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by company.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
No accession number. Primarily the sources are unknown. If source is known, see item for acquisition data.
General note
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. See access restrictions below for additional information.
Processing Information
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
- Title
- Tent show collection, circa 1910-1916: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02084
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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