Cheap Amusements By Kathy Peiss

The Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century brought about a change in the American lifestyle that many were not expecting and were unprepared to deal with : women began to work outside the home . As author Kathy Peiss notes in her book Cheap Amusement , for many American women this was their first taste of freedom , especially for immigrants and second generation Americans in New York City . Many of these women came from countries where a woman was expected to work dawn to duck to help her family , but in traditional manners , helping on

the family farm or in the family business . With the wave of automation young women could find respectable work outside of the family business and for the first time , were able to live on their own , not always under the prudish thumbs of their parents

Still , these women wanted to be respectable , so they had to create less traditional means of meeting men and having fun without creating questions of virtue . One of the first ways young women devised to have fun and meet men was to visit dance halls . This served two purposes First , it emulated those of higher station . The upper class had always had coming out parties and huge balls . The dance halls allowed young women from the working class to have their own sort of coming out parties and meet young men in their new home . Second , it gave them a way to meet men . Because this was no longer small town American , or other country , the days of courting and then marrying someone she had known her entire life were gone for most young women . The move to a more metropolitan environment necessitated finding a new way to meet men The dance halls , though initially considered a bit risque , offered a well-lit , fun environment for women to meet men , replacing buggy rides and holding hands on the front porch

Even with the long hours required by most employers , the young women found they often had at least one day of the weekend free and this led to the development of amusement parks in most major cities and many minor ones throughout the country . Gone were the days of picking berries or long walks in the countryside as a form of amusement . Instead , this new breed of American woman sought the same form of excitement in her leisure activities as she did in her decision to leave home and work in the city . Amusement parks provided a plethora of stimuli for all the senses

Young women in the cities also developed a thirst for movies as the first theaters began to dot the country and a few years later , with the proliferation of the automobile , as the drive-in movie theater began to thrive . In their early years , movies provided entertainment as a novelty and as a news source , an exposure to more of the world around them . For some of the young women , who had only heard stories of their parents homelands , it...