On the evening of March 30, 1889, a group of eager children gathered at Brooklyn's Palace Ice Rink for the opening of the "Prime Time Club." It is estimated that there were as many as 2,000 people. RELATED CONTENT P.T. Barnum Wasn't a Hero 'The Greatest Showman' Wants You to Think
Filled with adventure stories for young readers, the popular prime-time "The Story" has one for fans A jam-packed night of entertainment: inspiring patriotic songs performed by an orchestra in the Music Loft. The children were treated to hours-long performances by musicians, Civil War veterans, ventriloquists and caricaturists that lasted until nearly midnight. There were celebrities, too: The writer Edward Ellis spoke at length to a chatty crowd about "the Indians, whose children read a lot." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ) noted that the children were "noisy, contented, and well under control."
The keynote speaker was no less than circus tycoon P.T. Barnum, who at 79 years old could still wow a crowd. Hanging on his every word. The *** confirmed this, claiming that the cheers and cheers of the assembled children were louder than any of the circus performers, and "Barnum never received a more sincere ovation."
After giving high fives and handshakes to the children, Barnum waited five minutes for the applause to subside, at which time he performed some magic tricks for the audience, picking up the sound from a volunteer's nose. Pull out a half dollar. He said this was to promote moral living and the importance of good habits, and he warned children against smoking and alcoholism: "We are all made up of a bundle of habits... The boy who smokes does more than nature intended. Lots of girls wearing cheap jewelry trying to make 2 and 2 equal 22. The late 19th century was a boom time for American popular literature, largely due to pocket-sized dime novels and weekly illustrations. The rise of serial popcorn-feed "storybooks," novels and "storybooks" that appealed brightly and lively to the public's tastes, asserted the audience's new prominence as a driving force in mainstream American culture. Of course, this phenomenon had a profound impact on Bar. Barnum was nothing new, and over the decades Barnum built a thriving career on his ability to shape and develop popular taste.
The journals were cheap to print and As is often the case, their popularity due to their low price and increasing literacy rates creates an immediate space for modern pulp fiction from both the writer's and audience's perspective, especially in the fan-friendly ic, fantasy and science fiction genres.< /p>
Hundreds of titles appeared from the Civil War era, including Frank Leslie's "A Happy Time for Boys and Girls," and Biddle's novel "The Golden Hour." One of the most popular story newspapers, more than 800 issues were published weekly from 1888 to 1904. Like most story newspapers, this newspaper's main feature was some episodic action stories that cultivated people's interest in the pre-industrial period. The Glorious Nostalgia of the American Frontier: The April 27, 1889 issue of the magazine featured a very typical story entitled The Adventures of Two Boys Among the Utes: An Exciting Story of Hunting and Indian Adventure ”. The story features men and boys on paper (which, unfortunately, are often men and boys, leaving women’s experiences in a fragile realm of support, if not ignored entirely) being trafficked in rugged adventures: sea adventures , prairie adventures, adventures with hostile Indians, jungle adventures, campfire adventures The natives are shown in a particularly unfriendly light, often appearing as superficial, animalistic savages who appear primarily to. Justifying their own extermination This preference for stereotypes is evident from the beginning: the first so-called "dime novel," Ann Stephens's Malaika: The White Hunter's Indian Wife, Including the protagonist's belief that "the canyon is full of hidden savages,"
's story is not simply thrilling, but participatory in the modern sense. The newspapers have regular competitions, puzzles, quizzes and letters columns, and provide a place for children to feel independent for a while: adults can buy and read their own newspapers, and children can submit their own letters by Or Story interact with the editor, share your Monday experience with other readers, and even suggest where the story might take place next. Not only can kids write letters or enter contests, but they can also submit their work to see their names in print. One contest even asked young readers to write about an adventure from their own lives and submit a recreated photo. Author Sarah Lindy calls these story sheets a way for boys to "write themselves into adulthood."
An author who later had children of his own recalled fondly the formative influence of storyboards and their literal suspense on his generation in a 1918 issue of Writers' Monthly, and " Too old to feel the gnawing anxiety that came when one of these six writers hung his hero from a cliff "a thousand feet above the valley" for six full days Overwhelmed, Saturday comes again so we can find the next number and see how he was rescued
Despite the concerns of many parents that the low-art novel could indeed spell trouble for the River City. , but in many cases these publications sought not only to please their young audiences, but to teach the upright moral values ??that would characterize American "robust Christianity," a philosophy that drew on the New Testament, especially For young people, there was a connection between physical fitness and moral character (the rise of the YMCA and American football in the late 19th century was also closely associated with this sense of manliness). Story newspapers often celebrated America's frontier spirit, fresh air, and a certain kind of spirit. Robust, freshly scrubbed masculinity
Barnum himself was an early progenitor of America's merging of religious undercurrents with popular culture, designing what we today consider "family" entertainment in his work. Weaving an agenda driven by Universalist Christianity and the American temperance movement, Barnum was not only enjoying the fame his 18-year-old circus had brought him, but he was also starting out as a children's author. A new career, writing stories about animals and adventures, to keep his name fresh in America's youthful landscape, Barnum biographer Arthur Saxon noted. Barnum was a good writer and easily adapted to children's styles, but most people agree that he attended a very modern celebrity convention and created "Jack the Lion and Jack the Lion" with the help of a ghost writer "Lion Jack and Dick Broadhead," a dangerous adventure story. In "The Beasts, Birds, and Reptiles of the World," Barnum admitted that "my Friend Edward Ellis, A.M., helped him prepare the pages. "(Perhaps more seductively, Barnum's rise in his career as an Asian writer coincided with his marriage to his second wife, Nancy Fish, a skilled writer who eventually (will be published under his own name)
The name surprised Edward S. Ellis, a giant of Gilded Age young adult literature whose 1868 robot novel "The Prairie." The Steam Man of The Prairies is often cited as the first American "Edison," a modern term referring to stories about smart, young, steampunk-y inventors. In In Ellis' story, the characters are described as an "Irish" and a "Yankee" who stumble upon a young man's ingenious creation of a steam-powered robot that pulls his carriage (adventure!). , pointy, completely alien, 10 feet tall, stocky, with a tin chimney hat and a burning coal stove on his belly, and a vague menace
So when Prime Time Club—a. A nationwide fan club of about 10,000 members founded by the newspaper's publisher decided to hold their first fan convention, putting P.T. Barnum and Edward Ellis on stage, the equivalent of saying you'd have Stan Lee and George · Appearing at comic conventions with R.R. Martin,
Dim novels continued into the 1920s, when radio and pulp magazines attracted large audiences for *** fantasies and novels. But fan conventions continued: By the 1930s, radio enthusiasts, circus fans, and sports enthusiasts were gathering (many sporting events themselves were called "fan conventions")
The robust fan culture of the late 19th century was an early indicator of the extent to which fans were interacting with each other and how that would depend on empowering consumers, especially younger consumers, to engage in fan conventions every year. Hundreds of thousands attend - depending on celebrity, storytelling and invitations to join the ranks in the active pursuit of living fiction.
"