"It Was Play or Starve"

American popular entertainers in the nineteenth century faced physical hardships, prejudices, and cultural barriers. This book examines the fascinating world of these itinerant actors and their experiences with early showboats, frontier theater, minstrelsy, panorama exhibitions, and the circus. Admirable and not-so-admirable characters, who possessed equal amounts of pluck, courage, and naivete, are contrasted popular cultural tastes"