Entertainment in the Guilded Age

The Theater- the antebellum theaters were large and crowded by all classes. With seats as cheap as 12 cents and rarely more than 50 cents, the typical theater audience included lawyers and merchants, and their wives, artisans and clerks, sailors and noisy boys, and a sizeable body of prostitutes. The prostitutes usually sat in the top balcony seats, called the third tier, “…that dark, horrible, guilty place…” The prostitutes in attendance were not the only factor that …showed first 75 words of 411 total…

…showed last 75 words of 411 total…how, he cheated the public, but he knew that many of his customers shared his doubts about the woman’s age. Barnum soon bought a building in New York City and renamed it the American Museum. Visitors of the museum could see ventriloquists, magicians, albinos, and a 5-year-old midget whom Barnum named General Tom Thumb. By 1850, the American Museum became the most well known museum, and set the standards for many museums soon to come.