Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


TAUGHT IT TO THE TRADE.pdf (4.92 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Taught It to the Trade: Rose La Rose and the Re-ownership of American Burlesque, 1935-1972

Wellman, Elizabeth Joanne
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9096-4764
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439764548

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Theatre.
Declaring burlesque dead has been a habit of the twentieth century. Robert C. Allen quoted an 1890s letter from the first burlesque star of the American stage, Lydia Thompson in Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (1991): “[B]urlesque as she knew it `has been retired for a time,’ its glories now `merely memories of the stage.’” In 1931, Bernard Sobel opined in Burleycue: An Underground History of Burlesque Days, “Alas! You will never get a chance to see one of the real burlesque shows again. They are gone forever…” In 1938, The Billboard published an editorial that began, “On every hand the cry is `Burlesque is dead.’” In fact, burlesque had been declared dead so often that editorials began popping up insisting it could be revived, as Joe Schoenfeld’s 1943 op-ed in Variety did: “[It] may be in a state of putrefaction, but it is a lusty and kicking decomposition.” It is this “lusty and kicking decomposition” which characterizes the published history of burlesque. Since its modern inception in the late nineteenth century, American burlesque has both been framed and framed itself within this narrative of degeneration. This narrative consistently reaffirms that the burlesque that came before was superior, worthwhile, real, or legitimate, and that the current state of burlesque is dire, on the edge of complete moral and artistic decay. In many ways, this narrative of perpetual degeneracy is burlesque’s most salient feature. This dissertation examines the narrative of degeneracy in American burlesque between 1935 and 1972, as it permeates popular culture, impacts the development of the burlesque circuit, and is disrupted or re-interrogated by performers who began operating their own burlesque theaters, offering a cultural study of the stripper in popular discourse, the American burlesque circuit, and the career of Rose La Rose in the hopes of achieving what cultural historian John Storey calls “an active undoing."
Jennifer Schlueter, PhD (Committee Chair)
Beth Kattelman, PhD (Committee Member)
Joy Reilly, PhD (Committee Member)
211 p.
Dance; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies; Womens Studies
burlesque; striptease; stripping; strippers; exotic dance; Rose La Rose; Toledo, Ohio; popular entertainment; burlesque circuit; American burlesque; popular culture; women; performance; cultural studies;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wellman, E. J. (2015). Taught It to the Trade: Rose La Rose and the Re-ownership of American Burlesque, 1935-1972 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439764548

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wellman, Elizabeth. Taught It to the Trade: Rose La Rose and the Re-ownership of American Burlesque, 1935-1972. 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439764548.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wellman, Elizabeth. "Taught It to the Trade: Rose La Rose and the Re-ownership of American Burlesque, 1935-1972." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1439764548

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1439764548
946
© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.