4 15 thats entertainment

That’s
Entertainment!

Fascinating Facts
• A Frenchman named Louis Lumière (lwee lyoomYEHR) invented the movie camera in 1895. One
of his first movies showed a train arriving in Lyons,
France.

• “The Golden Age of Radio” lasted from the 1920s
to the 1950s. Radio programs during this time
were diverse, entertaining, and very popular.

• The first televisions had black-and-white pictures.
In 1954 color came to television.

Genre

Nonfiction

Comprehension Skill

Draw Conclusions

Text Features

• Captions
• Table of Contents

Scott Foresman Social Studies

ISBN 0-328-14869-5

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by Kristin Cashore


The entertainment industry in the United States
thrived during the 1900s. From vaudeville and
silent films to radio, television, musicals, and
modern movies, the entertainment industry grew
and changed. In this book you will learn about
the history of one of our nation’s greatest loves—
entertainment!

Vocabulary
industry
vaudeville
production

profitable
hub
diverse

That’s
What is the last modern movie you saw? In
Entertainment!
what ways
do you think it differed from older
Write to It!

movies? Write one paragraph about the movie.
Use examples from the movie to explain how you
think the movie industry has changed since the
early 1900s.
Write your paragraph on a separate sheet of paper.

Table of Contents
People Develop a Taste for Fun.....…………….…..page 2
Vaudeville and Musical Productions…………...…..page 4
Hollywood and the Movie Industry………………..page 6
Radio: Entertainment Enters the Home...………….page 8
The Birth of the American Musical…...…………..page 10

Photographs

The Movie Industry Soars…………………….…..page 12

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply
regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Television Finds a Home…….……………………page 14

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.

Entertainment: Then and Now…….………………page 15

Opener: ©Zuma Movie Stills Library/Zuma Press
2 ©Corbis
3 ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images
4 ©Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

5 ©Bettmann/Corbis
6 ©ZUMA Movie Stills Library/Zuma Press
7 ©Underwood & Underwood/Corbis
8 ©Getty Images
9 ©Bettmann/ Corbis
Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York
10 ©The Granger Collection, NY
11 ©John Springer Collection/Corbis
Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois
13 ©Hulton/Getty ImagesCoppell, Texas • Sacramento, California • Mesa, Arizona
14 ©Bettmann/Corbis
15 ©GDT/Getty Images

ISBN: 0-328-14869-5
Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected
by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

by Kristin Cashore

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)


People Develop a Taste for Fun
As the 1900s began, the United States was growing and

changing. New inventions were transforming the way that
people lived. For much of the 1800s, most families spun
their own yarns and wove their own cloth. Many families
had a farm or garden and grew their own food. By the
beginning of the 1900s, however, many families were
buying fabric and clothing made by machines in factories.
They were also purchasing food grown by farmers who
grew large amounts of crops quickly by using machines.
Cities grew at a rapid pace. People were moving from
the countryside to the cities in search of factory jobs. The
cities also swelled with the arrival of immigrants from
Europe and Asia.

At the beginning of the 1900s,
people were moving out of the
country and into the cities.

In 1909 twenty million people visited Coney
Island in Brooklyn, New York.

Because inventions made life easier, many people suddenly
had the luxury of free time. Because more people lived
in cities, theaters and parks could attract large audiences.
The entertainment industry began to grow.
At the beginning of the 1900s, children in New York
City might spend the day at the amusement parks on
Coney Island. A family in Chicago might go to the ballpark
to cheer for the local baseball team. Circuses traveled
the country by train. If the circus came to town, people
formed huge lines to see it.

This was only the beginning of the entertainment industry
in America. The first half of the 1900s saw the birth of
the musical, movies, radio, and television.
How was the entertainment industry born, and how did
it grow? One of the first steps in the development of
American entertainment was vaudeville (VAWD-vill).
3


Some vaudeville performers were extraordinary. This picture
shows a strong man balancing two people with his mouth.

Vaudeville and Musical Productions
Vaudeville was a popular type of entertainment that
involved a show made up of many short acts. The acts
were usually unrelated. For example, a dancing act might
be followed by an act featuring animal tricks. A magic
act might follow the animal tricks act, and a comedy act
might come next. The idea was that if the audience did
not like one act, it would soon be over and one of the
other acts was likely to delight them. A vaudeville show
contained something for everyone.
4

Vaudeville was entertaining
and very popular. Large
vaudeville shows played
in the cities, while smaller
shows toured around the
country and performed in

small towns. The performers
in vaudeville shows were
dancers, singers, comics, and
people with unique skills or
talents. The most talented
performers were likely to
become huge stars in the
cities. The most famous
vaudeville shows took
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was a tap
place at New York’s Palace
dancing star on Broadway.
Theater.
During the 1910s audiences flocked to theaters on New
York City’s Broadway not only to see vaudeville shows,
but also to see spectacular musical productions. These
dazzling musical shows had big bands, fancy costumes,
and talented singers and dancers. The shows, however, did
not tell a story. Instead, they were singing and dancing
extravaganzas—very flashy and entertaining. A man named
Florenz Ziegfeld (FLOR-ehnz ZEEG-feld) started one of
these shows. It was called the Ziegfeld Follies and it was
one of the most successful Broadway productions.
At this time another form of entertainment began to
take center stage: the movies.

5


Hollywood and the Movie Industry

The earliest movies were silent. During the 1910s and
even for most of the 1920s, moviemakers did not have the
technology to combine pictures with sound. The movies
did not have dialogue or sound effects. If the characters
spoke, written words would appear on the screen for
the audience to read. Movie theaters usually played live
or recorded music as a background to these silent films.
Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were two of the biggest
movie stars of the silent film era.
During the silent film era, large movie studios began to
go into business. Studios, such as Paramount Pictures,
Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Metro-GoldwynMayer, took over the business of movie production in
the United States. The studios hired writers, directors,
cinematographers, editors,
composers, actors, and everyone
else who might be needed to
make a film. The studios paid
for the films to be made and
then got their money back
when audiences bought tickets.
The studios became wealthy
and successful. Moviemaking
was a very profitable business.

Today, audiences continue
to watch and enjoy Charlie
Chaplin’s silent films.
6

In 1934 the romantic

comedy It Happened One
Night, starring Clark
Gable and Claudette
Colbert, won five Oscars
at the Academy Awards.

Hollywood, situated in the sunlight of southern
California, became the hub of moviemaking in the
United States. In the late 1920s moviemakers developed
the technology to put moving pictures and sound together.
Sound came to the movies and the silent era ended. Already
a hit, the movie industry became even more successful!
The early sound movies were called “talkies.” The
studios produced thousands of talkies, and audiences
loved them. Popular movie stars of the 1930s included
Bette Davis, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Katharine
Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Vivien Leigh. As the movies
took over the entertainment industry, the great era of
vaudeville came to an end. In 1932 even the Palace Theater
in New York City gave up its vaudeville shows and began
to show movies instead.
7


Radio: Entertainment Enters the Home
In the 1920s the radio became a source of entertainment
in most homes. It was a novel invention and its popularity
quickly spread. The first radio shows were similar to
vaudeville shows and featured short, unconnected acts
with music or comedy.

Thanks to the influence of the movies, however, by
the mid-1930s sitting by the radio had become a place to
listen to stories. Some radio shows featured science fiction
or Western stories. Some were mysteries, adventures,
suspense tales, or comedies. Radio stations even produced
radio versions of Hollywood movies. Sometimes the
original movie stars lent their voices to the parts.
By 1939 about 80 percent of families in the United
States owned radios. Newscasters reported live news over
the radio waves. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave
radio talks called “fireside chats,” in which he told people
what was happening in the country.
Radio connected people to the rest of the world. Radio
entertainment became more and more creative and diverse.
Comedians Jack Benny,
George Burns, and
Gracie Allen delighted
audiences. During the
day many people listened
to soap operas on the air.

The earliest radios were much
bigger than the radios of today.

8

Thrilled listeners sat by their radios as heroes, such as
the Lone Ranger, the Shadow, and the Green Hornet,
stopped crime.
In 1938 an announcer named Orson Welles told a story

over the radio in New York City. The story, The War of the
Worlds, by H. G. Wells, was about a Martian invasion of
Earth. Some listeners misunderstood the broadcast. They
thought it was a real newscast and did not realize that The
War of the Worlds was just fiction. Millions of listeners,
thinking that Martians were really invading Earth, took to
the streets in panic!
Orson Welles went on to become a very influential
movie director but in 1938, he demonstrated the influence
of radio!
During the 1930s and World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
used radio to communicate with people all over the nation.


The Birth of the American Musical
Radio and movies were not
the only successful forms
of entertainment during
the 1920s and 1930s. On
Broadway, musical theater
was changing. Musical
spectacles, such as the
Ziegfeld Follies, were very
exciting—but they did
not tell much of a story. In
1927 Jerome Kern and Oscar
Hammerstein changed this
with a production called
In 1927 Showboat created a new
Showboat.

standard for Broadway musical
Before Showboat Broadway
productions.
shows were all about singing
and dancing. Showboat was a musical play that had an
actual story line. Its characters had a certain amount of
depth. The musical numbers were very important to the
show, and were now connected by a plot.
Showboat marked the beginning of a new era on Broadway.
In the following years Broadway producers created more
and more musicals with interesting plots and characters.
By the 1940s Broadway shows had rich themes, complex
plots, complicated characters, and, as always, great music
and dancing. Some of the huge hits of the 1940s were
Oklahoma!, Carousel, and South Pacific. These and other
early Broadway musicals are still popular today.
10

In the 1930s and 1940s, Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers danced their way into the movies.

Hollywood moviemakers saw Broadway’s success as an
opportunity. As Broadway shows became more popular,
Hollywood studios realized that many musicals would also
make great movies. Singing stars, such as Judy Garland and
Gene Kelly, performed in Hollywood movie musicals. Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers became famous for their onscreen
dancing. Broadway composers and writers Richard Rodgers
and Oscar Hammerstein, George and Ira Gershwin, and
Cole Porter became household names.

Hollywood studios, however, did not limit their
productions to musicals. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hollywood
was at its peak, with a diverse range of movies being made in
the sun of southern California.
11


The Movie Industry Soars
In the 1940s the United States was recovering from the
Great Depression, a period of great economic hardship,
and World War II was raging in Europe. It was not an easy
time for people in the United States. The movies became
a comfort and an escape. The government encouraged the
movie industry to make more movies. The government
hoped that the movies would boost the spirits of people
and make them feel better about life during wartime.
Movies such as Casablanca and Notorious were based on
war themes.
Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant,
Bette Davis, and Jimmy Stewart were among the biggest
stars of that time. A man named Walt Disney began to
make successful animated movies, starting with Fantasia
in 1940, Dumbo in 1941, and Bambi in 1942.
In 1941 Orson Welles wrote, directed, and starred in
the movie Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane had the same effect
on movies that Showboat had on Broadway musicals
in 1927. Welles’s cinematography was unlike anything
moviemakers and audiences had ever seen. Welles used
sound in ways that no one had used it before. His editing
was unique. His story had complicated plot devices, such

as flashbacks. Even the makeup in Citizen Kane, which
allowed the characters to age over time, was revolutionary.

Citizen Kane was a groundbreaking
film. Orson Welles’s movie had a lot
of influence on future filmmakers.
12

Citizen Kane was not well received by audiences, although
critics liked it. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. Eventually,
however, Welles’s film had a huge influence on the
movie industry. Directors copied the techniques. They
challenged themselves to be creative and inventive like
Welles. Citizen Kane helped to make the movies better.


Today, the entertainment
industry thrives.

Television Finds a Home
In the 1950s the movie industry came face-to-face with a
challenge. That challenge came in the form of an exciting
new invention called the television. Television was an instant
hit. Many people were happy to stay at home and watch
their televisions rather than go out to movies.
Comedy shows, called situation comedies or “sitcoms,”
became very popular. Viewers loved to watch actress
Lucille Ball struggling through impossible situations on
the show I Love Lucy. Audiences laughed as a husband and
wife got into humorous arguments on The Honeymooners.

Families enjoyed the adventures of a dog named Lassie.
People turned off their radio soap operas and turned on
the soap operas shown on television. News broadcasting
changed as television viewers could watch the news unfold
before them.
People in the United States welcomed television with open
arms. It became the most popular form of entertainment.

Television audiences tuned
in to watch the hilarious
antics of actress Lucille Ball
(left) on I Love Lucy.

14

Entertainment: Then and Now
Television created a challenge for the movies and radio,
so movies and radio stepped up to the challenge. Both
tried to become more diverse by offering things that the
other industries could not.
Movies, radio, and television are all going strong today.
Broadway musicals and plays are also thriving. The
entertainment industry continues to grow. Things have
changed a great deal since the early 1900s, due to changes
in society and due to new technology. Today, our options
for entertainment are much more diverse than they were
at the beginning of the 1900s. Without the vaudeville
shows and the silent movies, however, we would not have
so many choices today. The early entertainers paved the
road for today’s movies, radio programs, television shows,

and musicals.
15


The entertainment industry in the United States
thrived during the 1900s. From vaudeville and
silent films to radio, television, musicals, and
modern movies, the entertainment industry grew
and changed. In this book you will learn about
Glossary
the history of one of our nation’s greatest loves—
diverse varied
entertainment!
hub a center of activity
industry a business that
makes a product or
Vocabulary
provides a service
industry
profitable
production something created with the work of
vaudeville
hub parts
many people
and involving many different
production
profitable making
a lot of money diverse
vaudeville stage entertainment that involves
many short, unrelated

Tableacts
of Contents

Write to It!
What is the last modern movie you saw? In
what ways do you think it differed from older
movies? Write one paragraph about the movie.
Use examples from the movie to explain how you
think the movie industry has changed since the
early 1900s.
Write your paragraph on a separate sheet of paper.

People Develop a Taste for Fun.....…………….…..page 2
Vaudeville and Musical Productions…………...…..page 4
Hollywood and the Movie Industry………………..page 6
Radio: Entertainment Enters the Home...………….page 8
The Birth of the American Musical…...…………..page 10

Photographs

The Movie Industry Soars…………………….…..page 12

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply
regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Television Finds a Home…….……………………page 14

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.

Entertainment: Then and Now…….………………page 15

Opener: ©Zuma Movie Stills Library/Zuma Press
2 ©Corbis
3 ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images
4 ©Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
5 ©Bettmann/Corbis
6 ©ZUMA Movie Stills Library/Zuma Press
7 ©Underwood & Underwood/Corbis
8 ©Getty Images
9 ©Bettmann/ Corbis
10 ©The Granger Collection, NY
11 ©John Springer Collection/Corbis
13 ©Hulton/Getty Images
14 ©Bettmann/Corbis
15 ©GDT/Getty Images

ISBN: 0-328-14869-5
Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected
by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

16

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)