Burlesque

Bettie was quite well immersed in the culture of the 1930s. She tried a little bit of everything – among her other theater pursuits, she even checked out a performance of Minsky's Burlesque at the Park Theater.

Bettie says: Billy Minsky's famous burlesque.  Oh yeah!
Bettie’s comments about the Park Theatre’s burlesque performance.
Source: Jean Elizabeth Goodrich Scrapbook

Ticket stub from Park Theatre
A ticket stub from the Park Theatre’s burlesque performance.
Source: Jean Elizabeth Goodrich Scrapbook
Bettie’s comments about Minsky's burlesque show: What a flop! We should have done better to have gone to Little Women.
Bettie’s unfavorable comments about the burlesque.
Source: Jean Elizabeth Goodrich Scrapbook

Perhaps burlesque wasn't Bettie's style, but it proved to be a very popular form of entertainment between the 1840s and the late 1930s. It was considered lowbrow entertainment, but in its heyday was a breeding ground for aspiring singers and comedians. By 1934, however, there were enough laws against nudity that many burlesque houses were forced to shut down, which turned burlesque into a fading art form. Minsky's was the most well known burlesque act in the country, and included stars like Gypsy Rose Lee.


Park Theater Program
A theater program from the Park Theatre's burlesque performance.
Source: Jean Elizabeth Goodrich Scrapbook

Burlesque, similar to other theater incarnations, had its roots in vaudeville and minstrel shows. In 1866, a play called The Black Crook featured a chorus line of can can dancers in tights, giving the play a popularity it would not have enjoyed based on its lackluster plot. Burlesque was popping up all over the world – in Britain, adding can can dancers, who showed their legs (covered in flesh colored tights), was a way to challenge traditional Victorian ideals. Meanwhile, in the United States, women in black face were performing as "female minstrels," showing more flesh and less acting or comedic ability. The blackface was soon dropped and vaudeville style comedy acts were added, giving rise to the modern burlesque show. Turn of the century burlesque shows featured comedy and musical acts in addition to the scantily clad chorus girls, partly to give the shows some legitimacy.

Although many of the first burlesque shows were run by women, male producers soon took hold of the industry, leaving much of the musical comedy behind and focusing instead on the striptease. At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, a stripper who called herself Little Egypt performed a dance known as the "hootchie kooch", which featured the bumping and grinding that we have come to associate with the striptease. That style of dancing was widely adopted by burlesque shows, and became the main attraction. In 1917, Morton Minsky started his burlesque revue, with the basic tenets being "girls, gags, and music." He created a formula for burlesque that would last for two decades, until the genre faded away from popular culture.


Line drawing of a scantily-clad woman from the Park Theatre program
A detail from the Park Theatre program.
Source: Jean Elizabeth Goodrich Scrapbook