Entertainment in the 1910s

Popular Entertainment

Vaudeville was a form of live theater that was popular in the United States between the 1880s and 1930s, similar to the music hall shows in Britain. Vaudeville performances were collections of shorter acts that included a variety of entertainment forms, including music, dancing, acrobatics, comedy skits, ventriloquists, juggling, and short plays. These vaudeville performances helped to inspire and promote popular music of the time and the early movie industry. Some early radio and movie actors who later became famous had their start in vaudeville or came from families of vaudeville performers, such as the Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire and his sister Adele had a musical brother and sister vaudeville act when they were children and later became Broadway performers.

Radio existed as a technology, but it didn't really become popular as a form of home entertainment until after World War I. It became much more popular in the 1920s (Early Radio Programming: Who's on First).

Music

Culturally, this was the era of ragtime music. Ragtime is a style of music that is related to marching songs but with altered rhythms based on African/African-American music. The synchopated rhythms of ragtime later influenced the creation of jazz. Radio would not be invented and popularized as a form of entertainment until the 1920s, so the only ways that people could listen to music were by seeing live performances, buying phonograph records to play at home, or learning to sing or play an instrument or listen to a family member or friend who could.

A number of popular songs from this time were performed in vaudville or music hall acts or Broadway musicals before being recorded on phonograph records or wax cylinders. Among the popular songs of the 1910s:

• Down by the Old Mill Stream (1910) - The song was actually written in 1908, but it wasn't published until 1910.
• I'm Henery The Eighth, I Am (1910) - This song (spelling intentional, although it does vary) was originally performed on British music hall stages but became more popular in 1965, when it was turned into a pop song by Herman's Hermits.
• Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1910)
• I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad) (1911)
• Happy Birthday (1912) - The tune is older than the birthday song. In 1912, the music and lyrics appeared together in print. After that, the song grew in popularity to become the common song at birthday parties.
• It's a Long Way to Tipperary (1912) - The song was written for a British music hall performance, and it became popular among World War I soldiers.
• Ballin' the Jack (1913) - This song has accompanying dance moves that are described in the lyrics, somewhat similar to the shimmy. The expression "ballin' the jack" came from railroad workers, and it meant "going at full speed." Different versions of the song use different tempos, and it's been done as a ragtime, jazz, and pop. For my example, I picked a 1942 dance routine with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly because they demonstrate the moves.
• Keep the Home Fires Burning (1914) - A patriotic British song written by Ivor Novello for World War I. In the 2002 movie Gosford Park, which takes place in the 1930s, the actor playing Ivor Novello starts playing this song on the piano until someone stops him and asks him to play something more cheerful.
• I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier (1915) - An American anti-war song. The United States initially resisted joining World War I, tending to be more isolationist. It was a very popular song, but not everyone took it seriously at the time. Some people even wrote parody versions. This song came to be a popular song for the pacifist movement in the United States and was also used to protest later wars, like the Vietnam War.
• Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag (1915) - A British marching song popular during World War I.
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm (1917) - The oldest known version of this song was published in a 1917 book called Tommy's Tunes. However, the farmer in the song was called Macdougal instead of MacDonald. There were other variants of this song, some which were older than this one and didn't actually name the farmer or include E-I-E-I-O part. The part that ties them together is animals making various sounds "here," "there," and "everywhere." The 1917 version is much closer to the one we know popularly today.
• The Ric-A-Dam-Doo (The Princess Pats) (1917) - Most people who know this song heard it as a camp song for children, Princess Pat. In its modern form, it's a nonsense call-and-response song with hand motions, but it was originally a military cadence for Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Princess Patricia was one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters. She was the Colonel-in-Chief (a ceremonial role, like a sponsor or patron) of this infantry regiment, which was named after her, and she made their flag herself by hand. The flag was red (crimson) with a purple-looking (really, royal blue) circle in the center and her initials in gold. ("It's red and gold (it's red and gold) and purple, too (and purple, too). That's why it's called ...") They called it the "Ric-A-Dam-Doo," apparently from Gaelic words meaning "cloth of your mother." (In the camp version I first learned, it was a "Ric-A-Bamboo" or "Rickabamboo." Different camp versions say it differently and have other variations in the words.) This regiment always carried their flag with them in World War I. (That's why they crossed "the Channel, too" in the song.) The original flag still exists and is in The Military Museums in Calgary. I haven't found an exact explanation for how it turned into a children's camp song, but my guess would be that some of the soldiers who came home from World War I sang some of the songs they learned overseas to their children during camping/scouting activities and either changed the lyrics to make them more suitable for children or the children themselves misunderstood the lyrics and repeated them wrong (the part where Princess Pat "lived in a tree" was a corruption of "Light Infantry"), perhaps making up new verses as they went. I couldn't find a recording of the song as it was originally sung, but I did find some written versions of the original words. According to this explanation, the "purple" part really should be "royal blue." I've known people to get those two colors confused, sometimes depending on the shade or the individual's color perception, which might be the source of the mistake. This version also supports the original royal blue color and provides a longer version of the original lyrics, some of which refer to the drinking the soldiers liked to do. Some people consider the children's song to be disrespectful to the original and to the infantry itself, but I thought that it was worth explaining its origins. I liked the song when I was a kid, and I always felt like it was based on something, but I could never figure out what. I actually feel better finally knowing what a Ric-A-Dam-Doo is! Ric-A-Dam-Doo may sound like a strange name for a flag, but if you don't take it with you (and, presumably, the infantry who go with it), who knows what might happen? ("His ship did sink (echo), and so will you (echo), if you don't take ..." the Ric-A-Dam-Doo!) See below for a more serious tribute to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
• Over There (1917) - This was written specifically as a World War I song, but it was also later used as a patriotic song during World War II.
• How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)? (1919) - A popular song after the end of World War I that was also popular after the end of World War II. It referred to sons from farming families who got their first tastes of overseas travel and the sophisticated cultural life of Paris during the war and their families' worries that they would now no longer be satisfied with their farms and small towns and would want to move to the big cities.

Since I couldn't find a sound verion of the original Princess Pat song, I decided to include this modern tribute to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry on their 100th anniversary in 2014. The Ric-A-Dam-Doo song they sing was written for the occasion and is a serious song, not related to the light-hearted military cadence that became the camp song. The video is interesting because it includes pictures of the original World War I infantry, including Princess Patricia herself and the orginal flag (about 1:19 into the video). The original images are black and white, but a color flag appears briefly in the background of the singers at one point (about 0:53 into the video). This video explains more about the history of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and their service during World War I, and this silent footage shows them returning home after the war.

The Princess Pat's Battalion
They sailed across the Herring Pond,
They sailed across the Channel too,
And landed there with the Ric-A-Dam-Doo
Dam-Doo, Dam-Doo.

The Ric-A-Dam-Doo, pray what is that?
'Twas made at home by Princess Pat,
It's Red and Gold and Royal Blue,
That's what we call the Ric-A-Dam-Doo,
Dam-Doo, Dam-Doo.

-- Excerpted lyrics from the original Ric-A-Dam-Doo cadence song.

Movies

Motion pictures were being produced for the public during the 1910s, and the film industry in the United States became centered in Hollywood, California. Many of the films produced in this decade were not preserved because the technology was relatively new, the film used was physically delicate, and films were not being made to be preserved. For example, Lon Chaney, a character actor known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces" because of his extensive use of makeup, causing him to look racially different in every role he played, was an accomplished film actor during the 1910s, but many of his early films are considered "lost." More of his work from the 1920s survives.

When people went to the movie theater, they would not only see the movies but newsreels, which were particularly important during World War I. People at home could see the latest war news at their local theater.

People would also see episodes of movie serials at the theater. Movie serials were episodic films shown one episode at a time in theaters with episodes ending with cliffhangers to keep audiences coming back to see what would happen next. One of the most famous movie serials of the 1910s was The Perils of Pauline (1914). In The Perils of Pauline, Pauline is a wealthy young woman whose parents are dead. Her guardian is Mr. Marvin, and Mr. Marvin allows his secretary, Mr. Koerner, to manage Pauline's inheritance. However, Mr. Koerner realizes that he can steal her money if something happens to her. Pauline lives a dangerous life anyway because she really wants to be a writer, and she seeks out adventures to serve as inspiration for her stories. Mr. Koerner tries to get rid of Pauline in various ways that will look like accidents on her adventures. Each episode of the serial ends with Pauline in danger, so audiences have to keep watching to see how Pauline will escape. Of course, Pauline always survives, and the serial ends happily!

The movies produced during the 1910s were silent films. The only dialogue in the movies appeared in writing. Sections of writing called intertitles appeared between scenes of action to explain more about what was happening or what characters were saying to each other so that the audience could follow the story. The only sounds that the audience heard had to be produced in the theater. Many theaters had organs or other instruments that musicians used to provide background music for the movies, playing something that would give the mood appropriate to the action in the movie. Among the most famous silent films of the 1910s were:

• Comedy films with Charlie Chaplin, mostly short films, particularly The Tramp (1915), his most memorable role.
• Films with Mary Pickford, some of which were based on books, like The Little Princess (1917), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), and Daddy-Long-Legs (1919). I suspect that Mary Pickford’s career may have influenced the character of Ruth Fielding in children’s literature.
• Some of the earliest films about the Oz stories, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910), The New Wizard of Oz (1914), and The Magic Cloak (1914).
• The world’s first animated short movies, including Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
• The Birth of a Nation (1915) – D. W. Griffith’s film about the end of the Civil War and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. This movie contributed to rising feelings of prejudice in the United States and the resurgeance of the Ku Klux Klan in the following decade.

Books

Among the books published for adults in the 1910s:

• The Devil's Dictionary (1911) - By Ambrose Bierce.
• Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) - By Zane Grey.
• Tarzan of the Apes (1912) - A small human boy is raised by an ape after his parents die. Later, he uncovers his true identity and struggles to understand what it means to be human. By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
• O Pioneers! (1913) - By Willa Cather.
• The Interpretation of Dreams (1913) - The English translation. By Sigmund Freud.
• Dubliners (1914) - By James Joyce.
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) - By James Joyce.
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) - By Booth Tarkington.
• My Antonia (1918) - By Willa Cather.
• The Curse of Capistrano (1919) - The first appearance of the character Zorro. First appeared as a story serial. By Johnston McCulley.