Cultivating National Identity Through Performance: American Pleasure Gardens and Entertainment (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)

Praise for Cultivating National Identity Through Performance: American Pleasure Gardens and Entertainment (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)

"In this comprehensive, well-written and thoroughly researched volume, Naomi Stubbs chronicles and examines a little-known and under-appreciated venue for popular entertainments. In her cultural study, Stubbs analyzes the 18th and 19th century American pleasure garden as the site for performance as well as a destination for relaxation and recreation, in the process, documenting how these unique landscapes helped shape class, racial, personal and national identities." - John Frick, University of Virginia, USA
 
"Naomi Stubbs uncovers the complex and multiple ways pleasure gardens operated in nineteenth-century America. From early national Independence Day celebrations, past a variegated array of acrobats, floral displays, and lectures, all the way to mid-century opera, pleasure gardens hosted the defining performances of American culture. Bolstered by thorough and original research, Cultivating National Identity Through Performance broadens our sense of American entertainment practices and their influence on American culture." - Peter P. Reed, University of Mississippi, USA