The Search for Fun
Why Chicagoans went out at night
Chicagoans embraced mass popular culture for
various and sometimes overlapping reasons.
For one, the cheap amusements that filled the city's expanding
bright-light districts enabled the average man or woman to express
their individuality in a way that one's work and role in community
life no longer could. As jobs became more monotonous and residential
mobility grew, Chicagoans relied upon mass culture to define
themselves and their place in an increasingly fluid social world.
Meanwhile, the new entertainment industry demanded little from
its patrons in the way of social stature or personal wealth. Anyone
with an enthusiasm for music, a willingness to learn the latest dance,
a desire to conform to the newest fashions, and a bit of spare income
to pay for it all could partake in popular amusements. Tremendous
social mixing therefore took place in the city's department stores,
movie theaters, dance halls, and night clubs. Such mixing was
especially appreciated by African-Americans, Jews, recently arrived
immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other outcast members of society,
who found that bright-light districts often accomodated them in a
manner they seldom enjoyed elsewhere in the city.
Similarly, the city's new mass culture was exceptionally popular
with younger men and women, those in their late teens and twenties.
The city's youth embraced such amusements not only because they were
cheap and helped them define themselves, but also because such
activities inherently challenged the authority of parental and
pastoral ideas about appropriate public and private behavior.
Accordingly, young Chicagoans substituted the "modern" ethic
of leisure and consumption for the Victorianism of their parents, with
its emphasis on thrift and self-denial.
Chicago's movie
palaces and ballrooms drew huge audiences and became an important part
of the city's nightlife during the 1930s and 1940s
Attracted by the big bands that played there, it was not unusual,
as the above scene at the Savoy Ballroom suggests, to see audience
members dancing in the aisles and crowding around the front of the
stage during performances.
Chicagoans valued the entertainment offered at the city's
theaters and other night spots for many reasons. Both movies and jazz
performances provided Chicagoans with an opportunity to develop a
personal identity apart from their workaday world. Equally
significant, such amusemnts helped young men and women identify
compatible marriage and sex partners.
Finally, popular culture provided opportunities for
individual men and women, many of whom were unattached and in the
market for marriage or sex, to meet eligible partners, often from
outside the social boundaries of one's class or ethnic group. Through
amusements such as movies and public dancing, men and women formulated
dating rituals suitable to the changing consumer marketplace and
shifting ideas about sex and marriage. Whereas sex and marriage had
long been seen as merely an economic arrangement for the purpose of
sharing expenses and rearing children who would care for you in times
of illness and old age, "modern" couples expected to receive
companionship and sexual pleasure from their marriages. Bright-light
districts catered to such couples by offering activities by which they
could meet their ideal mate, test their compatibility through shared
amusement experiences, and then use those same activities to help make
their marriage more pleasurable and personally satisfying.
No Hard Labor Here
"The class most in need of
facilities for recreation and enjoyment at a minimum cost is composed
of the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and youths of both sexes
who work hard for their money. They toil several hours each day and go
to their homes or lodgings thoroughly tired. It is impossible for them
to go away to some summer resort whenever they feel so disposed
because the expense is a matter which must be considered, and then
again, their positions would be jeopardized and their chances of
earning a living threatened if they should desert their posts.
"However, if they can jump on board a street car or an
elevated train and ride, on the payment of a five-cent fare, to a spot
dedicated as is White City to 'merriment and mirth,' gain admission by
the payment of one dime, and thus purchase the privilege of enjoying
themselves to the utmost in an orderly way, it serves to brighten up
the gloom of an otherwise hopeless life of toil."
White City Magazine,
March 1905.
Illustration: "Crowd at the Savoy," photograph, April 1941, Library of Congress, cropped.
Authored 1 Aug 98
Copyright
1998 by Scott A. Newman