Dime museum
19th-c. centers for the working class
Dime museums were establishments that grew in popularity starting from 1870 that were used to display freak show performers, human anatomy exhibitions, dioramas, oddities, and moral lectures to the general public. These institutions peaked in popularity at the end of the 19th century all throughout the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class (lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper middle class cultural events (highbrow). In urban centers like New York City, where many immigrants settled, dime museums were popular and cheap entertainment. The social trend reached its peak during the Progressive Era (c. 1890–1920). Although lowbrow entertainment, they were the starting places for the careers of many notable vaudeville-era entertainers, including Harry Houdini, Lew Fields, Joe Weber, the Griffin Sisters, and Maggie Cline.
History
Dime museums arose during a unique time in American history. Urban areas were becoming more economically and racially diverse. The new working and middle class needed new forms of entertainment due to increased leisure time from advances in labor production.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dime museum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.