Overview

Finalist for the 2021 Willa Literary Award in Scholarly Non-Fiction Finalist for the 2021 Will Rogers Medallion Award in Western Non-Fiction Carolyn Grattan Eichin's From San Francisco Eastward explores the dynamics and influence of theater in the West during the Victorian era. San Francisco, Eichin argues, served as the nucleus of the western theatrical world, having attained prominence behind only New York and Boston as the nation's most important theatrical center by 1870. By focusing on the West's hinterland communities, theater as a capitalist venture driven by the sale of cultural forms is illuminated against the backdrop of urbanization. Using the vagaries of the West's notorious boom-bust economic cycles, Eichin traces the fiscal, demographic, and geographic influences that shaped western theater. With an emphasis on the 1860s and 70s, this thoroughly researched work uses distinct notions of ethnicity, class, and gender to examine a cultural institution driven by a market economy. From San Francisco Eastward is a thorough analysis of the ever-changing theatrical personalities and strategies that shaped Victorian theater in the West, and the ways in which theater as a business transformed the values of a region.

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9781647792688

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Reviews

""The strength of Eichin's text lies in the details revealed about certain performers that would otherwise fade away, such as Sue Robinson Getz!er, John McCullough, and Lawrence Barrett. The book excels when it dives deep into the details of these almost forgotten actors' lives and the difficult reality of professional acting of Victorian theatre."" --Sara Brooke Christian, Theater Annual ""Finally, an analysis of Victorian theater in the American West that transcends descriptive, narrative accounts and smartly dissects theater's varied social functions as a cultural force and form and a shaper of regional identity. . . . Eichen has impressively uncovered, pieced together, and mapped out the worlds of Victorian theater in the West to reveal a new understanding of its history and impact."" --Barbara Berglund Sokolov, New Mexico Historical Review ""Eichin's most exciting contribution may be her embodiment of the Western character itself through a series of thoughtfully curated and engagingly spun vignettes. . . . The book's wealth of colorful stories and characters will likely also appeal to Western popular audiences who see themselves and their forebears in these pages."" --Heather Kelley, Theatre History Studies "" ... a dynamic contribution to American theater history."" --The Journal of Arizona History ""Eichin provides well-written pros and well-documented history of theater in the American West... a welcome addition to the nineteeth-century history of Nevada theater."" --Nevada Historical Society Quarterly ""This study would make a useful addition to research or courses in theater history, urbanization, Irish immigration, social and geographic mobility, and women in the American West."" --Laurie Arnold, Gonzaga University ""[T]he best, most thought-provoking study of the subject to date."" --True West ""From San Francisco Eastward offers a colorful, engaging analysis of activities that may at first seem frivolous or extraneous to the history of the American West, but in fact offer valuable insights into the nation's social and cultural development."" --California History ""To date, most large-scale studies of theatrical performance in the nineteenth-century U.S. West have taken the form of chronicles as opposed to analyses and have tended to be limited in geographical scope. From San Francisco Eastward is a refreshing departure from this tradition on both counts."" --Andrew Gibb, associate professor of Theater and Dance, Texas A & M University

Author Information

Carolyn Grattan Eichin has contributed numerous articles to western journals and has worked as an archaeologist and historian. She lives in California.

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