Timothy R. White. Blue-Collar Broadway

Broadway is at once a place, an amusement, and a commodity. In the twentieth century, the aura of Broadway added value to the commodity (the theater), not just as a location, but also as a materialization of labor. As Timothy R. White shows, the backstage work of the people who made the costumes and sets and operated the electrical systems provided the tangible labor that crafted Broadway’s glitter. This is a fine illustration of the spatial approach to commodities and the idea that things, and the consumption of them, can be understood through what Michael K. Goodman, David Goodman, and Michael Redclift call “a place theory of value” (11) in their 2010 edited volume, Consuming Space: Placing Consumption in Perspective. Blue-Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theater traces the ups and downs of the midtown theater (White focuses on musical comedy, but includes other forms here and there) over the course of the twentieth century. It is very much a geographical history that measures the growth and decline in the entertainment industry through its physical dispersal. While ostensibly dealing with labor, it does not devote much attention to working people: their backgrounds, their racial and ethnic loyalties, their culture or lifestyles, their leisure activities, their work and its evolution, or their pay. Although White does offer well-chosen anecdotes, these mostly concern bosses and theater personalities rather than workers. The blue-collar aspect is largely covered through an institutionally focused discussion of labor organization.

Art · Art history · Blue collar · Business · Comedy · Commodification · Commodity · Craft · Economics · Economy · Entertainment · Media studies · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Visual arts · White (mutation) · Yesterday · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies