Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

by Chris Enss

The Gold Rush West was dotted with mining boomtowns and bustling new cities that sprang up overnight around strikes. Fortunes were made and lost daily, lawlessness was commonplace, and gambling dens, saloons, brothels, and dance halls thrived, but after a while the miners and merchants began to long for more polished amusements. Soon, theatres popped up in tents and then auditoriums and playhouses were built where operas, arias, and Shakespeare were performed by brave actors, dancers, singers, and daredevils who were lured by the call of the West.
Many of the most popular women entertainers of the mid-and late-1800s performed in the boomtowns that dotted the West, drawn by the same desire for riches that took miners and merchants there, and bringing a variety of talents and programs. Though they were sometimes literally showered with gold, their personal lives were often marked by tragedy and unhappiness. These stories reveal the entertaining side, but also some of the hardship of the American West.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Westerns, American History

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2015

Reviews

[Russell Sanders · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I travel and see books of local interest, I often purchase them to read more about the areas I’ve just seen. Often these books are informative but not well-written. On a recent trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, I saw Chris Enss’s Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West at a theater shop. Being a lifelong devotee of the theater, I snapped up the book. The title, however, is almost a misnomer. Yes, the fourteen actresses profiled in the book did, indeed, perform in the old West (California and Nevada) but their careers in many cases were not largely centered in those areas. Furthermore, my vision was that I would read about female performers who toured tiny towns. That, apparently, was my impression just from the title. In most cases, these women performed mostly in San Francisco and other larger towns. Although some of the actresses I’d heard of, I knew little of them. After reading each of these brief biographies, I still don’t feel I know these women. The author starts each piece with a well-written “hook”—that paragraph or so that describes a moment in the woman’s life that is most interesting. Then she launches into the rest of her piece, and that is like reading a Wikipedia or encyclopedia entry. Mostly, the highlights are hit, with very little elaboration. The author also depends on excerpts from reviews and articles of the time. These stop whatever flow the writer had developed. The most interesting tale is that of Laura Keene, the actress who was on stage performing when Lincoln was shot. That makes for good reading, but aside from the fact Keene did perform in the western states, this most interesting description is of an incident clear across the country in the east. And the final profile is of early film star Jeanne Eagels. I was eager to read that one because I was more aware of her life than the others. It was the most unreadable in the entire collection. Enns relies heavily—extremely heavily—on quoted material, and at one point, a passage that goes on for almost two pages doesn’t seem to fit with the rest until the reader surmises that it, too, is a quoted passage that the printer (or editor, if there actually was one) forgot to box and use italics to indicate it was from a different source. There were other minor editorial errors as well throughout the book, the most glaring being a reference to a film Eagels made that was set in “World War II.” When that film was made, World War I had barely ended, so, obviously, the reference was a misprint that was not caught before the book went to press. And this kind of carelessness, coupled with the pedestrian writing, is what I’ve come to expect from these tourist-oriented books. Why did I expect more from this one?

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved all of the stories of the women in this book, it is very interesting and informative from beginning to end. Reading this book led me to do further research about these women individually, because the way that Chris Enss tells their stories, you almost feel immersed in their lives for a brief moment.

[Natalie Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever thought about the hard life of entertainers in the American West? I haven't until reading their fascinating stories. For fans of history and the west, this is a well researched portrayal of the women who struggled to bring their talent to the isolated and ever grateful frontier towns. Well written, interesting read from cover to cover.

[Savgj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quit pretty early

[Roxann Kelly]

Okay. Didn't enjoy as much as the other Chris Ennss books.

[Carol Havlik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting starting point on the actress's in the book. Like other books of this type some were better then others. Only gave it 2stars because someone could have proof read the book better, having found a few errors which should have been caught

[Tim Habert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway.