Astor Place Riot - Background

Background

In the first half of the nineteenth century, theater as entertainment was a mass phenomenon, and theaters were the main gathering places in most towns and cities. As a result, star actors amassed an immensely loyal following, comparable to modern celebrities or sports stars. At the same time, audiences had always treated theaters as places to make their feelings known, not just towards the actors, but towards their fellow theatergoers of different classes or political persuasions, and theater riots were not a rare occurrence in New York.

In the early- to mid-nineteenth century, the American theater was dominated by British actors and managers. The rise of Edwin Forrest as the first American star and the fierce partisanship of his supporters was a first vestige of a home-grown American entertainment business. The riot was the culmination of eighty or more years – since the Stamp Act riots of 1765, when an entire theater was torn apart while British actors were performing on stage – when British actors touring around America had found themselves, because of their prominence and the lack of other visiting targets, the focus of often violent anti-British anger.

The fact that both Forrest and Macready were specialists in Shakespeare can be ascribed to the reputation of Shakespeare in the nineteenth century as the icon of Anglo-Saxon culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance, wrote in his journal that beings on other planets probably called the Earth "Shakespeare." Shakespeare's plays were not just the favorites of the educated: in gold rush California, miners whiled away the harsh winter months by sitting around campfires and acting out Shakespeare's plays from memory; his words were well-known throughout every stratum of society.