This work reveals the often racy, ribald, and sexually charged nature of the vaudeville stage, looking at a broad array of provocative performers from disrobing dancers to nude posers to skimpily dressed athletes. Examining how big-time vaudeville nonetheless managed to market itself as pure, safe, and morally acceptable, this work compares the industry's promotional practices to those of other emergent mass-marketers of the vaudeville era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
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