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“Trashy Music” in the Halls: a Cultural-Geographical History of Music Making in San Francisco During the Gold Rush Years (1849-1869)

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“Trashy Music” in the Halls: a Cultural-Geographical History of Music Making in San Francisco During the Gold Rush Years (1849-1869) “Trashy Music” in the Halls: A Cultural-Geographical History of Music Making in San Francisco During the Gold Rush Years (1849-1869) by Jonathan Verbeten, MM, BA A Dissertation In Fine Arts-Musicology Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Dr. Christopher J. Smith Chair of Committee Dr. Stacey Jocoy Dr. Virginia Whealton Dr. Andrew Gibb Dr. Catherine Franklin Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School August 2020 Copyright 2020, Jonathan Verbeten Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout my academic journey there have been far too many excellent people who took the time to invest in and teach me than can be adequately credited in these brief acknowledgments. I would first like to thank Dr. Bruce Gerlach and Dr. Dwayne Huff, who saw potential in me as an undergraduate student, encouraged me, and instilled a passion for learning. I would also like to thank Al Lohman, who introduced me to the world of jazz and taught me how to gig. I likewise experienced a tremendous period of academic growth during my graduate studies at the University of Arkansas and I offer my sincere thanks to the School of Music and to my advisor and mentor, Dr. Martin Nedbal. At each stage of my doctoral program at Texas Tech the Graduate School, Fine Arts Doctoral Program, and the School of Music have provided numerous opportunities and financial support for research and conference funding. I want to especially thank Dr. Michael Stoune, who made me aware of and often helped me with the application process for many of these opportunities. I am thankful to each member of my dissertation committee: Dr. Andrew Gibb, Dr. Catherine Franklin, Dr. Stacey Jocoy, and Dr. Virginia Whealton. Through their unique insights and experiences, each member directly contributed to the ideas and content put forth in this document. I am especially thankful for the guidance and mentorship of my dissertation chair, Dr. Christopher J. Smith. I met Dr. Smith at a conference in 2012 and was captivated by his research interests and approach to musicology. It was this interaction that led to my decision to pursue a PhD at Texas Tech. During every phase of my Lubbock journey, Dr. Smith has affirmed and reaffirmed this decision and I consider it a great honor to have studied with him. ii Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 I would like to thank my parents, Patrick and Lila Verbeten, and my mother-in- law, Lanita Chastain. My father-in-law, Ron Chastain, who is sadly no longer with us, also played an important role in the early part of this journey and deserves recognition. Finally, I would like to thank my immediate family: my two daughters, Mila and Aubrey, and my wife, Lauren Alena. Going through a PhD program with small children was not an easy task and there were often very late nights and very early mornings. In the late days of the dissertation edits, when we were all quarantined at home, my little girls (who are now six and three) had no understanding of why I stayed in my office for hours upon hours. I hope one day they will come to understand what a significant milestone this has been and perhaps forgive my inability to offer them my full attention. To my wife, Lauren, I would want anyone who takes time to read this document to know that without her contributions I would have never arrived at this point. Throughout the entire program, she has been my emotional anchor and helped me carry all the anxieties and insecurities which come along with pursuing a career in academia. She has even gone as far as spending late evenings helping me transcribe archival materials, and in this way has directly contributed to the document. This degree is as much her achievement as it is my own. My journey towards obtaining a PhD has perhaps been an unlikely story. But the fact I have made it this far is less of a testament to my own efforts and more a testament to the wonderful people who have trained, inspired, nurtured, mentored, and loved me along the way. To all of you, I offer my sincerest thanks. iii Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT vii LIST OF FIGURES ix I. INTRODUCTION 1 Justification and Thesis Statement 5 Literature Review 7 Methodology and Materials 11 Chapter Outline 23 Conclusion 27 II. HISTORICAL CONTEXT 29 Political Ambitions to Secure California and Unite the Continent 31 Captain Montgomery’s Occupation 33 Pre–United States California History 34 The Changing of a Name and the Changing of a Regional Identity 38 The Discovery of Gold and the Great Migration West 41 III. URBAN STUDIES 46 Population and Demographics 49 The Development of Portsmouth Square 54 Expansion of the City and the Selling of Water Lots 60 A Gold-Based Economy and the Lure of Gambling 68 The Problem of Crime and the Administration of Justice 73 iv Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 The Dividing Line: Bringing Culture, Religion, and Aesthetic Sensibilities to the Nascent City 77 IV. A PLEDGE OF MUSICAL AND ARTISTIC CULTURE 82 The Musical Reverberations of a Multicultural Experience 86 Robinson and Maguire: A Rivalry which Sparked a Theatrical Tradition 92 Distinctions of High and Low Art 98 The Rise of the Melodeons 106 V. FREEDOM FROM CONSTRAINED ETIQUETTE 110 From Plaza to Barbary Coast 114 Gilbert’s Melodeon 120 Johnson’s Melodeon 123 The Bella Union 127 Remembering the Melodeons 133 VI. THE EMMERGENCE OF A LOCAL TRADITION 137 The Development of Localisms 140 Multi-Ethnic Representations 143 The Appeal of Child Celebrities 146 Staffing a Melodeon 150 The Inherent Dangers of the Plaza 152 By the Company 154 Integration of Opera 157 Iron-Clad, Clipper-Built, Bullet-Proof JOE 158 v Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 Soap-Fat Man 162 The Laughable Sketch of Jenny Lind and Jennie Lamont’s Mazeppa 164 Other Notable Melodeon Performers 169 VII. CONCLUSION 173 BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 APPENDIX: Select Transcriptions of 1863 Melodeon Performances at the Bella Union and Gilbert’s Melodeon 192 vi Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 ABSTRACT The San Francisco Gold Rush yielded an unusually intense and fast-moving convergence, within a relatively small geographical space, of an immensely diverse population. Each new arrival brought new social, cultural, political, religious, and musical influences, which in turn yielded complex, rich, and multi-valent experiences and perceptions. Such immersions coalesced into a uniquely San Franciscan experience—a quintessentially local story, in a town within which experience was quintessentially transient. This project develops a geospatial picture of musical exchange in San Francisco in the 1850s, focusing on nodes of high activity within specific neighborhoods, especially an area near the waterfront known as Portsmouth Square, and within a particular type of venue, called a melodeon, which came to thrive in that space. Employing a multidisciplinary methodology for analyzing music making in an urban context, this dissertation argues for an understanding of popular amusements in San Francisco as representative of changing perceptions and presentations of whiteness and working-class expression. Such perceptions are contrasted to the efforts of so-called “legitimate” theatres, and in turn are demonstrated to represent the beginnings of an organically developed and localized tradition, as exemplified by the specifics of the variety shows on the melodeon stages. With the aid of theoretical models developed in urban studies, my work attempts to synthesize large-scale data, such as major historical, economic, and geographic events, and interweave these with more nuanced first-person accounts, much gathered through vii Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 my own archival work. Thus, my emphasis has centered on the physical experiences of individuals moving through an urban environment—what might be understood as a “history of perceptions of the City.” Rather than isolating or merely chronicling the musical history of the City, my project situates musical life (specifically that of so-called “low” and working-class amusements), within a series of parallel transformations, as revealed through historical, cultural, economic, and geographic urban change. viii Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 J.C. Ward Etching of Yerba Buena (1848) 40 3.1 Commemorative Plaque at the Site of the Old Wooden Schoolhouse 56 3.2 A View from Portsmouth Square of the Yerba Buena Cove Prior to Shoreline Expansion 64 3.3 Montgomery Block in 1862 66 4.1 April 12, 1852 Playbill for the Adelphi Theatre 90 4.2 Geographical Stratification of Theatres 100 4.3 Musical Hall Poster from March 28, 1859 103 5.1 1863 Advertisement for Mason and Hamlin’s Melodeon 111 5.2 Gilbert’s Melodeon on the Corner of Clay and Kearny 122 5.3 An 1893 Sketch of the Interior of the Bella Union 130 5.4 Arthur Lemon Sketch, “California, San Francisco—Evening Scene in a Melodeon 131 6.1 Bella Union Playbill form July 5, 1863 145 6.2 “Lotta’s Fountain” at the Intersection of Kearny and Market Streets 148 6.3 Playbill from Gilbert’s New Idea 151 6.4 1866 Advertisement for the Olympic Theater (Formerly Gilbert’s Melodeon) 161 6.5 The Soap-Fat Man by Nicolino Calyo (1840) 163 6.6 Gilbert’s Melodeon, August 18, 1863 167 6.7 Closeup of the Previous Poster 168 ix Jonathan Verbeten, Texas Tech University, August 2020 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Samuel Dickson begins his 1957 book, Tales of San Francisco, by comparing the early years of the Gold Rush (1849–1852) to a kaleidoscope.1 This is an especially useful analogy for understanding the radical shifts which bombarded the fledgling town in its early years.
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