"T'morra,' T'morra"': the 1940S Broadway Period Musical and Progressive Nostalgia in Bloomer Girl Maya Cantu
"T'morra,' T'morra"': The 1940s Broadway Period Musical and Progressive Nostalgia in Bloomer Girl Maya Cantu
Billed as a "Modern Musical Comedy with Old-Fashioned Charm," the Civil llar-sef Bloomer Girl (1944) followed Oklahoma! as part of a lVorld llar ll-era cycle of Broadway musicals steeped in period Ameri- cana. This article argues that Bloomer Girl---connecting Jirst-wave feminism to Rosie the Riveter, and the abolitionist movement with civil rights-offired a complex vision of progressive nostalgia, advancing atopian aims of social justice that anticipale Finianos Rainbow.
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While Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!legendarily changed the course of American musical theater through the historical canonization of the "integrated musical play," the 1943 musical also had more immediate effects in the commercial arena of the Broadway musical. The monumental hit status of Oklahomal launched a substantial World War Il-era cycle of Broadway musical plays steeped in folkloric visions of the American past: what critic Louis Kronenberger predicted in 1944 as 'oa vogue, a cycle, perhaps an orgy of costume pieces." Indeed, by the time the 1910s-set musical comedy High Button Shoes opened in October of 1947, following such shows as Carousel (1945), Up in Central Park (1945), and Brigadoon (1947), George Jean Nathan observed, "In the last five seasons, twenty-
Maya Cantu is a recent graduate of Yale School of Drama, where she received her DFA in Dramaturgl,t and Dramatic Criticism in 2014, and her MFA in 2010. Her dissertation is entitled, "Working Girls, Gold Diggers, Broads, and Boss Ladies: Cinderella Mythologies of the American Musical Stage, I9l9-1959." Maya's writing has been published in Studies in Musical Theatre, Theatre Journal, The Sondheim Review and as part of the New York Public Library's Musical of the Month series. As a dramaturg, she has worked at Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale Cabaret, and, most recently, at the Mint Theater Company, on their productions of George Kel/y's Philip Goes Forth and John Van Druten 's London Wall. 50 New England Theatre Journal Maya Cantu 5I seven of the musical exhibits, including revivals, have dealt with past and Oklahoma!portrayed the turn-of-the-century American prairie as a site of hypothetically nostalgic years. This is the twenty-eighth" (95). cmerging statehood and communal cohesion, while allegorizing the uniting Among the earliest musicals of this wartime nostalgia wave was 1944's of a divided America during Worl dWarII, Bloomer Girl focused on threats Bloomer Girl,withmusic by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E. Y. "Yip" Harburg to democracy within the United States itself. Rooted in New Deal liberal- (who also directed the show, as produced by John C. Wilson), and a book ism, Bloomer Girl drew strong parallels between social struggles in 1861 by Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy. Set in Cicero Falls, NY, just before the and current 1944 conditions of racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws, outbreak of the civil war in 1861, this fictionalized historical musical wl,ile also making powerful statements about women's rights: connecting recounts how budding activist Evelina Appelgate joins her firebrand aunt- the skirted pantaloons of Amelia Bloomer and the trousers of Rosie the the dress refotm crusader Dolly Bloomer (based loosely on Amelia Jenks Riveter. As a New York Times preview of the show noted, "But, say the Bloomer)-in fighting the interwoven battles for women's rights and the show's enthusiasts, in spite of its 1861 setting, Bloomer Girlwill be very abolition of slavery. Produced and marketed as something of a follow-up tirnely. For, it's said, problems that are bothering Americans then are to oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl sharedmuch of the pedigree and personnel of bothering them now" ("New Musical"). Offering what theater critic John the former show, including choreographer Agnes de Mille (who created the Rosenfield called an "amalgam of liberal propaganda and Americana" show's legendary "Civil War Ballet"), as well as featured players Celeste (Rosenfield), and combining "nostalgic gaiety with soberly intelligent Holm (in the lead role of Evelina) and Joan Mccracken (as rnaid-turned- tlcatment of abolition and racial equality" ("Bloomer Girl," Pic Magazine), suffragette Daisy), orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, set designer lJloomer Girl presented a vision of progressive nostalgia, with utopian Lemuel Ayers, and costume designer Miles White. tlrcmes anticipating Finian's Rainbow, Harburg's masterful 1947 musical Billed as "a modern musical comedy with old-fashioned charm," satire advocating civil rights. Bloomer Girl earned favorable comparison to the Rodgers and Hammer- stein musical (as well as Hammerstein's earlier Sltow Boat, 1927), and Nostalgia and Utopianism in the Broadway Musical a "fresh, vigorous, radiant, enchanting and thoroughly praise from critics as The period musicals of the 1940s stemmed both from the context of show, as described by Jim o'connor of the Jom'nal Autet'icorr American" World War II, and from a nostalgic irnpulse that runs throughout the history Although several critics, such as John Chapman, (qtd. in Suskin 90-91). ol'the Broadway musical. Coined by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in the libretto overlong and marred by a "lack of pace," found Herzig and Saidy's scvcnteenth century as an affliction troubling homesick soldiers, "nostal- the majority of rcviewers lauded Arlen's idiornatic folk and American 1lia" (from nostoc, "return home," and algia, "longing") came to signify "a melodies, Harburg's "deft, adult lyrics" (Field)' Ayers's spiritual-inflected longing for a home that no longer existed or has never existed" (Boyrn xiii). and costumes by White that "caught "warm and wistfully humorous" sets, As Rebecca Ann Rugg observes: "Nostalgia is the prime dramaturgical a period of Amcricana with a captivating blend of warmth, nostalgia and r rrocle of musical theater. It steers not only the course of audience response by Edwin H. Schloss of the Philadelphia Record. At humor," as described rrrrtl show structure but also marketing strategies, the critical machine, and qualities incited critical backlash from thc New York the same time, these llrc scttings of the productions themselves" (45). Steeped in "nostalgic "The fabulous success of Oklahontal was bound Post's Wilella Waldorf: rrrcnrories of performances, tropes and icons past" (Edney 35), the market. Let's face it. Wc are in to have its effect on the Broadway musical llroadway musical's backward-looking irnpulses have also frequently quaintncss, most of it with for several seasons of intensely old-fashioned rrrclgcd with what Richard Dyer described as entertainment's "utopian Mille" (qtd. in Suskin 92). On the heels of a choreography by Agncs de ';t'rrsibility" (27),localing intuitions of "something better to escape into" prodigious advancc sale, as well as its accolades, Bloomer Glrl-which 1 )0)amicl portrayals of America's past.r 5 october 1944-ran for a solid 657 opened at the Shuberl Theatre on Whilc nostalgia musicals have pervaded the history of thc Broadway performances. rrrrrsical, ccrtain historical periods- including years of wartime have can be catcgorized as a period musical. thc Yet while Bloomer Girl lr'rrtlcrl to intcnsify tlicir fi'equencyofproduction.2 As SvetlanaBoymnotes, with nostalgia is more cornplicated than critics lil 52 New Englartcl Theatre Journal Maya Cantu 53 ences of the democratic American values for which soldiers were fighting conversation between American history and issues of civil rights and overseas. Alan Jay Lerner recalled of the Oklaltonto! era, "As the depres- women's rights in the then-present moment of 1944. sion had killed the sentimental musical and squirtcd adrenalin into the veins of satire, World War ll killed satire and revivcd the sentimental musical. Ilistory and Human Rights in Bloomer Girl The mood of the country switched like a traffic light to escapism, nostalgia Bloomer presented a heavily fictionalized portrayal of Amelia and fantasy" (42). Girl .lcnks Bloorner's battles and campaigns in Civil War-era America. As Many Broadway musicals, irrcluding those of the World War II era, rccounted by Harburg, Bloomer Girl originated with an idea (and, then, align with one of the two types of nostalgia as influentially defined by runproduced play) by costume designer Lilith Jarnes and her husband Dan Boym (xviii). "Restorative nostalgia" earnestly seeks a return to lost origins .lamcs. Thc former had shared with Harburg her fascination with antebel- and homeland, as in Lctner and Loewe's own Brigacloon (1947), which lLun fashion and her research into the life of Bloomer, who urged the evoked a lost, pre-industrial Shangri-La in its fantasy Scottish moors. By rcplacement of the cumbersome hoop skirt with the freer bloomer costurne contrast, "reflective nostalgia" a mode exemplified by Sondheim and (rvhich, as invented not by Bloomer, but by Elizabeth Smith Miller, Goldman's Follies (1971) draws critically upon irony and humor to "consisted of loose, Turkish-style trousers gathered by the ankles and reflect upon the distance between past and present (and thus is not incom- covered by a dress that usually reached somewhere between the knee and patible with another frequent mode of the Broadway musical: camp). thc mid-calf ';Alonso 123).In the early 1850s, Bloomerpromoted women's Beyond this binary, nostalgia can also function to channel visions of rights and dress reform, as well as abolitionism and tcmperance, in her social transformation, as demonstrated in Bloorner Girl. EmiIy Keightley srrflragette newspaper The Lily, published in Seneca Falls, New York and Michael Pickering observe that "nostalgia should be seen as accommo- (rcpresented as "Cicero Falls" inB/oomer Girl). Along with approximately dating progressive, even utopian impulses as well as regressive stances and llrrce hundred women's rights activists and abolitionists (including melancholic attitudcs" (l l). Similarly, the art historian Therese Lichten- lrrcderick Douglass), Bloomer had been among the original attendants of stein elaborates upon Walter Benjamin's theories that "a critical, progres- thc historic I848 Seneca Falls Convention, as organized by Lucretia Mott sive nostalgia would use the past in a dialectal way to change and illumi- rrnd Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and credited by rnany feminist historians as nate present conditions and both individual and class consciousness in a thc foundational event of American feminism (a movement that stemmed way that might lead to political action and social change" (217). Created, liorn women's involvement in anti-slavery associations since the 1830s). produced and marketed in the mainstream context of Broadway rnusical Bloomer Girl's creators took numerous artistic licenses in transforming entertainment, and consumed predominately by white, middle-class Arncrican history into their modem musical comedy with old-fashioned audiences, Bloomer Girl did not promote a specifically radical or Marxist t'lrarrn. They portrayed Amelia as "Dolly Bloomer" (a role originated by agcnda. At thc same time, Harburg and his collaborator steeped their period Margaret Douglass), while devising a fictional niece for Dolly as the musical in liberal goals and ideals that reached a wide audience during thc rornantic hcroine of the show. The sixth and youngcst daughter of hoop show's original Broadway run, as well as a 194647 national tour. As sliilt manufacturer Horatio Applegate, the rebellious Evelina (Celeste Stuart Hecht notes of the Broadway musical's "ostensibly conservative" I lolrn) dreams of transforming the status quo, and teams up against her form, and its paradoxical ability "to influence social change": "lroop king" father with her dynamic "bloomer queen" aunt. Joining her lThe musical'sl vcry conscrvativc nature granted it special plivilegc ;rrrrrl as a writer for The Lily, Evelina finds her activist commitment with rnainstream audiences. Becausc it usually shunned controversy, , lrrrllcngcd when she falls in love with Kentucky salesman Jefferson when a Broadway show did include controversial subject mattcr, that ( 'llhoun (David Brooks), with whom Horatio plans an arranged marriage subject tcndcd to find more ready acceptance (6). lol business purposes. Though Jefferson himself questions the institution Harburg later recounted of his 1944hit,"In Bloomer Girl .. . wc showcd ol slavcry, his brother Hamilton comes to Cicero Falls claiming ownership that thc womcn's rnovcrnent was part of an indivisiblc fight ftir ccprality. ol lhc nnraway slave Pompey (Dooley Wilson), who, joining fellow run- Equality cannot bc cliviclcd" (Alonso l2tt). As lltc rlircc{ttt'itntl Iyricist ol' .r\virys Alcxandcr (Richard Huey) and Augustus (Hubert Dilworth), has IJloorttt,r'(lirl ,llalbru'g lcrl thc rrrrrsicul's tcirrn irt t'tt'rrlirrl'. rr slrottg critical ',orr11lrl shcltcr ancl cscapc with Dolly Bloomcr through the latter's partici- p;rlrorr irr tlrc Urrrlcrground [{ailnratl. Yct, at thc same tirnc that Jcfferson c ,lrrllt'rr1',es lris orvrr vicr.vs on sl:rvt'ry. ltc itlso lcurtrs lo clttcsliott his tracli- i.t N t 1,.' r t r t,q l t t t t t l' l t c r r I r.t, . / t t t t r I r t t t I t\ lttytt ('ttrtlrt t5 tiollal vicws on f'cminine domcsticity, ancl to eventually embrace tlrc hurrarr Wlrcrr ( illrnrry rvirs tr lirssic, rights causes of Dolly and Evelina. 'l'hat tylarrt linorvn ils ntall In its opcning scene, Broomer - Girr setup irnmediatc paralrels bctwccrr Thought wolltilu's place was.jr-rst thc spacc the civil war and world war erus. II Broomer Girr op"n, in tsot on u Arotrnd a liying pan. "tranquil domestic scene" ( r-r 4)3 in cicero Falls, as Evelina,s five sistcrs Hc nrade the world his oystcr, knit and wait for their husbands-alr hoop skirt s.lssmsn-to return to Now it ain't worth a cuss. thern fiom the road. ..when This oyster he . The sisters harmoniie on the Boys comc can't fbister on us. . . Homc" (a song reprised poignantly in the final scene of Bloomer Girl, when the Applegate Our brains against his mr.rscle, sisters' husbands enrist in the civil war as Union soldiers): Our tea against his rum. Look behind thc bustle Stitch, stitch, pray and slecp. For the shape of things to come. (1 3 37) Mcn must work and wofilcn must weep. T'was cver thus sincc tirnc began; lrolbidden by hcr father to wcar her aunt's bloomers, Evelina cunningly Woman oh woman must wait fbr rnan. irsrces to modcl "The Applegate Super Hoop of I 86l" in Horatio's fashion show of his company's newcst models. At thc close of this nulnber, "Pretty contrasting Evelina with her sedate sisters and rnother Serena, Broomer irs a Pictllre," Evelina "drop[s] hcr hoop skirt to rcveal a pair of bloorrers Girl introdtrces the former as a brasrr ancr assertivc youllg *o,run, *ho, undcrneath" (1 5 66). when she first appears, is portraycd defiantly reading her-father,s news- Offering Blooruer Girl's audiences the mcdiation of a more temperatc papers instead of gentecl magazines ,,War llke Goctey,s Lotly,s Bo.k. rvorlen's rights advocate, the musical dcpictcd a third feminist charactcr in clouds gatheri'g" (l r-6). Evelina reads soberly frorn iin cornrr", while thc fbrm of Evelina's maid Daisy, who becomcs increasingly courrnitted to entering i'to political arguments with her conseruative father that clearly rvorking at The Lily. Originally played by Joan McCrackcn (a prominent suggested parallels betwcen the Iiberalism of Abraham Lincoln and Frank_ lcatured dancer in Oklahontnl), Daisy both thematically reinforces and lin Delano Roosevelt: cornically questions Bloomer Girl's utopian rhetoric. Concerned that she rnight losc HoRATro. . . . Do you realize hcr boyfriend, a fcllow servant narncd Gus, whilc fighting for that rail-splitter had saddlcd us with a national lcminisrn and civil rights, Daisy cxclaims, "What's the usc of being a debt of sixty million?. . . liberal if you can't give anything away?" (1 4 -55). Daisy launches into thc EvE.tNe. Aunt Dolly says that trrc presidcnt is rnore conccrned witr.r colrlic nrrmbcr "T'Mon'a,' T'Morra"' a number resernbling Oklohomo !'s the public wclfare tl.ran tl.rc public clebt. (l I l) "l Cain't Say No." Perfbrrned as a comic "striptease in the spirit of I861," In its portrayal "womcn arrd as a sexy showstoppcr for Bloornet' Girl's fbaturcd soubrettc, of running around in pants" (r,5 -62), Blootrter. Girl "'l'Morra,' T'Morra"'featurcd McCrackcn dancing out of hcr hoop skirt suggested both Doily and Eve lina as ni'eteenth-."ntury pr"a"."rro* to Rosic the Riveter, into her corset and pantaloons ("Bloorner Girl," Nev, York Times). as thousands of women during worliwar II tradcd drcsscs for slacks I larburg's lyrics offercd a lightJreartcd take on the paradox ofprogrcssiv- and trousers as they assu'ned jobs in factories, offices, and in military rcscrve units rike ..rn isr-n, as Daisy sings in frustration: thc wACs ana wavgs. prace of a lifc hcmmed i' by a hoop skirt, I'm offering Everina the broad horizon in The present, thc present, tl.rc prcsent is so pleasant. bloomers," anno.nces Dolry ( What am l-r-r 3), whi has enlistcd Evelina to hcrp rrcr l savin' it tbr? run The Lill' (which Progrcssivc. progrcssi vc. sh.e al-d "the broomer girrs" have resorteo to put tirnirg lrom a bordcllo-turnecr-oflice). I'd rather be calcssive, Evelina becomes increasingly comrnitted to thc joint causes of thc anti-sravery My heart is raisin' a row. movcment and women,s rights, as Evelina, 1o Harbr,rrg's crevcr Utopia, utopia, lyrics, reads her fcllow .rfrrug.ti., in the anthern: "It was Don't bc a dope, ya dopc ya, Good E'ough for Grandma (But It's Not GooJ Enough fbr us)": Get yor-rr utopia now! ( I 4 56) d 'l'ltutlt't',lotrt.ttul .1(t N<'w littgltttttl llltt.rvt (iutltt 57 Using clcrncnts o1'satirc, as wcll as libcral scntimcnt, IJloomcr Girl l)tlt.t.v. (io irlrr:irtl. tlctr, I uurlcrstand. . . . You fbrget that I was a exuberantly cclebrated wornen's liberation in the work force and as activc young gir'l oncc nryscll' about a hundred years ago. I scared participants in American society. when Dolly cries to her army of suffra- away my youug lnan with thc scandalous announcclnent that I gettes, "We're at war already, aren't we girls?," the bloomer girls respond, wanted to go to college! (2-2-18) ..And "We're on the march,"'olt's a fight to the finish," this is our battle lJltimately, the same "young man" Dolly thc dress!" (l-3-36). Dialogue in the show alluded to the many professionar it is of Bloomer-now (iovernor of New York-who affangcs Dolly and Evelina's rclease from and political achievements of womcn since the civil war era. when prison, as a favor to the woman he still loves. The Govcrnor announces, Horatio reacts in dismay to Dolly's suggestion that someday there will be "And I still haven't given up hope of making Miss Bloomer the Governor's a "woman horse-car conductor," Dolly and Evalina continue the litany: l,ady," as Dolly retorts, "Governor's Lady, hell-I'm going to be Gover- "Someday there'll be women lawyers too . . . and women scientists . . . and rror!" (2-4-33). women newspaperrnen . . and women congressmen." To this, Horatio replies,'oWomen congressmen! God forbid!" (l-l-14). To at least one theater critic, such dialogue conjured not only the histori- cal icon of Amelia Bloomer, but contemporary female political figures. As Yet, in a 1944 America in which only a small number of women served ir critic for Rob Wagner's Script obsewed, "The dialo guelin Bloomer Girlf in congress,a Bloomer Girl also portrayed women's struggle for equality , too, is so topical that one could read politics of 1944 into l86l-govern- as a continuing battle, with themes and conflicts that would have resonated rurent interference with business, expanding national debt, and that lady in with women in wartime. on one level, Bloomer Girl portrayed the despair lhe White House" ("New York Notes"). In the latter role, Eleanor Roose- of wives waiting for boyfriends and husbands to return safely from the velt held powerful visibility alongside her husband, as the most politically European front. In de Mille's lamenting civil war Ballet, the choreog- lctive First Lady up to that time, as well as a passionate defender of human rapher "used dance and gesture to express the anxieties of women waiting peacefully rights. Defying the Daughters of the American Revolution's boycott of for the return of the soldiers" (Sargol la 1 03 ), only for one of the Marian Anderson performing in Constitution Hall, Roosevelt famously women to receive news that her husband has been killed in battle. At the arranged for the soprano to sing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, among same time, Bloomer Girl captured the tensions ofwomen holding tradition- llumerous other contributions to the early rights movement.s Both ally rnale jobs during wartime. while Hollywood and media propaganda civil Dolly and Evelina, in Blooner Girl, resonated with the figure of Eleanor enlisted women to join the labor force and military reserves as part of the ltoosevelt, representing feminist abolitionists mid- war effort, it also reinforced the temporarynature ofwomen's mobilization: while the of the nineteenth century. that they were expected to retum to their proper domestic roles "when the juxtaposes boys come home" (Lingeman 140). Bloomer Girl the bondage of Victorian "true womanhood" with the institution ofAmerican slavery. Bloomer Girl's narrative is tightly Anticipating such post-war Broadway musicals as Annie Get your Gun Ibcused around ethical dilemmas related to Dolly and Evelina's abolition- (1946) and Kiss Me, Kate (1948), Bloomer Girl evokes conflicts of profes- isrn. Like Evelina, Jeff at heart disapproves of slavery, though he is socially sional ambition versus traditional feminine propriety. Evelina confronts conditioned to it by his Southern upbringing. Jeff is able to temporarily Jeff s initial disapproval at her political activism as a suffragette and aboli- liberate Pompey by transferring his ownership to Evelina, who promptly tionist, as the latter lectures her, "Such pretty lips should discuss something grants him his freedom. Yet when Hamilton attempts to reclaim Pompey as prettier than politics" (1-5 62).In the second act, Evelina and Dolly are "family property" (22-16), Jeff weakens and considers capitulating. arrested for "violating the sabbath, masquerading as men, and advertising Evelina angrily reprimands him, the Uncle Tom's Cabin-a lewd, indecent and seditious exhibition,, (2_l-6). before breaking off romance, "You can't be a coy liberal one moment and a smug Tory the next" (l-5-62). By In prison, Evelina confides to her aunt about the difficulty of choosing between her work and Jeff: the end of the show, Pompey is promised his freedom (and escape to Canada), as the country erupts into Civil War. Ironically, the announcement EvauNe. There are so manymore important things [than love], Aunt ofwartakes place during Evelina and Dolly's protest performance of Uncle Dolly. Can you imagine Joan ofArc saving France-if she'd had 'lom's Cabin (a sequence anticipating the more famous "Small House of a husband and five children? Oh, Aunt Dollyr. (And then sutlden- Uncle Thomas" in Rodgers and Hammerstein's l95l The King and I).The l-v all the bravery ntelts av,a)t as she is a little girl again crying announcement of war also halts the near-arrest of Pornpey, who is appear- in DoLt.y's urms.) ing as Uncle Tom. 5B New England Theatre Journal Maya Cantu 59 As a racially integrated musical that drew critical comparisons to not [)ompey compares his desire for freedom to the natural state ofthe river and only Oklahoma!,butto Hammerstein's earlier Show Boat (1927), Bloomer the eagle, singing that human liberty is ordained in the scriptures: "Free as Girl offered roles for African-American actors that were both narratively the sun is free / That's how it's gotta be / Whatever is right for bumblebee and musically prominent. According to numerous reviews, Dooley Wilson, / And river and eagle is right for me" (1,3 41). as Pompey, and Richard Huey, as Alexander, regularly stopped the show A second number, the rousing, blues-inflected "I Got a Song," also in their respective performances of the songs "The Eagle and Me" and "I nrade an immense impression on critics and audiences. The number was Got a Song." While Bloomer Girl produced bigger mainstream radio hits- llcrformed by Richard Huey, a veteran of Harlem and Broadway stages (as such as the romantic duets "Right as the Rain" and "Evelina"-Wilson and rvcll as actors' agent), noted for his commanding voice and physical Huey's respective numbers received extensive coverage and admiration by largesse. Huey played the former slave Alexander, whom Dolly has helped critics. While Rowland Field of the Newark Evening News called "The to escape along with Alexander and Augustus (Hubert Dilworth). In prison Eagle and Me" 'Just about the most exciting song I ever heard on a New rvitlr Pompey for his parlicipation in The Lily's protest performance of York stage," Arthur Pollock of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted of "l Got (lrrcle Tom's Cabin, Alexander attempts to cheer up his friend, who is a Song," "That number could go on all night if the management would tlistraught at the thought of being sent back to the Calhoun plantation. permit; everyone else is willing." Asserting "l got 'em, I got 'em" olevery type of song, Alexander sings (as As a major supporling character in Bloomer Grrl, Wilson's Pompey was lccompanied by Pornpey and Augustus): "l got a song . . . a basketful of depicted as witty, intelligent, and committed to the ideal of freedom, at a s orlgs Rai lroad-Woman-S inner-Bul I fro g-S teambo at- time in which minstrel-inflected stereotypes still appeared on the Broadway I Jnderground." While Alexander envisions freedom as "the dawn (coming) stage. By the standards of its time, Bloomer Girl's porlrayal of its African- rrll like a cinnamon bun/You sink your teeth in the rising sun," he also American characters drew praisc from the black press. The Baltimore Afi'o- rrcldresses the horror of racial violence in his "Sinner Song": American's critic observed in 1945: "Going into its second year, Bloorner Sinner craves a halo, Girl, amusical comedy, has almost escaped the notice of the colored press Halo's got to be. in spite of the significance of the play and three topnotch colored perfor- Sinner gits a halo, mcrs. . . . Dooley Wilson, who was skyrocketed to fame in the filn-r Cesa- And under that halo is little old mc. blunca, singing 'As Time Goes By,' has a more significant role in this Devil starts to call, play." Although Bloomer Girl depicted Pornpey performing the subscwient Little rnc hears the call, title role duringthe Uncle Tom's Cabin sequence, the same critic continued Now then con.res the fall. that the character bypassed such stcrcotypes: "fWilson plays] a slave who Right ovcr my head that halo gets loose, has been 'railroaded' to freedom and without the Uncle Tomisms usually Falls undcr my chin and turns to a noose. (2-2-14) such character ("Three Colored Stars"). Abe Hill of found in delineations" While the Civil War and the practice of slavery may have seemed theNen, YorkAntsterdam News describedBloonter Girl as one of auumber rt'nrotc from the World War II era, many audiences could not have failed theater of mixed-cast new plays and musicals in the 1943-44 Broadway Io conncct such powerful imagery with current Jim Crow practices in the necessarily racc. . . . season that "portray the Negro without emphasizing Sorrlh. Although awareness of civil rights had increased throughout the a new trend, and in the right way too."n [O]ne becomes conscious of liooscvelt administration, the practice of lynching continued in the South- emancipation found potcnt Bloomer Girl's themes of and equality lrrr statcs (Myrdal 561), along with legal injustice, police bmtality, and performance "The Eagle and The number expression in Wilson's of Me." ':rcpulatc but equal." As described by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and whom Bloorner is prompted by an exchange between Pompey Jeff, Girl rrr lris irrfluential1944 study An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem as a in contrast with his cruel brothcr. Jcl'l' depicts misguided slave-owner tttt(l ,'lntct'icttn Democracy (published the sarne year that Bloomer Girl "Pompcy, you, you, cared fbr you asks him, haven't I always fcd clothed on Broadway): "Physical violence and threats to personal security yot"t Potrpcy rcplics, 'l)r'ncd whcn you wcrc ill. . . . What tnadc do tliis to lnc'/" ,hr rrot. ul-coursc, occur to cvcry Ncgro every day. But violence may occur "Ycs, hacl a kincl ol-sicl I don't know what happiness is and I don't think anybody knows Notes what happiness is. . . . [The founding fathcrs said] "Life. liberly, and the pursr.rit of happiness." Pursuit is the secret word in the meaning of life. It's the pursuit of something that the spirit inside you tells you ' In his essay "Entertainment and Utopia," Dycr considered cntcrtainment's that somewhere, as exemplified by the rainbow, that it isn't just this utopian sensibility as an "affective code": "Entertainment does not . . . present little bit of arid eafth we're on, but that therc is a liaison, a bridge . . . models of utopian worlds, as in the classic utopias of Thomas More, William between our little planet, our little earth that we're on and the heaven Morris el a/. Rathcr, thc' utopianisrn is contained in the feelings it embodies. It of your imagination. (Alonso 88) presents, hcad-on as it were, what utopia would feel like rathcr than how it would bc organized" (20). q (t0 Nct' l'.'rt.qlttrttl I lrr'trtt'r' .lotu'rtttl A,ltrytt ('ttrtttr h/ I Sinrilarly. in thc carly 1970s, a Victnanr War'-cra nostalgia lxronr brouglrt Worlis Citctl losc-tintcd rcvivals ol-No, No, Nunctte, ( 1925). Irene (1919)..rs wcll as the dalkcr postrnodern nostalgia of Follies. r This citation format, common in unpublished Broadway musical scripts, A lorrso, Flarrict I lyn-ran. Yip Ilarburg: Legetttlary Lyricist tutd IIutnun Rights At:tiv- represents the act, sccnc, and page number. r,sl. Middletown: Wcsleyan UP,2012. Print. 1 Eight women served in the House olRepresentativcs whcn Bloorner Girl Arlon, Harold, E. Y. Harburg, Sig Hcrzig, and Fred Saicly. Blooner Girl. Unpub- opened rn 1944: Mary T. Norton (Dern., NJ), Jessie Sumner (Rep., IL), Margarct lishcd libretto , 1944. Scherer Library, Goodspced Musicals, East Haddam, CT. Chase Smith (Rep., ME), Frances Palme Bolton (Rep., OH), Winifred Clairc Print. Stanley (Rep., NY), Clare Booth Luce (Rep., CT), Willa Lybrand Fulmcr (Dcm., lleard, Ben and Randall Williarns. "October 11. 1884: E,leanor Roosevelt Born." SC), and Emily (Dem., Taft Douglas IL). This Day irt Civil Right.s. Montgomery: NewSouth,2009. s Roosevelt's record rights on civil was flawed and cornplex. Though "Rloonter Git'|." Pic Maguzine (Oct. 1944): n. pag. E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Roosevelt supported rights, and extended employment hundreds civil to of Billy Rose Collection, New York Public Library. Box 8, Folder I 1. Print. thousands of African-Amcricans as part of the Works Progress Administration, hc also laltercd on lcgislation. As Beard and Williams write, "fElcanor] Rooscvelt "lJloomer Girl," lttre.l', York Times 24 Sept. 1944: SMl6. Print. pleaded with hcr husband to take a firm stand on rights, but scarcd losing civil of "Bloomer Girl Stage Hit." Lo.y Artgeles Times 6 OcL 1944 A8. Print. the support of Southern Democrats, FDR rernained aloof and did not give his support to a [938] anti-lynching bill" (309). []oyrn, Svetlana. The FulLu'e of Nostulgiu. Ncw York: Basic, 2001. Print. {' Along wtth Bloomer Girt, Hrll mentioned On the Town, Sing Out, Sv,eet Clrapnran, John. "Bloonter Girl, A Bountiful Hit, Has Got a Song-and Many Land, Lcr//ing Roont Only, and The Hast.y Heart as shows with "mixed casts More." Nev, York Dctil.y Nev,s (Oct. 1944): n. pag. E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papcrs, projecting democracy across thc footlights." while also discussing scvcral Billy Rose Collection, New York Public Library. Box 8, Folder I l. Print. headliners inthc 1943 44 Broadway seasol.l: Paul Robeson in Les Othello, Canada Dolan, Jill. Uktpiu in PetJbnttuttce: F-inding Hope at the Theater. Ann Arbor: U of in The Tempe.sl, and Hilda Sirnrns in Annu Luc'u,sta. Michigan P, 2005. Print. T "Musical "rnusical play" and comcdy," howcvcr, were not fixed or stable I)yer, Riclrard. "Entcrtainmcnt and Utopia." Onlv Entertuinment. 2nd ed. Ncr,v terms for 1940s critics, who rcforrcd to the genre-mixing Okluhonru ! as, variously, York: Routledge, 2002: 19- 35. Print. a musical play. operctta, and musical corredy. Bloomer Girl.too. was dcscribcd as a musical comcdy and a musical play by difierent critics. Iraston, Carol. No lrttet'ntissiorts: Tlte Li/b o/ Agtrcs de Mille. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. Print. 8 While Oklahoma! contains no African-Amcrican characters. Most has argued that f-armhand Jud Frye represents "a realistic, unassimilable, and racially lrdney, Kathryn Ann Trcmper. "Gliding Through Our Memorics: The Perforrnance characterizecl ('dark') man" in contrast to Ali Hakim's "thcatrical, assimilable of Nostalgia in Arnerican Musical Theater." Diss. Michigan State U, 2009. ethnic ('white') immigrant." Most observes, "Jud is not specifically a black man in ProQuest UMI Dissertations Publishing. Web. I I June 2014. a whitc 'black' body but an uncomfortable pro.jection onto a character of thc tricld. Rowland. "Broadway:'Bloomer Girl' Superb in All Respccts." Newurk nonwhite and persecuted ( 1 un-American traits Jews f'carcd bcing for" 16). Eyenittg Nerls 6 OcL. 1944: n. pag. E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose 9 Bloomer Girl was produced as a staged conccrt rcading at City Center Collection, Ncu.York Public Library. Box 8, Folder I L Print. Encores! in 2001. The mr.rsical has also gaincd cxposuro with contemporary Ilarburg, E. Y., BurtonLanc, and Fred Saidy. Finion's Rairhow. Libretto. Thealre audicnce through a DVD release of an NBC/Produccr's Showcase production ol' Art,s Monthly. Ncw York: Theatre Arts, 1947:56 76. Print. Bloonter Girl that aired in 1956 (two years aftcr thc passing of Brown v. Board ol' Education), and featured Barbara Cook as Evelina. Carmcn Mathcws as Dolly I Icclrt, Stuart, Transposing Broaclv,uy: Jey,s, A,gsirnilalion ancl the American Mtlsi- Bloomcr, Rawn Speannan as Pompey, and Brock Peters as Alcxandcr. cal. Ncw York: Palgrave Macmillan, 201 1. Print. llerzig, Sig. Letterto E. Y. "Yip" Harburg. 15 Ar"rg. 1914.E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rosc Collcction, New York Public Library: Foldcr 9, Box 1 . Plint. IIill, Abe. "Povcrty Stalks Yet Theatre is Boon-ring," New York Ant,sterdcnt Nav's 24 Fcb. 1945: 68. Print. (tll Ncn, Etr!:luttd 'l'ltt,tttrt, ,lotu.nctl Mtt.lu (.141111t 69 Keiglrtley, Emily and Michacl Pickcring. 7'he Mnemonic Imagination: Rementber- Schloss, Edwin ll. "lliglrlightccl This Wcek: Footlights." Philadelphia Recortl 17 ing york: palgrave as creative Practice. New Macmillan, 2012. print. Scpt. 1944: n. pag. E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose Collection, Ncw York Public Library. Box 8, Folder I l. Print. Kirle, Bruce. unfinished show Business: Broacrway Musicals as works-in-process. Carbondale, IL: Southem Illinois Up, 2005. print. Sttskin, Steven. Opening Nights on Broadway: A Critical Quotebook of the Golden Era of the Musical. New York: Schirmer, 1990. Print. Kronenberger, Louis. "Going to Theater: Bloomer Girr." pM 15 oct. 1944. E. y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose collection, New york public Librarv. Box "Three Colored Stars Keep 'Bloomer Girl 'Up 2 Years." Baltimore Afro-American 8, Folder I l. Print. 24 Nov. 1945: 10. Print. Knapp, Raymond. The American Musical anel the Formation of Nationat ldentity. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005. print. Lahr, John. "The Lemon-Drop Kid." New yorker 30 Sept. 1996:6g*14.print. Lerner, Alan Jay. The street were I Live. New york: Norton, 197g. print. Lichtenstein, Therese. Behind closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer.Berkeley: U of California P, 200 I . Print. Lingeman, Richard R. The Noir Forties; The American peoplefrom victory to Cold War. New York: Nation, 2012. print. Most, Andrea. Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical. cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004. Print. Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro problem and Moclern Democ- racy. New York: Harper, 1944. print. Nathan, George Jean. "High Button shoes." The Theatre Book of the year, I 947- 1948, A Record and an Interpretation. " Hackensack: Fairleigh up, 1975. 95- 99. Print. 'New Musical Set to open This Fall]' New york rimes 22 |uly 1944:20.prinr. "New York Notes." Rob wagner's script 4 Nov. 1944: r. E. y. "yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose collection, New york pubric Library. Box g, Folder ll. Print. Pollock, Arthur. "Playthings: American Musical comedy Blooms with Bloomer Girl and oklahoma!" Brooklyn Daily Eagle 15 oct. 1944:23. E. y. ..yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose collection, New york public Library. Box g, Folder 1 1. Print. Rosenfield, John. "stage in Review." Dallas Morning News 12 July 1949, sec. l: 18. E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Papers, Billy Rose Collection, New york public Library. Box 8, Folder I L Print. Rugg, Rebecca Ann. "what it used to Be: Nostalgia and the State of the Broadway Musical," Theater 32.2 (2002):44-55. print. Sargolla, Lisa Jo. The Girl wo Fett Down: A Biography of Joan Mccracken. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2003. print.