Toronto Society's Response to Celebrity Performers, 1887–1914

Abstract

Abstract The appearance of Toronto's Saturday Night magazine, founded in 1887, highlighted the competition between the city's social elite and outside figures of influence from the realm of commercial entertainment. It devoted considerable coverage both to the doings of local high society and to the city's theatrical and musical scene, which featured an unending succession of travelling stars. The blossoming of the culture of celebrity, which followed from the growing respectability of the stage in the nineteenth century, posed a challenge to the prestige and primacy of the beau monde. Its members reacted by trying to dominate performance halls from in front of the stage, incorporating suitable entertainers into local social circles, and most surprisingly, taking to the stage themselves in amateur productions that highlighted their own community leadership. None of these tactics could stem celebrity culture, and by the start of the First World War, the focus of elite strategies for securing status had shi...