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During the First World War, American War Department officials and their welfare affiliates (including the YMCA, Knights of Columbus, and American Library Association) provided servicemen with an unprecedented scale and scope of leisure activities by embracing new distribution and management approaches. Historians examining troops' leisure have focused on bureaucrats’ coercive actions restricting access to vice districts, but progressive authorities also hired staffers who could identify individual soldiers' preferences and construct complex distribution networks on both sides of the Atlantic. By examining the military’s role in blurring public–private boundaries in welfare work, administrators’ postwar careers, and veterans’ expectations, this article illustrates wartime recreation programs’ impact on the development of mass culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the different roles that amusement, recreation and occupation played in Victorian institutions, using Caterham Imbecile Asylum as a case study. It explores the intentions of the asylum staff in the design, use and application of these activities, including sport, music, theatre and work, and their purpose as forms of treatment and patient management. It also considers the ways that amusement, reaction and occupation shaped both the material culture of the asylum and the patient experience. In certain circumstances these activities provided opportunities for patient and staff interactions outside formal institutional relationships. Studies that focus on the institutional regime have helped to open up the inner life of asylums, showing them to be diverse and multifaceted sites. The article argues that at Caterham, a long-stay institution, sport, amusement and occupational work took on a particular purpose and meaning, used to both combat the inevitable monotony of institutional life, as well as offer opportunities for patients to engage in meaningful activities, to soothe fractious minds and bodies. Moreover, amusement, recreation and occupation saw patients go beyond the walls of the asylum, affording engagement with the local community, and expanding the social geography of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the early history of dramatic entertainments like pantomime in Great Britain and its description in literature. Topics include an analysis of pantomime in author John O'Brien's "Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690– 1760" and a description of the various pantomimic forms and structures.

An essay is presented on the entertainment of troops at Camp Shelby, a military camp in Mississippi, between 1918 and 1945. It examines the contexts of World War I and World War II and comments on relations with the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The author considers the work of women in recreation and entertainment through the Hattiesburg-area Girls’ Service Organization (GSO) and the United Service Organizations (USO). Sports teams and recreation for African American troops are discussed.

The article discusses the use of devices of prophecy in progress entertainments for Queen Elizabeth I. The author describes 1575 entertainments in Kenilworth, England where the Queen was greeted by someone acting as the prophet "Sibilla." Topics addressed include the Queen's reaction to the pageants, the role of prophecy in royal celebrations, the emphasis on location in progress entertainments, and the use of prophecy to connect with the Queen.

Provides a reprint of the book 1919 book 'Motion Pictures As a Phase of Commercialized Amusement in Toledo, Ohio.'

The article focuses on the history of American motion pictures. It discusses the Kinetoscope, invented by the inventor Thomas Edison, and shadow plays as examples of early forms of entertainment related to cinema. The popularity of motion pictures during the time of World War 1 is noted and the formation of film clubs and alternative movie showings are also explored.