by Mim E. Rivas
William knew when he read Albert’s letter that he was a man with a broken heart. The Doc had already shipped all those items some time before and had returned the megaphone just after that. But Albert wasn’t the only one who was suffering. For Jim and for Monk, the novelty of being back home and getting to play for hours, being free to live life as a normal horse and dog, not having to work or travel, seemed to be wearing off a little. There had been a few reporters for Monk to chase away, but no photographers. Jim got lots of visitors and fans stopping by, but that was a far cry from being onstage in front of thousands. Dr. Key figured this was to be expected, what a racehorse went through after an injury, or anyone with more time on their hands than they’d ever had before. He was still resolved that he had made the right decision. Writing A. R. Rogers, he reminded the promoter where to look for the items that he had previously returned and also went over the dimensions of the display screen. He continued:
The weather is very fine here most spring like. Jim is on blue grass every day for 4 or 5 hours & takes at least 4 or 5 hours to clean the mud & dust off that he rolls & tumbles in. Hoping you much success in your dates and to hear from you often. I remain yours truly, William Key
Rogers wrote back to test the waters, wondering how he and Jim were feeling, and if there was the possibility of performing in the near future. Dr. Key wasted no time in replying:
I am in fine health—also Jim is in splendid condition, and good shape and ready to hit the road at any time.
A month later, Beautiful Jim Key returned to public life, spending the spring and summer in Chicago—where he broke box office records at the amusement park housed in the White City that had been built for the 1893 World’s Fair, even with its need for renovation—and enjoyed a picture-postcard-perfect autumn in Syracuse, New York, before wrapping up in October with the 1902 season of the Boston Mechanics Fair.
At a fee of $5,000, fifty percent of which was contributed to the MSPCA, Beautiful Jim Key spent just over a month solidifying his place in the hearts of Bostonians. The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association wrote a testimonial declaring they had first believed the fee to be prohibitive until discovering that he was the best drawing card they had ever hired.
In Syracuse, after Jim had just finished as the star attraction at the Alhambra Pet and Horse Fair and was readying for a run of his play, a reporter for the Post Standard made it his life’s purpose to find out what the Harvard professors had missed a year earlier. When he went to the luxurious, blanket-lined stall where the Marvel of the Century was being groomed, he faced down Monk, who barked out in no uncertain terms that no one was to disturb Jim during his toilet. When Dr. Key heard the commotion, he diplomatically intervened and led the reporter and Jim out and onto the Alhambra stage so that the famous horse could give a “private performance for the representative of the Post Standard.”
In the hall where the stage was located, unfortunately, there was a window overlooking James Street that provided several distractions—horses and humans passing by—that were much more interesting to the pampered star than his “audience of one.” Rather than chiding Jim, the Doc simply lowered the curtain on the window, at which point the handsome bay “reluctantly turned toward the auditorium and consented to show off.”
Because of poor acoustics in the hall there was a vibration in the room that forced the reporter to lean forward and speak very distinctly. He began requesting letters and numbers to be brought forward, which Jim did with a “dead easy manner,” and he then said, “Jim, spell Post Standard.” Dr. Key stood aside, expressionless, the writer observed, while Jim directed a look at him that said: I suppose you think you’ve got me, well, watch.
The journalist until now had resisted Jim Key’s charms. But the way he trotted back and forth, bringing forward the letters P-O-S-TS-T-A-N-D-A-R and lining them up on his spelling rack, securing each card behind the nickel rail, until he was out of room and had to stand at the end, holding the D in his mouth, was too spontaneous, too inexplicable, and too wonderful to be disproved. Why bother?
From then on out, that was the attitude of most journalists. Beautiful Jim Key had other rivals and other hurdles to overcome, but skepticism hardly reared its head anymore. The Post Standard reporter conceded his own skepticism as Jim stood there grinning, the D in his teeth, with one of his shrugs and an expression that said You see, I do read the papers.
8
The Horse Who Could
It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the Negro, whose folklore furnished the authentic core of popular culture in the United States and shaped its growth, should have had to fight against odds and obstacles to make his contribution to the performing arts and to express his talent. The vitality of the Negro’s influence on American music, dance and drama has been irresistible, its impact profound and lasting.
—ALLAN MORRISON,
“100 Years of Negro Entertainment,” in Anthology of the
Afro-American in the Theatre: A Critical Approach
JUST AS EVERY IMPORTANT SOCIAL CAUSE can be greatly championed by a well-known celebrity, a well-articulated theme is almost mandatory for the success of any major social or civic event. This principal lesson was being learned at the turn of the century by planners of expositions on every level, from the annual county fair to the most ambitious world’s fairs.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis in 1904, a centennial celebration of Thomas Jefferson’s historic land acquisition for the United States, was a theme that worked. Elsewhere the American themes that centered on agriculture, trade, commerce, and technology were all well and good, but the winning themes were always those that remembered the glorious achievements of America’s past and drew from them to create utopian landscapes of her future. These elements all came together magnificently in St. Louis.
There were the now customary problems, the scandals, corruption, financial mismanagement, and the proverbial delays that caused the World’s Fair to open a year late, practically a tradition in this era. There was much criticism from a later, historical perspective that the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, like preceding world’s fairs, reinforced negative racial and cultural stereotypes of American minorities and foreigners. On the other hand, with the fair’s themes of progress and education, most of the news out of St. Louis at the time promised tolerance and inclusion.
Of course, for those who were comparing, it was hard for any world’s fair to live up to the grandeur of Chicago, or to be anything but a lesser imitation. But St. Louis benefited somewhat from being a little less grand, perhaps a little more accessible to the average American, a little more affordable, and from factors simply of timing. Kicking off a new century, the 1904 World’s Fair was carried forth in memories of most Americans alive at the time, finding its romantic theme of “meet me in St. Louis” echoed in the titles of books, songs, and movies. A toddler from Illinois who may have well been taken to the fair—which wasn’t far from the small Missouri town where he and his family would soon move—was two-and-a-half-year-old Walt Disney, whose father, Elias, had worked on the construction of the Columbian Exposition. How much Walt consciously remembered from what he saw is questionable, although it is interesting to note that his “Carousel of Progress” exhibit—which he developed with General Electric for the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair and later installed at Disneyland and Disney World—embodied the very themes launched at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Indeed, the story that was staged for the Carousel exhibit was the journey of a middle-class, midwestern American family traveling through the twentieth century, experiencing all the new wonders of progress, starting with a scene in 1904 of the family just returning from the World’s Fair. The lyrics of the theme song written by the Sherman brothers expressed the infectious optimism that the planners of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition had intended to convey: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day!”
Disney’s theme parks, moreover, establish
ed in the mid- and late 1900s, were virtually permanent world’s fairs that were not only built on the framework of past international expositions but, some might say, also improved upon to such an extent that the expanding Disney universe eventually made the modern-day world’s fair obsolete. In any event, St. Louis helped blur the lines between amusement and education, so heavily drawn in the Victorian American consciousness, and it is possible that the birth of fantasy in popular culture which fueled Walt Disney and his generation took place at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The Pike also housed two exhibits that might have further influenced a very young Disney, two exhibits, as it happened, that were promoted by concessionaire A. R. Rogers. One was Albert’s new attraction of animated motion pictures; these rustic cartoon movies still had lots of competition from the live-action movies that were only now starting to be made with story lines. But the other attraction, deemed the most lucrative concession on the Pike, was Beautiful Jim Key. Whether Walt Disney witnessed Jim perform or not, he would have certainly heard about him in his later childhood. Maybe it was coincidental or maybe not, but apparently at a young age Disney embraced humane values, taking to heart the messages that animals could think, feel, and communicate, as evidenced in the characters of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the rest of the nonhuman individuals who gave Walt Disney the stature of a modern-day Aesop. By the same token, while the humane movement informed Disney’s values, it would likewise be indebted to the animator and storyteller for movies such as Dumbo, which exposed the exploitation of circus animals, and Bambi, a story that made the world look askance at game hunting as never before.
Cause and effect aside, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition seemed to coincide with the end of the institutional guilt Americans felt about taking pleasure in theatrical entertainment. For most of the nineteenth century, that guilt had been so pronounced everywhere, except for large cultural cities, that even the word theatre was shunned as connoting a place of ill repute, or a place where works of ill repute were performed by unrespectable individuals of ill repute. In most localities, the civic buildings constructed for any form of performing arts were therefore named with some variation of Academy of Music, or Music Hall, or Opera House. Instead of calling a play “a play,” which sounded too entertaining, even in the case of a drama, dramatic works were referred to as “spectaculum vitae” and musical comedies were called “operas.” Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, bore the stigma of entertainment and was forcibly renamed in some productions A Moral and Instructive Tale as Exemplified in the History of the Prince of Denmark.
One development that seemed to inoculate provincial audiences from their entertainment guilt was the advent of melodrama. These stories, after all, had moral instruction to offer. So this disguised form of theatre could not be accused of being staged simply for shock value, even though melodramas had their greatest appeal with working-class audiences, who had little excitement in their own lives and were secretly thrilled to watch dire circumstances befall familiar stock characters—innocent and worldly, valiant and dastardly—that could conceivably also happen to them. Apparently, the dramatic talent of the performers was not a factor that affected the crowds’ enjoyment. The biggest star on the circuit, Corse Payton, actually promoted himself as “America’s Best Bad Actor” and was rewarded for it by being treated like royalty with gifts and letters from fans everywhere he went. Unlike the fancier-named types of shows, melodramas were less expensive to produce, in turn making ticket prices cheaper, down from a typical seat price of one dollar to thirty cents or less, with more money left over for aggressive advertising. For most of the touring and summer stock companies that were bringing what passed for theatre to the American heartland, melodrama paved the road, literally and proverbially.
The circus and the other traveling extravaganzas, in which animals and oddities often were the lead performers, were highly instrumental in sharpening the public’s appetite for being delighted and awed. In this respect, animals have been regarded as the pioneers of American entertainment; from the days of the earliest settlers it was considered more acceptable to view nonhuman species onstage. At the circus one could also savor the experience of entering a huge tent and sitting under the big top in the dark, which in and of itself created a kind of covert act of pleasure. On the one hand, the world inside the tent was a neutral, guilt-free zone; on the other, the fact that everyone went to the circus did not make it the kind of respectable pursuit to be had in a Music Hall or Opera House.
Whereas Barnum and others attempted to lace elements of education through the circus entertainment to give it that respect, other tented gatherings, like the medicine and spiritualists’ shows that were mainly to instruct and sell, offered just a small serving of entertainment on the side. At the turn of the century, the tent as a legitimate theatre was instituted by the leading actress and box office sensation of the day, Sarah Bernhardt, when she ran into problems trying to book a theatre in Texas and staged her productions in a custom-made tent (which she later donated to the victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake). In the meantime, the Chautauqua circuit—with its touring educational and cultural lecture series—made a huge splash with those still opposed to theatrical enterprises but hungry for spiritual and intellectual stimulation. So as not to be confused with the white tents of touring theatre troupes—which church officials would have banned—the Chautauqua organizers used brown tents to set them apart. No guilt was to be had in this brown-tented domain, where improvement of the body, mind, and spirit was the main subject matter.
Interestingly enough, the signature blue-and-white tent that had provided Beautiful Jim Key with his first stage had been a savvy move by Albert Rogers to make sure that the atmosphere surrounding Jim struck the right balance between being instructive and enjoyable. This was the same balance that the St. Louis Fair planners wanted for the exhibits on the Pike, where amusement was to be equally enjoyed and learned from, and where a belief in magic—if seeing was believing—was accepted. Ironically, in the fall of 1903, Albert Rogers was told that the St. Louis World’s Fair was not interested in booking Jim for the Exposition. President David Francis had visited Jim at the Charleston World’s Fair and made a verbal invitation to Albert to come to St. Louis. Two months before the fair, however, when he applied for a prime space, he was turned down flat. The problem was that the concession committee only wanted large exhibits on the Pike, saying expressly, there would be no “one horse show” at this world’s fair. It was also, for lack of a better term, overexposure. The St. Louis Fair planners argued that Beautiful Jim Key had already toured most of the country and that he wouldn’t have any special allure on the Pike. Other concessionaires with expensive exhibits were threatening to pull out. The suggestion was that the popularity of the Celebrated Educated Arabian-Hambletonian had peaked and it was time to let other contenders for his throne be given a fair trial.
Albert fumed. In 1902, he had told reporters in Boston about the Jim Key pavilion that was to be built in St. Louis, asserting that the huge building would be erected in the shape of a “mastodon horse.” Rogers noted, “The halls and reception rooms will be placed in the other portions of the anatomy of the wooden animal. The building will also be equipped with elevators and will cost about $75,000.”
Had he overreached? Not from his point of view. What the planners lacked, he believed, was a symbol. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition had an excellent theme but had not found the kind of distinguishing structure that the Eiffel Tower had been at the World’s Fair in Paris or that the Ferris wheel had been in Chicago. Albert had hired a sketch artist to design a poster of the Beautiful Jim Key horse-shaped building as it towered over a world’s fair in the background. The look was magical, fantastic, irresistible. But the planners were not interested. Perhaps he had overreached.
When the opening of the Exposition was postponed for a year, Albert tried again. He pushed the need for a symbol once more and why his vision was perfect for it, but the respective committees
rejected him again. In the spirit of progress and education, and because St. Louis was also hosting the Olympic Games that summer, along with the first-ever sponsored International Peace Conference in Festival Hall, the one-hundred-foot-tall Louisiana Purchase Monument topped by a globe and a statue of the goddess of peace would serve as a symbol. Other fairs needed gimmicks; St. Louis did not. That was when Rogers was told that there were no plans for a Jim Key concession at all.
Rogers was mystified. He was convinced that the horse and the man from Tennessee not only had helped pioneer the humane movement but had, over the past seven years, in direct and indirect ways, changed the face of popular entertainment. It had actually amused him, not long after The Scholar and a Model Office Boy played a week on a lower Broadway vaudeville bill and began selling out special benefit productions across the country, that suddenly the big-budgeted theatrical productions began putting nonhuman cast members in their shows. Productions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin added their own horses and real livestock—which were highlighted in their ads—not in background scenes but in newly created lead roles, and then began sponsoring the kind of composition contests that had brought in young audiences to Jim’s shows. One Boston contest offered the prize of a Shetland pony for the winning composition on “The Lessons of Tom’s Cabin.” And as a result of their early successes with Dr. Key, a Negro, as part of an educational, entertaining show, in 1898 the first all-black musical comedies opened and ran to further success.
Jim’s earning power by now was unparalleled. In early 1904, a syndicate offered Rogers $250,000 to purchase the same horse once dismissed as a sideshow. Albert pointed out that he could earn that in a few years’ time and declared Jim to be worth $1,000,000. From then on, he was known as either the Million Dollar Equine or the Equine Millionaire. This, A. R. Rogers could argue, had ramifications for the value of racehorses, indirectly affecting the entire turf world, and all of show business for that matter.