Entertainment industries—and the workers who staff them—have long been particularly prone to disruption. Operating in highly competitive markets, such businesses frequently function with relatively slim margins even in the best of times. Conversely, their products are often viewed as expandable, and are typically early casualties of broader economic downturns or cultural shifts. Despite this grim accounting, periods of dramatic change have also been responsible for moments of remarkable creativity—existing systems and hierarchies are disrupted, sometimes beyond repair, allowing new approaches, ideas, or companies the space to flourish.
Entertainment industries are set apart by the semiotic density—and social impact—of their products. Their reaction to change is not simply a new business model. Instead, it is often an entirely new form of human expression, one that shapes a host of intellectual, cultural, or social dynamics—not to mention the lived experiences of its customers. Moving across time and space, this panel will examine how such businesses reacted to a variety of economic disruptions and opportunities. In “The Combination Panic,” Sam Backer reconstructs how the American theater industry responded to the depression of 1873, examining how a new cohort of touring companies balanced cultural concerns and economic priorities to construct a national entertainment industry. In “Flat Town Music Company, 1964,” Jessica Dauterive analyzes how a Cajun record company pivoted from pop recordings to traditional sounds in the wake of the massive cultural changes brought on by the British Invasion. Finally, in “Most Liked World Wide,” Joseph Thompson examines how the country music institutions of Nashville reacted to the possibilities opened by cold-war military spending. Taken as a whole, the panel will draw connections between these seemingly disparate examples, exploring the unifying patterns and dynamics that structure the business of entertainment in the United States.