Title: The evangelist and the impresario
First published: 1999
Description: What is culture and who has the authority to define it? If culture is composed of hierarchies, who determines what their standards should be, and how? What are the stakes involved in conceiving some forms of culture as good and others as bad? These may sound like questions from late twentieth-century American culture wars, but they were already in vigorous dispute a century ago.

In The Evangelist and the Impresario, Kathryn Oberdeck explores how a broad range of Americans addressed these questions at the vibrant intersection of religion, vaudeville, and class politics at the turn of the twentieth century. The Evangelist and the Impresario focuses on the intriguing careers of two remarkable public figures: Irish-born socialist Alexander Irvine and Italian-American entertainment mogul Sylvester Poli.
Subjects: Evangelistic work, History, Intellectual life, Politics and culture, Religion and culture, Social aspects, Social aspects of Evangelistic work, Social aspects of Vaudeville, Vaudeville, Working class, United states, religion, 20th century, Popular culture, united states, Mass media and culture, Mass media, united states, history
Places: Connecticut, New Haven, New Haven (Conn.), United States
People: Alexander Irvine (1863-1941), Sylvester Poli
Time periods: 1865-1918
LC classification: E169.1 .O16 1999