Description
This broadside promotes Young Buffalo in King of the Wild West at the Grand Theatre in Stonehouse, Plymouth, beginning February 10, 1913. What makes it especially interesting is its place within the great Wild West entertainment boom that swept Britain and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Audiences who had grown up reading dime novels and following the exploits of Buffalo Bill packed theaters and exhibition halls to experience American frontier mythology firsthand. By 1913 the Wild West show phenomenon was entering its final years, soon to be eclipsed by motion pictures and changing tastes, making surviving artifacts from the era increasingly scarce. Printed in striking blue and red inks, the broadside proudly advertises Young Buffalo as “The Only Real American Attraction in this Country,” a bold claim aimed directly at British audiences eager for a taste of the American frontier. More than a simple theater advertisement, it survives as a fascinating piece of Americana exported overseas during the twilight years of the Wild West era.
The survival rate for jobbing-print theatrical advertising was never particularly high. These handbills and broadsides were created for immediate use—posted on walls, handed out on street corners, read, and discarded. More than a century later, examples tied to specific performances and venues have become exceedingly scarce.
A wonderful piece of pre-First World War theatre ephemera and an unusually attractive survivor from the golden age of Wild West entertainment.
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