American "vaudeville" has little to do with the original French usage of the word, but borrowed it only to give a classy aura to bills of short variety acts, thus distinguishing them from the risqué variety acts presented in concert saloons and comiques. The word was employed by a few theatre managers as early as 1840, but the quintessential American vaudeville style was established by Tony Pastor, whose Fourteenth Street Theatre opened in 1881 and perfected a style of family oriented variety amusements of the highest quality. Pastor's success spurred other variety producers to elevate the quality of their work and to dispense with the more vulgar acts that offended family audiences. B. F. Keith and his associate E. F. Albee attempted a "store-show" at the Gaiety Theatre in Boston, and it was so successful that they expanded their operations to various entertainments in several theatres before opening their first exclusively vaudeville theatre in Boston in 1894. Other producers, including F. F. Proctor, Martin Beck, Oscar Hammerstein I, followed suit. The 1910s brought widespread acceptance of vaudeville throughout middle America, and theatres were built to accommodate it.
Various vaudeville circuits were managed by different organizations, including the Orpheum Circuit in the western United States and the Keith-Albee Circuit in the East. Beck built New York's fabled Palace Theatre, which became the pinnacle of achievement for entertainers. The circuits led vaudeville performers to a life of continual touring. Many performers who had their first successes in vaudeville, including George M. Cohan, Al Jolson, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, and Bert Williams, moved into legitimate theatre or musicals, while others fell from vaudeville into burlesque. Actors from the legitimate stage, like Lillie Langtry, Ethel Barrymore, and Alla Nazimova, performed short plays on vaudeville bills between Broadway stints. Among popular entertainments, vaudeville dominated between 1890 and 1930, after which the combination of sound motion pictures and the economic pressures of the Great Depression essentially killed it.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.