November 21, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, long before the Beatles caused a stir, another British act crossed the Atlantic and changed American culture in its own quiet way. In 1868, a troupe of burlesque performers arrived onstage with a style that felt modern to a growing middle class and unsettling to the critics who expected theater to stay in its place. Our regular contributor, Ashley Hlebinsky, traces how this unlikely import managed to spark a small cultural shift.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
Up next, we have our regular contributor, Ashley Lebinski. Ashley
is the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master of
Arms and she's also the co founder of the University
of Wyoming College of Laws Firearms Research Center. Here's Ashley.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
When we speak about the British invasion, pretty much everyone
is referring to the cultural phenomenon when British rock stars,
especially the Beatles, came to America in the nineteen sixties,
which of course sparked fear into the homes of American
parents everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And now this has happened again. Last Sunday on our
show in New York, the Beatles played to the greatest
TV audience it's ever been assembled in the history of
American TV. Now tonight here in Miama Beach, again the
elace our record questioning audience. Ladies and gentlemen, here arefore
(01:07):
of the nice and chantage we've ever had on our stage.
That Baslom.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
But how about a century earlier in the eighteen sixties,
in eighteen sixty eight, there was another British invasion that
created outright hysteria in the middle class. Thanks of course,
to the media. Lydia Thompson and her British Blonde brought
a popular performance r to the United States back in
eighteen sixty eight, and surprisingly it actually didn't exist in
(01:35):
the US before that, and that was the art of burlesque. Now,
one thing that should be noted is that this idea
of burlesque, or belly dancing or any form of kind
of risky dancing actually is depicted in cave drawings walm Man.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Wo Man.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So this is not something that is new at all,
and in fact, in Greek and Roman cultures, this style
of dance was seen as something that was sacred rather
than salacious. It was actually considered a part of kind
of a fertility routine, and every country throughout history has
had their own version of that. In the fourteenth century,
belly dancing was incredibly popular, but the birthplace of true
(02:17):
burlesque was in the eighteen hundreds in England. So what
is burlesque. It's not just dancing, not just performances as
scanily clad women, although that is of course part of it,
but it has this flare of camp to it, with
comedy routines, singing, dancing and even in some cases there's
circus levels of performing, so aerial performances, different types of
(02:39):
circus acts that appear in Burlex and one of the
best was Lydia Thompson. She was born in eighteen thirty
eight in London and she was one of several children,
and one of her sisters was a famous English stage
actress named Clara t. Bracy. But Thompson was a dancer,
and she also kind of had this great humor about her,
(03:01):
so she became known for her dancing. She became known
as a comedian actor and then ultimately a producer, and
she started dancing, believe it or not, in her teenage
years in eighteen fifty two, and she was traveling all
around England and Europe. And the one thing about Thompson
that was kind of what made her iconic was the
fact that she had this troop that she created known
(03:22):
as the British Blonde. And so she decided to take
the show on the road quite literally and went to
America in eighteen sixty eight, and she adapted English bur
less because the British always have different levels of humor
today and back in the past, and so she adapted
her for last performance that she would do all over
Europe and target it really to middle class New Yorkers.
(03:45):
That was kind of the goal, was to get the
middle class to be interested in this style of art form.
And initially it was very popular among men and women,
so it wasn't something that was exclusively men like you
think of a lot of dancing today. And she wanted
to create kind of topical and local references, so she
reworked lyrics in the song she sang and made sure
(04:06):
that New Yorkers felt like it wasn't just this British
group coming in that they actually were a part of
this culture in the city. And the first show that
she had was in New York City. It was called Ixion,
and it included wit, parody, song, dance music, and believe
it or not, it had this aura of empowering women.
All the performers that she had had a range of
(04:28):
different skills, and they were the most popular entertainers during
the New York theater season from eighteen sixty eight to
eighteen sixty nine, so when they came into the area,
they were incredibly popular. In fact, a news article said
about their performances, the eccentricities of panamime and burlesque with
their curious combination of comedy, parody, satire, improvisation, song and dance,
(04:54):
variety acts, extravagant stage effects, risky jokes, and saucy costume,
while familiar enough by British audiences, took New York by storm.
So while the public loved burlasque now in New York
City in the eighteen sixties, the media decided that it
was the absolute lowest form of entertainment. And the one
(05:16):
media powerhouse that really hated Lydia and her girls was
The New York Times. And what it did was it
ultimately forced Lydia to go on tour, so she didn't
leave America, but she decided to take the show on
the road because there was such hostility in New York City.
After the New York Times and different media publications and
(05:37):
scholars started kind of hating on burlasque. This hatred grew
within American culture and one of the articles that was
quoted about Burlasque in the New York Times was that
it was a disgraceful spectacle of padded legs, jiggling and
wriggling in the incident follies, and indecency of the hour.
So that's a big change from a year prior when
(06:00):
they found it to be charming and eccentric and intelligent
and its style of performance. New York Times actually headlined
an entire article with the title quote exit British Burlesque.
So Lydia Thompson and the British Blonds, they decide to
take the show on the road. They decided that New
York is not the place for them right now, and
so they go all over the country until about eighteen
(06:22):
seventy four, and they encountered some interesting trouble along the way.
They obviously maintained some level of popularity or else they
would have gone back to England well before. But I
think one of the weirder stories has to do with
the owner of the Chicago Times. His name was Wilbur's Story,
and when the British Blonds were performing in Chicago, he
(06:42):
started creating accusations that the girls weren't virtuous. I mean,
it was definitely low hanging fruit, because they were risky performers.
But Thompson did not appreciate that her women were being
categorized as people who were promiscuous. Just because they were
dancing that way didn't mean that that's how they lived
their lives off stage, and so Thompson very publicly called
(07:03):
him a liar. And then in eighteen seventy Thompson, her
husband and one of her colleagues horsewhipped Story at gunpoint,
and of course he was all right. But they were
arrested and fined, but they did not stop performing. They
were let go and then they traveled over to Nevada
and California. And when Thompson was asked about this behavior
(07:26):
and what she had done to Story, she did not
have any remorse. She said that his statements about her
women were repugnant and she quote was glad at what
she had done. But what happens here is something that
you hear time and time again. The media hates it
and they talk about it. But by talking about it,
(07:47):
you create publicity, and the expression all publicity is good publicity,
and that was very much the case, because they developed
a level of notoriety that drove audiences to their shows
until about eighteen seventy four, when Thompson and her performers
returned to England. Now, the style of burlesque might have
started in the eighteen hundreds in England, the style of
(08:09):
dancing date centuries before but it also continued to evolve
around the world after this, and one of the more prominent,
more well known movements of burlesque style performance is the
popular French mulon rouge that goes on into the twentieth century,
and subsets of Americans will continue to like burlesque, especially
(08:30):
when you look at Prohibition. There's a lot of things
going on under the table there, and burlesque performances was
one of them. But Americans, the American government ultimately maybe
took a nod from the New York Times and decency
laws were something that were incredibly prominent in the US
in the twentieth century and has actually impacted all forms
of burlesque and other types of risque dance performances in
(08:53):
the country up through the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
and there's some things that have trickled into the twenty
first century, which was an attempt to kind of drive
the art form or people would probably not argue it
wasn't art, but would drive the form into the darkness.
But for a brief moment in the eighteen sixties, Lydia
Thompson brought a class to burlesque, showcasing and bringing to America,
(09:14):
a typical British sense of humor, but one that would
ultimately leave many Americans aghast.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and we heard the story
about burlesque in Burlesque as the British did it. Burlesque
was more than just bracy dancing. Lydia Thompson raised it
to a high art form, and her desire was to
target it to the middle class New Yorker And there
it was a mixture of pantomime and satire and wit
(09:47):
saucy costumes, yes, but also just sheer fun. The story
of the British invasion of burlesque on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
Up next, we have our regular contributor, Ashley Lebinski. Ashley
is the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master of
Arms and she's also the co founder of the University
of Wyoming College of Laws Firearms Research Center. Here's Ashley.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
When we speak about the British invasion, pretty much everyone
is referring to the cultural phenomenon when British rock stars,
especially the Beatles, came to America in the nineteen sixties,
which of course sparked fear into the homes of American
parents everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And now this has happened again. Last Sunday on our
show in New York, the Beatles played to the greatest
TV audience it's ever been assembled in the history of
American TV. Now tonight here in Miama Beach, again the
elace our record questioning audience. Ladies and gentlemen, here arefore
(01:07):
of the nice and chantage we've ever had on our stage.
That Baslom.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
But how about a century earlier in the eighteen sixties,
in eighteen sixty eight, there was another British invasion that
created outright hysteria in the middle class. Thanks of course,
to the media. Lydia Thompson and her British Blonde brought
a popular performance r to the United States back in
eighteen sixty eight, and surprisingly it actually didn't exist in
(01:35):
the US before that, and that was the art of burlesque. Now,
one thing that should be noted is that this idea
of burlesque, or belly dancing or any form of kind
of risky dancing actually is depicted in cave drawings walm Man.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Wo Man.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So this is not something that is new at all,
and in fact, in Greek and Roman cultures, this style
of dance was seen as something that was sacred rather
than salacious. It was actually considered a part of kind
of a fertility routine, and every country throughout history has
had their own version of that. In the fourteenth century,
belly dancing was incredibly popular, but the birthplace of true
(02:17):
burlesque was in the eighteen hundreds in England. So what
is burlesque. It's not just dancing, not just performances as
scanily clad women, although that is of course part of it,
but it has this flare of camp to it, with
comedy routines, singing, dancing and even in some cases there's
circus levels of performing, so aerial performances, different types of
(02:39):
circus acts that appear in Burlex and one of the
best was Lydia Thompson. She was born in eighteen thirty
eight in London and she was one of several children,
and one of her sisters was a famous English stage
actress named Clara t. Bracy. But Thompson was a dancer,
and she also kind of had this great humor about her,
(03:01):
so she became known for her dancing. She became known
as a comedian actor and then ultimately a producer, and
she started dancing, believe it or not, in her teenage
years in eighteen fifty two, and she was traveling all
around England and Europe. And the one thing about Thompson
that was kind of what made her iconic was the
fact that she had this troop that she created known
(03:22):
as the British Blonde. And so she decided to take
the show on the road quite literally and went to
America in eighteen sixty eight, and she adapted English bur
less because the British always have different levels of humor
today and back in the past, and so she adapted
her for last performance that she would do all over
Europe and target it really to middle class New Yorkers.
(03:45):
That was kind of the goal, was to get the
middle class to be interested in this style of art form.
And initially it was very popular among men and women,
so it wasn't something that was exclusively men like you
think of a lot of dancing today. And she wanted
to create kind of topical and local references, so she
reworked lyrics in the song she sang and made sure
(04:06):
that New Yorkers felt like it wasn't just this British
group coming in that they actually were a part of
this culture in the city. And the first show that
she had was in New York City. It was called Ixion,
and it included wit, parody, song, dance music, and believe
it or not, it had this aura of empowering women.
All the performers that she had had a range of
(04:28):
different skills, and they were the most popular entertainers during
the New York theater season from eighteen sixty eight to
eighteen sixty nine, so when they came into the area,
they were incredibly popular. In fact, a news article said
about their performances, the eccentricities of panamime and burlesque with
their curious combination of comedy, parody, satire, improvisation, song and dance,
(04:54):
variety acts, extravagant stage effects, risky jokes, and saucy costume,
while familiar enough by British audiences, took New York by storm.
So while the public loved burlasque now in New York
City in the eighteen sixties, the media decided that it
was the absolute lowest form of entertainment. And the one
(05:16):
media powerhouse that really hated Lydia and her girls was
The New York Times. And what it did was it
ultimately forced Lydia to go on tour, so she didn't
leave America, but she decided to take the show on
the road because there was such hostility in New York City.
After the New York Times and different media publications and
(05:37):
scholars started kind of hating on burlasque. This hatred grew
within American culture and one of the articles that was
quoted about Burlasque in the New York Times was that
it was a disgraceful spectacle of padded legs, jiggling and
wriggling in the incident follies, and indecency of the hour.
So that's a big change from a year prior when
(06:00):
they found it to be charming and eccentric and intelligent
and its style of performance. New York Times actually headlined
an entire article with the title quote exit British Burlesque.
So Lydia Thompson and the British Blonds, they decide to
take the show on the road. They decided that New
York is not the place for them right now, and
so they go all over the country until about eighteen
(06:22):
seventy four, and they encountered some interesting trouble along the way.
They obviously maintained some level of popularity or else they
would have gone back to England well before. But I
think one of the weirder stories has to do with
the owner of the Chicago Times. His name was Wilbur's Story,
and when the British Blonds were performing in Chicago, he
(06:42):
started creating accusations that the girls weren't virtuous. I mean,
it was definitely low hanging fruit, because they were risky performers.
But Thompson did not appreciate that her women were being
categorized as people who were promiscuous. Just because they were
dancing that way didn't mean that that's how they lived
their lives off stage, and so Thompson very publicly called
(07:03):
him a liar. And then in eighteen seventy Thompson, her
husband and one of her colleagues horsewhipped Story at gunpoint,
and of course he was all right. But they were
arrested and fined, but they did not stop performing. They
were let go and then they traveled over to Nevada
and California. And when Thompson was asked about this behavior
(07:26):
and what she had done to Story, she did not
have any remorse. She said that his statements about her
women were repugnant and she quote was glad at what
she had done. But what happens here is something that
you hear time and time again. The media hates it
and they talk about it. But by talking about it,
(07:47):
you create publicity, and the expression all publicity is good publicity,
and that was very much the case, because they developed
a level of notoriety that drove audiences to their shows
until about eighteen seventy four, when Thompson and her performers
returned to England. Now, the style of burlesque might have
started in the eighteen hundreds in England, the style of
(08:09):
dancing date centuries before but it also continued to evolve
around the world after this, and one of the more prominent,
more well known movements of burlesque style performance is the
popular French mulon rouge that goes on into the twentieth century,
and subsets of Americans will continue to like burlesque, especially
(08:30):
when you look at Prohibition. There's a lot of things
going on under the table there, and burlesque performances was
one of them. But Americans, the American government ultimately maybe
took a nod from the New York Times and decency
laws were something that were incredibly prominent in the US
in the twentieth century and has actually impacted all forms
of burlesque and other types of risque dance performances in
(08:53):
the country up through the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
and there's some things that have trickled into the twenty
first century, which was an attempt to kind of drive
the art form or people would probably not argue it
wasn't art, but would drive the form into the darkness.
But for a brief moment in the eighteen sixties, Lydia
Thompson brought a class to burlesque, showcasing and bringing to America,
(09:14):
a typical British sense of humor, but one that would
ultimately leave many Americans aghast.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and we heard the story
about burlesque in Burlesque as the British did it. Burlesque
was more than just bracy dancing. Lydia Thompson raised it
to a high art form, and her desire was to
target it to the middle class New Yorker And there
it was a mixture of pantomime and satire and wit
(09:47):
saucy costumes, yes, but also just sheer fun. The story
of the British invasion of burlesque on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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