Babes in Arms and vaudeville’s tough kids: Class, race and the making of American childhood

Vaudeville both shaped and was shaped by new ideas about childhood developing at the beginning of the twentieth century. The romanticization of children as icons of sentimentality or, even further, ‘angelic’ in their essential being and ethics (rooted in nineteenth-century attitudes about children and childhood) was challenged by the performances of child vaudevillians. These children often perfected acts that portrayed them as ‘knowing’ or more ‘adult’ than the more sentimental archetypes: the child mimic, who often impersonated adults from well-known acts, and the spectacles that were the virtuoso musician or dancer, for instance, were both desirable precisely because their acts broke free from traditional ideas about children and childhood. This article foregrounds vaudeville’s influence on how children were depicted in Broadway shows of the 1930s. By examining Babes in Arms (1937), a show that featured many former vaudeville and vaudeville-adjacent stars amongst its adolescent ranks (including Mitzi Green and the Nicholas Brothers), I hope to reveal the ways that this popular musical comedy reflected emerging ideas about childhood, informed particularly by class and race.