Editing Tony Pastor (section)

===Early career===
In 1846, Pastor embarked on a career in show business. He obtained a job singing at [[P.T. Barnum]]'s [[Barnum's American Museum|Scudder's American Museum]] where he brought his riding, tumbling, and mimicry skills to performances.<ref>Lewis, Robert M. ''From Traveling Show to Vaudville: Theatrical Spectacle in America, 1830 - 1910'', Johns Hopkins UP, 2007.</ref> 

During the next few years he worked in [[minstrel show]]s, where he often performed scenes in [[blackface]]. Pastor became a celebrated singing clown at a time when circus performances typically concluded with a variety revue. He established himself as a popular singer and songwriter during a four-year run at [[Robert Butler (vaudevillian)|Robert Butler]]'s American Music Hall, a variety theater located at 444 Broadway in what is now called Soho, but was then the heart of the lower Manhattan theater district. Pastor published "songsters", books of his lyrics which were sung to popular tunes. The music had no notation, as it was assumed that the audience had a collective knowledge of popular song. The subject matter of his music was intended to be bawdy and humorous.<ref name=NYT1908>{{cite news |title=Tony Pastor and His 60 Years on the Stage |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 16, 1908}}</ref>

[[File:Tony-Pastor-02.JPG|left|thumb|225px|Tony Pastor and [[Bonnie Thornton]], {{circa}} 1897]]

Pastor sang for the Union cause throughout the Civil War, then started his own variety show which went on tour for around five months before settling in New York City.<ref name=":1" /> In 1865, Pastor opened his own theatre, [[Tony Pastor's Opera House]]. The theater was located on the Bowery in partnership with [[minstrel show]] performer, Sam Sharpley, whom he later bought out. The same year he organized traveling minstrel troupes who toured the country annually between April and October. Although Pastor was referred to as the "Dean of Vaudeville", as mentioned before, he is best known for cleaning up variety acts. Pastor was popular with the nearly all-male variety theater audiences; however, he knew that his ticket sales would double if he attracted a female audience. Soon he began to produce [[variety shows]], presenting an evening of clean fun that was a distinct alternative to the bawdy shows of the time and more appropriate for middle-class families. With shows that appealed to women and children as well as the traditional male audience, his theater and touring companies quickly became popular with the middle classes and were soon being imitated.{{cn|date=July 2023}}