A history of the musical Vaudeville should be something of interest to you. It goes into the rich facts of how vaudeville came about after the civil war.
A pretty good one is, "A Pictorial History of Vaudeville" by Bernard Sobel. And "No Applause-Just "Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous," published in 2005 by Faber & Faber.
