Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a group of actors who toured the country specializing in plays that would appeal to their rustic audiences; their improvised stages were often set up in barns.

1859		Hotten Dict. Sl. 3: Barn stormers, theatrical performers who travel the country and act in barns, selecting short and frantic pieces to suit the rustic taste.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 12: A broken-down barn-stormer who used to lodge near me [...] he’d talk by the hour of bens, and surfs, and saddles, and daddies, and everything about a theatre.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 1: Barn Stormers - Theatricals who travel the country.
1887		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 23 Oct. 4/1: Small companies in the back country districts are ‘fly by nights,’ ‘water tank shows,’ ‘Jim Crows,’ ‘crossroad concerns’ or ‘barn stormers.’.
1891		Sporting Times 28 Feb. 1/4: A provincial theatre, where they were playing Uncle Tom’s Cabin with a mixed troupe of niggers and barnstormers.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 6: Barn Stormers, theatricals who travel in the country.
1900		Marvel XIV:344 June 3: The great showman, barn-stormer, strong-man.
1905		Sporting Times 13 May 1/4: Many and varied as are the hard-luck experiences of the third-rate Bedford Street barnstormer.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 30 Apr. 1/1: A crowd of stone-broke barnstormers have joined the out-o’-work regiment.
1906		N.Z. Truth 22 Dec. 7/4: A company of strolling actors, veritable barnstormers.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.

2. (US) itinerant flyers who travelled the country putting on flying and aerobatic displays.

1970

(con. 1920s) E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 173: Barnstormers, air circuses, wing-walkers, parachutists.