Rough Amusements

Rough Amusements PDF Author: Ben Neihart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'. In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance.

Rough Amusements

Rough Amusements PDF Author: Ben Neihart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'. In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance.

With Amusement for All

With Amusement for All PDF Author: LeRoy Ashby
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813123976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 713

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Book Description
With Amusement for All contextualizes what Americans have done for fun since 1830, showing the reciprocal nature of the relationships among social, political, economic, and cultural forces and the ways in which the entertainment world has reflected, changed, or reinforced the values of American society.

Men of Might

Men of Might PDF Author: Arthur Christopher Benson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Every Saturday

Every Saturday PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 740

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Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1212

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Popular Amusements

Popular Amusements PDF Author: Richard Henry Edwards
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Amusements
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Dangerous amusements

Dangerous amusements PDF Author: Laura Harrison
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526147866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In neighbourhoods and public spaces across Britain, young working people walked out together, congregated in the streets, and paraded up and down on the ‘monkey parades’. The beginnings of a distinct youth culture can be traced to the late nineteenth century, and the street and neighbourhood provided its forum. Dangerous amusements explores these sites of leisure and courtship, examining how young working-class men and women engaged with their environment. Drawing on an extensive range of sources, from newspapers and institutional records to oral histories and autobiography, this book traces the movements of young people across space. Exploring the relationship between the leisure lives of the young working class and urban space, this book offers a sensitive reappraisal of working-class youth and will be essential reading for historians of modern Britain.

Engines of Empire

Engines of Empire PDF Author: Douglas R. Burgess Jr.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804798982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
In 1859, the S.S. Great Eastern departed from England on her maiden voyage. She was a remarkable wonder of the nineteenth century: an iron city longer than Trafalgar Square, taller than Big Ben's tower, heavier than Westminster Cathedral. Her paddles were the size of Ferris wheels; her decks could hold four thousand passengers bound for America, or ten thousand troops bound for the Raj. Yet she ended her days as a floating carnival before being unceremoniously dismantled in 1889. Steamships like the Great Eastern occupied a singular place in the Victorian mind. Crossing oceans, ferrying tourists and troops alike, they became emblems of nationalism, modernity, and humankind's triumph over the cruel elements. Throughout the nineteenth century, the spectacle of a ship's launch was one of the most recognizable symbols of British social and technological progress. Yet this celebration of the power of the empire masked overconfidence and an almost religious veneration of technology. Equating steam with civilization had catastrophic consequences for subjugated peoples around the world. Engines of Empire tells the story of the complex relationship between Victorians and their wondrous steamships, following famous travelers like Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Jules Verne as well as ordinary spectators, tourists, and imperial administrators as they crossed oceans bound for the colonies. Rich with anecdotes and wry humor, it is a fascinating glimpse into a world where an empire felt powerful and anything seemed possible—if there was an engine behind it.

George Morland

George Morland PDF Author: David Henry Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Painters
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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THE MAKERS OF BRITISH ART

THE MAKERS OF BRITISH ART PDF Author: JAMES A.MANSON
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description