Bowing to Necessities

Bowing to Necessities PDF Author: C. Dallett Hemphill
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195154088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Anglo-Americans wrestled with some profound cultural contradictions as they shifted from the hierarchical and patriarchal society of the seventeenth-century frontier to the modern and fluid class democracy of the mid-nineteenth century. How could traditional inequality be maintained in the socially leveling environment of the early colonial wilderness? And how could nineteenth-century Americans pretend to be equal in an increasingly unequal society? Bowing to Necessities argues that manners provided ritual solutions to these central cultural problems by allowing Americans to act out--and thus reinforce--power relations just as these relations underwent challenges. Analyzing the many sermons, child-rearing guides, advice books, and etiquette manuals that taught Americans how to behave, this book connects these instructions to individual practices and personal concerns found in contemporary diaries and letters. It also illuminates crucial connections between evolving class, age, and gender relations. A social and cultural history with a unique and fascinating perspective, Hemphill's wide-ranging study offers readers a panorama of America's social customs from colonial times to the Civil War.

Bowing to Necessities

Bowing to Necessities PDF Author: C. Dallett Hemphill
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195154088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Anglo-Americans wrestled with some profound cultural contradictions as they shifted from the hierarchical and patriarchal society of the seventeenth-century frontier to the modern and fluid class democracy of the mid-nineteenth century. How could traditional inequality be maintained in the socially leveling environment of the early colonial wilderness? And how could nineteenth-century Americans pretend to be equal in an increasingly unequal society? Bowing to Necessities argues that manners provided ritual solutions to these central cultural problems by allowing Americans to act out--and thus reinforce--power relations just as these relations underwent challenges. Analyzing the many sermons, child-rearing guides, advice books, and etiquette manuals that taught Americans how to behave, this book connects these instructions to individual practices and personal concerns found in contemporary diaries and letters. It also illuminates crucial connections between evolving class, age, and gender relations. A social and cultural history with a unique and fascinating perspective, Hemphill's wide-ranging study offers readers a panorama of America's social customs from colonial times to the Civil War.

With Amusement for All

With Amusement for All PDF Author: LeRoy Ashby
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813171326
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
With Amusement for All is a sweeping interpretative history of American popular culture. Providing deep insights into various individuals, events, and movements, LeRoy Ashby explores the development and influence of popular culture -- from minstrel shows to hip-hop, from the penny press to pulp magazines, from the NBA to NASCAR, and much in between. By placing the evolution of popular amusement in historical context, Ashby illuminates the complex ways in which popular culture both reflects and transforms American society. He demonstrates a recurring pattern in democratic culture by showing how groups and individuals on the cultural and social periphery have profoundly altered the nature of mainstream entertainment. The mainstream has repeatedly co-opted and sanitized marginal trends in a process that continues to shift the limits of acceptability. Ashby describes how social control and notions of public morality often vie with the bold, erotic, and sensational as entrepreneurs finesse the vagaries of the market and shape public appetites. Ashby argues that popular culture is indeed a democratic art, as it entertains the masses, provides opportunities for powerless and disadvantaged individuals to succeed, and responds to changing public hopes, fears, and desires. However, it has also served to reinforce prejudices, leading to discrimination and violence. Accordingly, the study of popular culture reveals the often dubious contours of the American dream. With Amusement for All never loses sight of pop culture's primary goal: the buying and selling of fun. Ironically, although popular culture has drawn an enormous variety of amusements from grassroots origins, the biggest winners are most often sprawling corporations with little connection to a movement's original innovators.

Rudeness and Civility

Rudeness and Civility PDF Author: John F. Kasson
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 146680663X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
With keen insight and subtle humor, John F. Kasson explores the history and politics of etiquette from America's colonial times through the nineteenth century. He describes the transformation of our notion of "gentility," once considered a birthright to some, and the development of etiquette as a middle-class response to the new urban and industrial economy and to the excesses of democratic society.

Confidence Men and Painted Women

Confidence Men and Painted Women PDF Author: Karen Halttunen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300037883
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Karen Halttunen draws a vivid picture of the social and cultural development of the upwardly mobile middle class, basing her study on a survey of the conduct manuals and fashion magazines of mid-nineteenth-century America. "An ingenious book: original, inventive, resourceful, and exciting. ... This book adds immeasurably to the current work on sentimental culture and American cultural history and brings to its task an inquisitive, fresh, and intelligent perspective. ... Essential reading for historians, literary critics, feminists, and cultural commentators who wish to study mid-nineteenth-century American culture and its relation to contemporary values."--Dianne F. Sadoff, American Quarterly "A compelling and beautifully developed study. ... Halttunen provides us with a subtle book that gently unfolds from her mastery of the subject and intelligent prose."--Paula S. Fass, Journal of Social History "Halttunen has done her homework--the research has been tremendous, the notes and bibliography are impressive, and the text is peppered with hundreds of quotes--and gives some real insight into an area of American culture and history where we might have never bothered to look."--John Hopkins, Times Literary Supplement "The kind of imaginative history that opens up new questions, that challenges conventional historical understanding, and demonstrates how provocative and exciting cultural history can be."--William R. Leach, The New England Quarterly "A stunning contribution to American cultural history."--Alan Trachtenberg

Performing Disunion

Performing Disunion PDF Author: Lawrence T. McDonnell
Publisher: Cambridge Studies on the Ameri
ISBN: 1107184932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
A new history of the causes of the American Civil War, highlighting the role played by ordinary men in the secession debate and process.

General Catalogue of the Books

General Catalogue of the Books PDF Author: Detroit Public Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Catalogs, Dictionary
Languages : en
Pages : 1138

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Book Description


Bulletin of the New York Public Library

Bulletin of the New York Public Library PDF Author: New York Public Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bibliography
Languages : en
Pages : 760

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Book Description
Includes its Report, 1896-19 .

Selling Culture

Selling Culture PDF Author: Richard Malin Ohmann
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9781859849743
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Surveys the new practices of advertising, mass distribution of goods, and the birth of the inexpensive mass-audience magazine at the end of the 19th century, and their role in the creation of the American professional-managerial class. Focuses on magazine publishing, careers of key personalities in the publishing world, and the role of fiction in the magazines. For students and general readers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism PDF Author: Russel Whitaker
Publisher: Nineteenth-Century Literature
ISBN: 9780787686369
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Presents literary criticism on the works of nineteenth-century writers of all genres, nations, and cultures. Critical essays are selected from leading sources, including published journals, magazines, books, reviews, diaries, broadsheets, pamphlets, and scholarly papers. Criticism includes early views from the author's lifetime as well as later views, including extensive collections of contemporary analysis.

Encyclopaedia Londinensis, Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature

Encyclopaedia Londinensis, Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 956

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Book Description