Oxford University Press
Rise of Selfishness in America
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Title: Rise of Selfishness in America
Author: James Lincoln Collier
ISBN: 9780195052770
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1991
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
D 1510902
Publisher Description:
It is a crowded, smoky room. Strongly rhythmic music plays, couples dance, dress is casual and revealing. Nearly everyone is drinking--beer or wine, gin or whiskey--and the distinct scent of marijuana hangs in the air. The foregoing scene might have happened in any of the vice districts in
America at the turn of the century, such as Storyville in New Orleans or the Barbary Coast in San Francisco. But it might have occurred just as easily today, not in an underworld dive, but in the living rooms of ordinary people, in cities large and small all around America. What was once relegated
to the red light district is now common on Main Street.
In this provocative and highly original look at America, James Lincoln Collier asks a simple question: how did we get from Storyville to Main Street? How did the United States turn from a social code in which self-restraint was a cardinal virtue to one in which self-gratification was the norm?
To answer this question, he traces the gradual decline of Victorian values and the concomitant rise of selfishness in our country, in a book filled with colorful history: the early dance crazes (the Fox Trot, the Grizzly Bear, the Texas Tommy); Irene and Vernon Castle, whose austere grace drained
the sexuality out of dancing and made it acceptable to middle class America; the great radio shows of the 1930s (Amos 'n' Andy, Charlie Chan, The Shadow); and the great brothels of the Victorian age. But we also see the isolation of life in big cities, the great influx of immigrants, and the spread
of industrialization. Collier shows that with the unprecedented blocks of free time created by industrialization, the entertainment industry mushroomed, and soon not only immigrants but the middle class began to drink and dance in public, and women began to smoke and dress in sexually revealing
clothes. Indeed, by the late 1920s, the majority of Americans were devoted to movies, popular music, dancing, and the entertainment industry in
Author: James Lincoln Collier
ISBN: 9780195052770
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1991
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
D 1510902
Publisher Description:
It is a crowded, smoky room. Strongly rhythmic music plays, couples dance, dress is casual and revealing. Nearly everyone is drinking--beer or wine, gin or whiskey--and the distinct scent of marijuana hangs in the air. The foregoing scene might have happened in any of the vice districts in
America at the turn of the century, such as Storyville in New Orleans or the Barbary Coast in San Francisco. But it might have occurred just as easily today, not in an underworld dive, but in the living rooms of ordinary people, in cities large and small all around America. What was once relegated
to the red light district is now common on Main Street.
In this provocative and highly original look at America, James Lincoln Collier asks a simple question: how did we get from Storyville to Main Street? How did the United States turn from a social code in which self-restraint was a cardinal virtue to one in which self-gratification was the norm?
To answer this question, he traces the gradual decline of Victorian values and the concomitant rise of selfishness in our country, in a book filled with colorful history: the early dance crazes (the Fox Trot, the Grizzly Bear, the Texas Tommy); Irene and Vernon Castle, whose austere grace drained
the sexuality out of dancing and made it acceptable to middle class America; the great radio shows of the 1930s (Amos 'n' Andy, Charlie Chan, The Shadow); and the great brothels of the Victorian age. But we also see the isolation of life in big cities, the great influx of immigrants, and the spread
of industrialization. Collier shows that with the unprecedented blocks of free time created by industrialization, the entertainment industry mushroomed, and soon not only immigrants but the middle class began to drink and dance in public, and women began to smoke and dress in sexually revealing
clothes. Indeed, by the late 1920s, the majority of Americans were devoted to movies, popular music, dancing, and the entertainment industry in
