Popular Culture in American History

Popular Culture in American History collects the most widely cited and important writings on three hundred years of American popular culture. Each of the ten essays serves as a case study of a particular moment, issue, or form of popular culture, from seventeenth-century chapbooks to hip hop. Pedagogical features include further reading lists, contextualizing editorial introductions, discussion questions and chronologies of key events.

Jim Cullen teaches in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University. He is the author of The Civil War in Popular Culture: A Reusable Past (1995), The Art of Democracy: A Concise History of Popular Culture in the United States (1996), and Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition (1997).

Notes on Contributors

x

Series Editor's Preface

xii

Preface: About This Book

xiv

Acknowledgements

xvii

Introduction: The Worldwide Web of Popular Culture

1

(9)

In the Beginning

10

(20)

Timeline

10

(1)

Introduction

10

(2)

Chapbooks: Reconstructing the Popular Reading of Early America

12

(12)

Victor Neuberg

Consider the Source

24

(5)

Excerpts from Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)

24

(5)

Suggested Further Reading

29

(1)

The World of the Stage

30

(27)

Timeline

30

(1)

Introduction

30

(2)

William Shakespeare in America

32

(18)

Lawrence Levine

Consider the Source

50

(6)

Excerpt from Representative Men

50

(6)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Suggested Further Reading

56

(1)

The Racy Appeal of the Minstrel

57

(21)

Timeline

57

(1)

Introduction

57

(4)

The Blackface Lore Cycle

61

(14)

W. T. Lhamon, Jr.

Consider the Source

75

(2)

Excerpts from Nineteenth-Century Minstrel Shows

75

(2)

Suggested Further Reading

77

(1)

Literature for the Million

78

(17)

Timeline

78

(1)

Introduction

78

(2)

The Figure of the Dime Novel in American Culture

80

(9)

Michael Denning

Consider the Source

89

(5)

Excerpt from Last of the Great Scouts

90

(4)

Helen Cody Wetmore

Suggested Further Reading

94

(1)

The Romance of the Dance Hall

95

(34)

Timeline

95

(1)

Introduction

95

(2)

Dance Madness

97

(26)

Kathy Peiss

Consider the Source

123

(5)

Excerpt from Elisabeth Marbury's Introduction to Modern Dancing

124

(4)

Vernon

Irene Castle

Suggested Further Reading

128

(1)

Moving Images

129

(34)

Timeline

129

(1)

Introduction

129

(2)

American Motion Pictures and the New Popular Culture, 1893--1918

131

(26)

Daniel J. Czitrom

Consider the Source

157

(5)

Excerpts from The Spirit of Youth

158

(4)

Jane Addams

Suggested Further Reading

162

(1)

Waves of Selling

163

(40)

Timeline

163

(1)

Introduction

163

(3)

Arguments over Broadcast Advertising

166

(35)

Susan Smulyan

Consider the Source

201

(1)

Excerpt from ``Sponsoritis'' (1930)

201

(1)

Suggested Further Reading

202

(1)

The Firmament of Stardom

203

(31)

Timeline

203

(1)

Introduction

203

(2)

Fool's Paradise: Frank Sinatra and the American Dream

205

(24)

Jim Cullen

Consider the Source

229

(3)

``Why the Americans are so Restless in the Midst of their Prosperity,'' excerpt from Vol. II of Democracy in America

229

(3)

Alexis de Tocqueville

Suggested Further Reading

232

(2)

The Age of Television

234

(36)

Timeline

234

(1)

Introduction

234

(2)

The Making of the Sitcom, 1961

236

(31)

David Marc

Consider the Source

267

(2)

Excerpts from After All

267

(2)

Mary Tyler Moore

Suggested Further Reading

269

(1)

Hip-Hop Nation

270

(24)

Timeline

270

(1)

Introduction

270

(2)

Voices from the Margins: Rap Music and Contemporary Black Cultural Production

272

(19)

Tricia Rose

Consider the Source

291

(2)

Excerpts from Ladies First

291

(2)

Queen Latifah

Suggested Further Reading

293

(1)

Index

294

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Popular Culture in American History

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials