Fads, Follies, and Delusions of the American People
Author : Paul Sann
Publisher :
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 24,27 MB
Release : 1967
Category : United States
ISBN :
Author : Paul Sann
Publisher :
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 24,27 MB
Release : 1967
Category : United States
ISBN :
Author : Nancy Hendricks
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 897 pages
File Size : 37,79 MB
Release : 2018-08-17
Category : History
ISBN : 1440851832
This informative two-volume set provides readers with an understanding of the fads and crazes that have taken America by storm from colonial times to the present. Entries cover a range of topics, including food, entertainment, fashion, music, and language. Why could hula hoops and TV westerns only have been found in every household in the 1950s? What murdered Russian princess can be seen in one of the first documented selfies, taken in 1914? This book answers those questions and more in its documentation of all of the most captivating trends that have defined American popular culture since before the country began. Entries are well-researched and alphabetized by decade. At the start of every section is an insightful historical overview of the decade, and the set uniquely illustrates what today's readers have in common with the past. It also contains a Glossary of Slang for each decade as well as a bibliography, plus suggestions for further reading for each entry. Students and readers interested in history will enjoy discovering trends through the years in such areas as fashion, movies, music, and sports.
Author : Cynthia Overbeck Bix
Publisher : Twenty-First Century Books
Page : 68 pages
File Size : 22,2 MB
Release : 2014-08-01
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 1467747939
College students crammed into phone booths. Couples dancing until they drop. Daredevils swallowing one live goldfish after another. Streakers dashing naked down the street. Planking and flash mobs and robotic pets. These are just some of the crazy fads that have caught hold in the United States over the last century. Where do these ideas come from and why do they catch people's imagination? Fads reflect the mood and spirit of a particular time, and they offer insight into a nation's culture. The 1950s, for example, was a time of economic prosperity and technological development. Americans expressed their delight in new inventions in many creative ways. One popular craze on college campuses was to stuff as many people as possible into a phone booth. On one campus, twenty-five people managed to squeeze into a single booth! In earlier decades, marked by the Depression and World War II, dance marathon frenzy caught on. Promoters lured couples with promises of fame and monetary prizes for those who could dance for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hours. And great ideas never die. Almost one hundred years later, dance marathons came back. One creative variation, the flash mob dance, attracts spontaneous performances that range from flash mob wedding dances to “Gangnam Style" K-Pop flash mobs in cities all over the world. Fad Mania! explores a century of American crazes, offering an entertaining and informative look at the major historical events of each decade and the fads that defined them. As you learn more about smiley buttons and Webkinz, you may just be able to predict this decade's next craze!
Author : Jack Salzman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 980 pages
File Size : 18,26 MB
Release : 1986-08-29
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780521266871
A major three-volume bibliography, including an additional supplement, of an annotated listing of American Studies monographs published between 1900 and 1988.
Author : William H. Young
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 37,1 MB
Release : 2004-04-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0313052956
Have the 1950s been overly romanticized? Beneath the calm, conformist exterior, new ideas and attitudes were percolating. This was the decade of McCarthyism, Levittowns, and men in gray flannel suits, but the 1950s also saw bold architectural styles, the rise of paperback novels and the Beat writers, Cinema Scope and film noir, television variety shows, the Golden Age of the automobile, subliminal advertising, fast food, Frisbees, and silly putty. Meanwhile, teens attained a more prominent role in American culture with hot rods, rock 'n' roll, preppies and greasers, and—gasp—juvenile delinquency. At the same time, a new technological threat, the atom bomb, lurked beneath the surface of the postwar decade. This volume presents a nuanced look at a surprisingly complex time in American popular culture.
Author : Robert E. Weir
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 15,39 MB
Release : 2022-08-17
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1476688958
The ground has shifted from the days in which "serious history" and "boring" went hand in glove. Textbooks and lectures have their place, but less traditional classrooms can be powerfully immersive and insightful. Take the 1929 Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts and what it teaches about both the Great Depression and early sound films. The Marx Brothers are among the funniest comedy teams of all time. Four of their 13 films are on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American comedies ever made. For many contemporary viewers, though, "getting" the jokes is not always easy because the humor can be subjective and timebound. This work looks at the American past through the lens of the Marx Brothers' films and other projects. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific film, contextualizing the world at the time and how the Marx Brothers lampooned those subjects. Along the way, the book demonstrates what the Marx Brothers revealed about weighty topics like gambling, gender relations, immigration, medical care, Prohibition, race and war, all leavened with offbeat humor.
Author : Rebecca Rupp
Publisher : Storey Publishing
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 20,36 MB
Release : 2011-01-01
Category : Gardening
ISBN : 1603429689
Looks at the history of vegetables and vegetable gardening.
Author : Robert Love
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 24,18 MB
Release : 2011-04-26
Category : History
ISBN : 0143119176
"Rollicking and well-researched...A story of scandal, financial shenanigans, bodily discipline, oversize egos and bizarre love triangles." -Wall Street Journal More than fifteen million Americans currently practice yoga (according to Yoga Journal), but how many of them know the true story of how Downward Dog first captivated America? Resurrecting a fascinating and forgotten tale, journalist Robert Love returns to the Gilded Age, when Dr. Pierre Bernard (né Perry Baker in Iowa) revived a discipline banned in Victorian India, packaged it for Americans, and taught legions of followers, who bankrolled his luxurious Hudson River ashram- the first in the nation. Filled with Jazz Age celebrities, heiresses, spies, and outraged clergy, The Great Oom is the enthralling life story of the unlikeliest of gurus, and a stunning saga of mysticism, intrigue, and the American dream.
Author : Michael J. Kral
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 134 pages
File Size : 32,61 MB
Release : 2019-05-21
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0429676255
This book is about a new theory of suicide as cultural mimesis, or as an idea that is internalized from culture. Written as part of a new, critical focus in suicidology, this volume moves away from the dominant, strictly scientific understanding of suicide as the result of a mental disorder, and towards positioning suicide as an anthropologically salient, community-driven phenomenon. Written by a leading researcher in the field, this volume presents a conception of suicide as culturally scripted, and it demonstrates how suicide becomes a cultural idiom of distress that for some can become a normative option.
Author : Bathroom Readers' Institute
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 15,15 MB
Release : 2012-11-01
Category : Humor
ISBN : 1607106140
Uncle John’s all-new 8th edition is packed with everything that Bathroom Reader fans have come to expect from this stellar series—short, medium, and long articles covering a whole host of topics—everything from dumb crooks to funny quotes to forgotten history. Read about… * Ice cream origins * Olympic cheaters * Celebrity mummies * The first Thanksgiving * Groucho’s wit and wisdom * Weird tales of the Ouija board * The creation of Frankenstein’s monster * “Earring Magic Ken” and other weird dolls And much, much more!