Books in the Studies in American Popular History and Culture series

Examines Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's radically egalitarian practice through her involvement in the abolitionist movement, emancipation, Reconstruction, and into the Jim Crow era, placing her work firmly in black-nationalist lineages. This book contributes to the contemporary portrayal of Harper as a theorist of African-American feminism.

Develops several themes important to understanding the social, cultural and economic implications of industrialization. This volume centers on the growth of handloom weaving in response to the introduction of water powered spinning. It views this change from the perspectives of mechanics, technological limitations, and characteristics of weaving.

Exploring gender and religion in the 17th century in three American Colonies, with a dominant religious tradition, this book shows how women who were denied access to formal political structures found ways to assert themselves in public spheres.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Midwestern farm press made recommendations to farmers, but farmers ultimately decided whether or not they would follow the advice. This in-depth look at producers and readers of Midwestern farm newspapers offers a facinating insight into rural American life.

This work examines the counter-narratives of social actors that may be used as resources to promote and create social change, particularly racial change.

This work examines the dramatic changes in American women's comedy performance in the years 1955-1995. The study focuses on the stand-up of Phyllis Diller and Roseanne, and on the character comedy of Lily Tomlin.

This book examines both 'old media' treatment of crime legends: news reports, fictional film and television depictions, as well as 'new' media interactive discussions of them via the Internet and electronic mail.

This study analyses the theme of homelessness in American literature from the Civil War through the depression. Drawing on the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Meridel Le Sueur and others, it reveals how homelessness has been either romanticized or objectified.

This work examines food scenes in selected films to reveal food's power to direct and impose values and beliefs, to understand how dining venues may become sites of social contests, and to reveal how food communicates values and beliefs to individuals, to micro communities, and to American society.

Passed in 1873, the Comstock Act banned 'obscene' materials without defining obscenity, leaving it open to interpretation by courts. This book chronicles the Footes' struggle, examining their efforts on freedom of expression and women's rights, and the larger issues surrounding free speech and censorship in the Gilded Age of American history.

A study of cases of fornication, bastardy, and paternity cases brought before the courts in Essex County, Massachusetts between 1640 and 1692. Prosecution and conviction rates, sentencing patterns, and socio-economic data were analysed to determine that women who bore illegitimate children were punished more severely than their male partners.

Re-evaluates the Red Scare that followed World War One in light of the new methods of political repression developed in New York, methods that established a pattern for future episodes of intolerance.

An exploration of the ways in which mid-19th Century American army officers' wives used material culture to confirm their status as middle-class women. It is a must-have book for anyone interested in women's history, social history, military history or material culture.

Recognizes the achievements by a nineteenth-century community of women religious, the Grey Nuns of Lewiston, Maine. This book tells how their hospital was significant in its time as the first hospital in that factory city; and is still significant if one desires a more accurate and inclusive history of women and healthcare in America.

This book examines the intersections of representations of race and gender identity in writings by contemporary US men.

Drawing on primary documents such as farmer's diaries, small rural newspapers of the 19th century and the publications of state agricultural societies, this provocative study presents an overview into the driving forces of that shaped American history in the Northeast.

This title analyses changing opinions about the attitudes concerning the nature of children and the legal capacities of children using criminal court records, legislative petitions and actions and public perceptions.

Explores how middle-class college students navigated the rocky terrain of Depression-era culture, job market, dating marketplace, prospective marriage prospects, and college campuses.

This study examines the relationship between cinema and physical culture, including activities such as dieting and muscle-building. Hollywood's long-standing prominence on the world stage makes it an ideal place to begin such an examination.

Situating post-WWII New York literature within the material context of American urban history, this work analyses criticism of the spatial restructuring of post-WWII New York City.

This work examines how libraries could respond to their communities need through the use of numerous primary and secondary sources during World War II in America.

Explores the development of a provincial textile industry in colonial America. This study examines the promotion of domestic textile manufacture from the level of the Massachusetts legislature down to the way in which individual communities organized individual productive efforts.