The Making of Middlebrow CultureUniv of North Carolina Press, 09.11.2000 - 438 Seiten The proliferation of book clubs, reading groups, "outline" volumes, and new forms of book reviewing in the first half of the twentieth century influenced the tastes and pastimes of millions of Americans. Joan Rubin here provides the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, the rise of American middlebrow culture, and the values encompassed by it. Rubin centers her discussion on five important expressions of the middlebrow: the founding of the Book-of-the-Month Club; the beginnings of "great books" programs; the creation of the New York Herald Tribune's book-review section; the popularity of such works as Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy; and the emergence of literary radio programs. She also investigates the lives and expectations of the individuals who shaped these middlebrow institutions--such figures as Stuart Pratt Sherman, Irita Van Doren, Henry Seidel Canby, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, John Erskine, William Lyon Phelps, Alexander Woollcott, and Clifton Fadiman. Moreover, as she pursues the significance of these cultural intermediaries who connected elites and the masses by interpreting ideas to the public, Rubin forces a reconsideration of the boundary between high culture and popular sensibility. |
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... remained largely an accompaniment of political and economic power . The elite who set the standard of " high style " were the same people who provided leadership for colonial governments . Similarly , not only was genteel culture ...
... remained largely an accompaniment of political and economic power . The elite who set the standard of " high style " were the same people who provided leadership for colonial governments . Similarly , not only was genteel culture ...
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... remained ambiguous , many writers of popular advice manuals stressed that genteel conduct did not depend on financial resources . By the same token , when George Ticknor , a founder of the Boston Atheneum , met the British entrepreneur ...
... remained ambiguous , many writers of popular advice manuals stressed that genteel conduct did not depend on financial resources . By the same token , when George Ticknor , a founder of the Boston Atheneum , met the British entrepreneur ...
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... remained a part of the New Haven ideal . One of the graduates ' functions , Porter explained in his 1871 inaugural address , was to " soften " the " vulgarities " endemic to Ameri- can society and introduce " amenities into our social ...
... remained a part of the New Haven ideal . One of the graduates ' functions , Porter explained in his 1871 inaugural address , was to " soften " the " vulgarities " endemic to Ameri- can society and introduce " amenities into our social ...
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... remained aloof from the metropolitan scene and the influence it afforded . 17 Thus , the New Haven group represented a tributary , rather than the main stream , that carried the ideology of genteel culture forward to the twentieth ...
... remained aloof from the metropolitan scene and the influence it afforded . 17 Thus , the New Haven group represented a tributary , rather than the main stream , that carried the ideology of genteel culture forward to the twentieth ...
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... remained for him an es- sential attribute of the cultured person . So encumbered , one could never quite enact a complete surrender to self - annihilating experience . At the same time , the organic image of culture as the “ unfolding ...
... remained for him an es- sential attribute of the cultured person . So encumbered , one could never quite enact a complete surrender to self - annihilating experience . At the same time , the organic image of culture as the “ unfolding ...
Inhalt
1 | |
Stuart Pratt Sherman Irita Van Doren and Books | 34 |
The Early History of the BookoftheMonth Club | 93 |
John Erskine and Great Books | 148 |
illustrations | 199 |
Will Durant and the Vogue of the Outline | 209 |
Book Programs on Commercial Radio | 266 |
Notes | 331 |
Bibliography | 373 |
Index | 405 |
Permissions | 415 |
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Adler advertising aesthetic Alexander Woollcott American appeared Arnold Arnoldian audience authority Autobiography Babbitt Book Review Book-of-the-Month Club broadcast Broun Canby Canby's Canfield character civilization classics Clifton Fadiman club's COHC College critics democratic Dewey Dorothy Canfield Fisher Durant's early editor effort Eliot Emerson Erskine Papers Erskine's essay example experience Fadiman Fisher Folder genteel tradition Haldeman-Julius Helen Helen Rogers Reid Henry Seidel Canby Herald Tribune human Ibid idea ideal intellectual Irita Van Doren James John Erskine Lazarsfeld lecture Letters Library Lincoln Schuster listeners literary Loon Loon's Mark Van Doren Max Lincoln ment middlebrow modern moral Morley NBC Records Norton novel outline personality Phelps Phelps's political popular publishers quiz Radio readers reading Review of Literature role Saturday Review selection sense Sept Sherman Similarly Simon and Schuster social Story of Philosophy tion Weekly Wells's William William Lyon Phelps Woodberry Woodberry's Woollcott writers wrote Yale