America stocks its shelves with mass-produced goods but fills its imagination with handmade folk objects. In Pennsylvania, the "back to the city" housing movement causes a conflict of cultures. In Indiana, an old tradition o...

Buy Now From Amazon

America stocks its shelves with mass-produced goods but fills its imagination with handmade folk objects. In Pennsylvania, the "back to the city" housing movement causes a conflict of cultures. In Indiana, an old tradition of butchering turtles for church picnics evokes both pride and loathing among residents. In New York, folk-art exhibits raise choruses of adoration and protest. These are a few of the examples Simon Bronner uses to illustrate the ways Americans physically and mentally grasp things. Bronner moves beyond the usual discussions of form and variety in America's folk material culture to explain historical influences on, and the social consequences of, channeling folk culture into a mass society.

Similar Products

New Old Fashioned Ways: Holidays Popular CulturePoint of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American CultureThe Carver's Art: Crafting Meaning from WoodPoint of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American CulturePattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States (Folklore and Folklife)Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American MasculinitiesThe Cocktail Waitress: Women's Work in a Man's WorldThe Machine in America: A Social History of Technology