Market Sentiments: Middle-class Market Culture in Nineteenth-century America - Hardcover

Nelson, Elizabeth White

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588341399 ISBN 13: 9781588341396

Publisher: Smithsonian Books, 2004

Synopsis

In this study, Elizabeth White Nelson challenges a central tenet of 19th-century American history: namelly, that men and women lived in separate spheres. Women, supposedly, lived lives focused around hearth and home; men focused on trade and commerce. Marketplace and home were believed to be separate and distinct.
Market Sentiments turns this argument on its head, showing how the market revolution was inextricably linked to sentimental beliefs for both men and women. Whether through the invention of Valentine's Day (called "this important Business of Love" by one 19th-century observer) or the popularity of fashion magazines that used a sentimental language for market relations, the market and the parlor were closely intertwined. Sentiment and commerce existed together quite comfortably in the Victorian American home.
Through her use of sources such as literary bestsellers, fashion magazines, the decoration of Victorian parlors, and hair jewelry produced in the parlor, Elizabeth White Nelson shows that, for 19th-century Americans, hearth, home, and the pursuit of cash came together in one big sentimental enterprise.

About this title

Review

"[A] wonderful book, imaginatively researched and beautifully written."--Ann Fabian, professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University

"Market Sentiments is a pleasure and a profit to read. Nelson connects marginalized and trivialized products--like hair creations and charity fairs--with the most profound concerns of American culture. With a sharp eye for irony, a sophisticated theory of gender, and an impressive amount of research, Nelson opens up a new window on mid-nineteenth-century middle-class material and ideological practices."--Laura Wexler, professor of American studies at Yale University and author of Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism

Synopsis

Interdisciplinary history explaining the rise of capitalism, sentimentalism, the marketplace, and the parlor This brilliant examination of the nineteenth-century challenges a central tenet of American history: that in the past men and women lived in separate spheres. Women, supposedly, lived lives focused around hearth and home; men focused on trade and commerce. Market Sentiments turns this argument on its head, showing how the market revolution was inextricably linked to sentimental beliefs. The invention of Valentine's Day and the rise of popular fashion magazines that used a sentimental language for attracting customers illustrate how the market and the parlor were closely intertwined.

About this edition

• Publisher: Smithsonian Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1588341399
• ISBN 13: 9781588341396
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304