Middle Class Culture in the Nineteenth Century: America, Australia and Britain

Young, L.

Drawing on expressive and material culture, Young shows that money was not enough to make the genteel middle class. It required exquisite self-control and the right cultural capital to perform ritual etiquette and present oneself confidently, yet modestly. She argues that genteel culture was not merely derivative, but a re-working of aristocratic standards in the context of the middle class necessity to work. Visible throughout the English-speaking world in the 1780s -1830s and onward, genteel culture reveals continuities often obscured by studies based entirely on national frameworks.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2002-12-19

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9780333997468

DOI: 10.1057/9780230598812

Dimensions: 216cm x140cm

Pages: 245