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Market Sentiments - Middle-Class Market Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Paperback)
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Market Sentiments - Middle-Class Market Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Paperback)
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In this brilliant study, Elizabeth White Nelson challenges a
central tenet of 19th-century American history: namely, that 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 theory on its head, arguing that the
market and parlor sentimentality were closely intertwined for both
men and women.
Scholars have long seen 19th-century sentimentalism as a reaction
to the rapid expansion of the marketplace, which some feared would
threaten their traditional values of thrift, independence, and
equality of economic opportunity. But Nelson demonstrates that the
rise of sentimentalism and the marketplace were fundamentally
linked and, indeed, fueled each other. The invention of Valentine's
Day (called "this important Business of Love" by one 19th-century
observer) during this era was a prime example of how emotional
rhetoric could be economically pragmatic. Not only did people
purchase sentimental objects for their parlors--brass candlesticks
as spin-off products from "Uncle Tom's Cabin," for instance--but
they also used sentimental language to explain the profound changes
in American culture.
Through her voluminous and ingenious use of sources such as
literary bestsellers, fashion magazines, hair jewelry, and the
decoration of Victorian parlors, Elizabeth White Nelson shows that,
for 19th-century Americans, hearth, home, and the pursuit of cash
came together in one big sentimental enterprise.
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