The material conditions in which the production and consumption of art takes place is a topic of increasing importance in art history. This title studies art as an industry and a public practice, looking at how nations, institutions and private individuals present art to the community and how art museums are shaped by cultural, social and political determinants.

Illustrated with over fifty photos, Civilizing Rituals merges contemporary debates with lively discussion and explores central issues involved in the making and displaying of art as industry and how it is presented to the community.

Carol Duncan looks at how nations, institutions and private individuals present art, and how art museums are shaped by cultural, social and political determinants.

Civilizing Rituals is ideal reading for students of art history and museum studies, and professionals in the field will also find much of interest here.

The year is 1950, and seventeen-year-old Lucy Hargrove is pregnant. The baby's father has vanished, and her heart-broken parents have noticed a coolness towards them at church. In order to spare her family the shame she feels she alone should bear, Lucy packs her bag and boards a train. She arrives in Oregon City alone, exhausted, and hungry, with no plan as to how she will survive. It had taken all her courage to leave her family's homestead in Weiser, Idaho, and her beloved brother, Baxter. Lucy's first stop in Oregon City is Gettman's Bakery. The owner, Hettie, is a big-hearted, outspoken woman who takes Lucy under her wing and offers her a job. In her new hometown, Lucy encounters small-town gossips and a difficult babysitter, but over the next few months she makes friends, faces heart-rending decisions, and becomes an adult.