Author: Lynne Vallone
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
A groundbreaking work that explores human size as a distinctive cultural marker in Western thought Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference--particularly unusual bodies, big and small--as an overlooked yet crucial marker that informs human identity and culture. Exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people, Vallone boldly addresses the uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity, and beauty. This wide-ranging work surveys the lives and contexts of both real and imagined persons with extraordinary bodies from the seventeenth century to the present day through close examinations of art, literature, folklore, and cultural practices, as well as scientific and pseudo-scientific discourses. Generously illustrated and written in a lively and accessible style, Vallone's provocative study encourages readers to look with care at extraordinary bodies and the cultures that created, depicted, loved, and dominated them.
Big and Small
Author: Lynne Vallone
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
A groundbreaking work that explores human size as a distinctive cultural marker in Western thought Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference--particularly unusual bodies, big and small--as an overlooked yet crucial marker that informs human identity and culture. Exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people, Vallone boldly addresses the uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity, and beauty. This wide-ranging work surveys the lives and contexts of both real and imagined persons with extraordinary bodies from the seventeenth century to the present day through close examinations of art, literature, folklore, and cultural practices, as well as scientific and pseudo-scientific discourses. Generously illustrated and written in a lively and accessible style, Vallone's provocative study encourages readers to look with care at extraordinary bodies and the cultures that created, depicted, loved, and dominated them.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
A groundbreaking work that explores human size as a distinctive cultural marker in Western thought Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference--particularly unusual bodies, big and small--as an overlooked yet crucial marker that informs human identity and culture. Exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people, Vallone boldly addresses the uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity, and beauty. This wide-ranging work surveys the lives and contexts of both real and imagined persons with extraordinary bodies from the seventeenth century to the present day through close examinations of art, literature, folklore, and cultural practices, as well as scientific and pseudo-scientific discourses. Generously illustrated and written in a lively and accessible style, Vallone's provocative study encourages readers to look with care at extraordinary bodies and the cultures that created, depicted, loved, and dominated them.
Freak Show
Author: Robert Bogdan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622743X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows crisscrossed the United States, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, exhibiting their casts of dwarfs, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, savages, snake charmers, fire eaters, and other oddities. By today’s standards such displays would be considered cruel and exploitative—the pornography of disability. Yet for one hundred years the freak show was widely accepted as one of America’s most popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622743X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows crisscrossed the United States, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, exhibiting their casts of dwarfs, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, savages, snake charmers, fire eaters, and other oddities. By today’s standards such displays would be considered cruel and exploitative—the pornography of disability. Yet for one hundred years the freak show was widely accepted as one of America’s most popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.
The Boys' Life of Barnum
Author: Harvey Woods Root
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Businesspeople
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Businesspeople
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
Legacies
Author: Steven Lubar
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1935623486
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The Smithsonian Institution has been America's museum since 1846. What do its vast collections -- from the ruby slippers to a piece of Plymouth Rock, first ladies' gowns to patchwork quilts, a Model T Ford to a customized Ford LTD low rider -- tell Americans about themselves? In this lavishly illustrated guide to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Steven Lubar and Kathleen M. Kendrick tell the stories behind more than 250 of the museum's treasures, many of them never before photographed for publication. These stories not only reveal what America as a nation has decided to save and why but also speak to changing visions of national identity. As the authors demonstrate, views of history change over time, methods of historical investigation evolve and improve, and America's understanding of the past matures. Shifts in focus and attitude lie at the hearth of Legacies, which is organized around four concepts of what a national museum of history can be: a treasure house, a shrine to the famous, a palace of progress, and a mirror of the nation. Thus, the museum collects cherished or precious objects, houses celebrity memorabilia, documents technological advances, and reflects visitors' own lives. Taking examples from science and technology, politics, decorative arts, military history, ethnic heritage, popular culture and everyday life, the authors provide historical context for the work of the Smithsonian and shed new light on what is important, and who is included, in American history. Throughout its history, Lubar and Kendrick conclude, the museum has played a vital role in both shaping and reflecting America's sense of itself as a nation.
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1935623486
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The Smithsonian Institution has been America's museum since 1846. What do its vast collections -- from the ruby slippers to a piece of Plymouth Rock, first ladies' gowns to patchwork quilts, a Model T Ford to a customized Ford LTD low rider -- tell Americans about themselves? In this lavishly illustrated guide to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Steven Lubar and Kathleen M. Kendrick tell the stories behind more than 250 of the museum's treasures, many of them never before photographed for publication. These stories not only reveal what America as a nation has decided to save and why but also speak to changing visions of national identity. As the authors demonstrate, views of history change over time, methods of historical investigation evolve and improve, and America's understanding of the past matures. Shifts in focus and attitude lie at the hearth of Legacies, which is organized around four concepts of what a national museum of history can be: a treasure house, a shrine to the famous, a palace of progress, and a mirror of the nation. Thus, the museum collects cherished or precious objects, houses celebrity memorabilia, documents technological advances, and reflects visitors' own lives. Taking examples from science and technology, politics, decorative arts, military history, ethnic heritage, popular culture and everyday life, the authors provide historical context for the work of the Smithsonian and shed new light on what is important, and who is included, in American history. Throughout its history, Lubar and Kendrick conclude, the museum has played a vital role in both shaping and reflecting America's sense of itself as a nation.
South of the Mountains
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rockland County (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rockland County (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
Pioneer Days in Upper Canada
Author: Edwin C. Guillet
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487598009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Despite abundant hardships, pioneer life in Upper Canada was romantic and colourful, and Mr. Guillet brings vividly to life the early settlers and their experiences. He draws on contemporary letters, diaries, newspapers, and periodicals, supplementing these researches with interviews with persons who had personal contacts with early life in the province. This volume contains the chapters from Mr. Guillet's large volume, Early Life in Upper Canada, which describes the pioneer home, foods and cooking, milling, lumbering, maple sugar making, fishing, "bees", amusements in town and country, and pioneer sports. It is abundantly illustrated with authentic portraits, photographs, and drawings.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487598009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Despite abundant hardships, pioneer life in Upper Canada was romantic and colourful, and Mr. Guillet brings vividly to life the early settlers and their experiences. He draws on contemporary letters, diaries, newspapers, and periodicals, supplementing these researches with interviews with persons who had personal contacts with early life in the province. This volume contains the chapters from Mr. Guillet's large volume, Early Life in Upper Canada, which describes the pioneer home, foods and cooking, milling, lumbering, maple sugar making, fishing, "bees", amusements in town and country, and pioneer sports. It is abundantly illustrated with authentic portraits, photographs, and drawings.