Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban AmericaJohn F. Kasson writes of the deep tensions created by the demands of democracy, the pressures of an expanding market economy, and the desire for social distinction. He re-creates the deferential and often coarse society of colonial years, then its transformation as aspirations and social forms earlier restricted to the gentry became popularized. The rapidly industrializing economy most intensively affected the booming cities. Etiquette advisers sought to instruct the rising middle class in ways of egalitarianism: how to present oneself at home and in public; how to express pleasure and affections and suppress anger and conflict; how to conduct oneself with decorum at a concert or theatrical performance. Mr. Kasson examines a host of diverse topics, from the "lost art of hat tipping" to the rise of the table fork and how to behave at table, to the writings of Poe, Melville, and William James. "Rudeness and Civility" is a rare book that is insightful and entertaining: it will make readers think about our changing manners in a fresh way. -- From publisher's description. |
Contents
Introduction 39 | 3 |
Manners before the Nineteenth Century | 9 |
Etiquette Books and the Spread of Gentility | 34 |
The Semiotics of Everyday Life | 70 |
Bodily Management in Public | 112 |
Emotional Control | 147 |
Table Manners and the Control of Appetites | 182 |
The Disciplining of Spectatorship | 215 |
Selected Bibliography of Etiquette Books 18001910 | 287 |
Sources of Illustrations | 295 |
Other editions - View all
Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America John F. Kasson Limited preview - 1991 |
Rudeness & Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-century Urban America, Volume 2 John F. Kasson Limited preview - 1990 |
Common terms and phrases
A. R. White advice antebellum appeared Astor Place Riot audience authority Bartleby behavior bodily Book of Etiquette Boston capitalist Chapel Hill character Charles Chicago civility colonial concert conduct Courtesy University culture Customs declared deportment dining dinner disciplined dress eating Eliza Leslie entertainment Erving Goffman etiquette advisers etiquette books etiquette manuals etiquette writers expression fashionable feeling fork Frances Trollope G. P. Putnam's Sons genteel gentility gentleman George Goodrich habit Hall History Ibid Illustrated Manners Book individual James John lady Macready male Margaret Woodbury Strong Mark Twain Mary Douglas middle-class Modern Manners moral New-York Historical Society nineteenth century Norbert Elias Opera House orchestra parlor performance Philadelphia polite popular published readers refinement respectable ritual rudeness servants Smiley Social Etiquette society standards story street table manners taste theater Theodore Thomas twentieth University Press urban vaudeville vulgar William woman women York young