The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities
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Description
This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.
ISBN
9780679744146
Publication Date
1992
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
City
New York
Keywords
American History, etiquette, class
Disciplines
Cultural History | Social History | United States History
Recommended Citation
Bushman, Richard. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1992.
