Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture
- The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture
- Copyright page
- In Memoriam: Lauren Rabinovitz
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Prologue
- Part I The Rise of Commercialized Leisure
- 1 Popular Literature in Nineteenth-Century America
- 2 Sentimentalism and Women’s Popular Culture
- 3 The Visual in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Culture
- 4 Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatre and Performance
- 5 Minstrel Shows and Blackface
- 6 Wild West Shows
- 7 Vaudeville and Burlesque
- 8 The Rise of American Sports
- 9 Amusement Parks
- 10 American World’s Fairs in the Gilded Age
- Part II The American Century
- Part III The Power of Popular Culture
- Further Reading
- Index
- References
1 - Popular Literature in Nineteenth-Century America
from Part I - The Rise of Commercialized Leisure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 May 2026
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture
- The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture
- Copyright page
- In Memoriam: Lauren Rabinovitz
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Prologue
- Part I The Rise of Commercialized Leisure
- 1 Popular Literature in Nineteenth-Century America
- 2 Sentimentalism and Women’s Popular Culture
- 3 The Visual in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Culture
- 4 Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatre and Performance
- 5 Minstrel Shows and Blackface
- 6 Wild West Shows
- 7 Vaudeville and Burlesque
- 8 The Rise of American Sports
- 9 Amusement Parks
- 10 American World’s Fairs in the Gilded Age
- Part II The American Century
- Part III The Power of Popular Culture
- Further Reading
- Index
- References
Summary
In the 1820s, newspapers, religious tracts, pamphlets, magazines, and books became available in vast, affordable quantities to Americans across all classes. This print revolution occurred because of expanding literacy rates, new industrial technologies for mass production, population growth, new transportation modes for wider distribution, and the new Jacksonian ideology of populist democracy. Fiction became especially popular in book form and serialized in magazines and newspapers. After the Civil War, the publishing industry consolidated, and an efficient, interlocked network of syndicates, subscription sales, and door-to-door salesmen popularized the leading authors of the day. Perhaps more germane to the “democratizing” role of nineteenth-century publishing were the penny press and the dime novel. Each offered newspapers or books for cheap prices, making their literature available to urban working classes. This rich, diverse volume of nineteenth-century print culture established the dynamics of American popular culture.
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- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture , pp. 33 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
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