Hard at play : leisure in America, 1840-1940
"In American society, the concepts of "leisure" and "play" usually have been defined in opposition to the idea of "work." Yet as Dutch historian Johan Huizinga argued in his pathbreaking study Homo Ludens, the relationship between work and play is more complicated than this simple dichotomy suggests. Understood as a state of mind rather than as an activity, play can make the most challenging task relaxing, even joyful. At the same time, the pursuit of leisure can be serious business indeed." "Hard at Play is a collection of original essays that examine the role of leisure in American culture from the antebellum period to World War II. Encompassing a variety of disciplinary approaches, the pieces cover a wide range of topics, from roller skating and riflery to photography and "free play." Some of the essays explore how the upper and middle classes established boundaries around "appropriate" forms of recreation in order to distance themselves from the working class. Others demonstrate how gender and ethnicity circumscribed leisure pursuits. Still other essays document the transition of both individuals and families from a posed and formal social life to a more relaxed, candid, and intimate domestic world. The book includes more than 100 illustrations, as well as a glossary of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century games and pastimes."--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©1992
University of Massachusetts Press ; Strong Museum, Amherst, Rochester, N.Y., ©1992
Congresses
vi, 262 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
9780870237928, 9780870237935, 0870237926, 0870237934
24698074
Introduction : are we having fun yet? / Katherine C. Grier
Recreation in a Christian America : Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1869-1914 / Glenn Uminowicz
"The Germans take care of our celebrations" : middle-class Americans appropriate German ethnic culture in Buffalo in the 1850s / David A. Gerber
Roller-skating toward industrialism / Dwight W. Hoover
American angling : the rise of urbanism and the romance of the rod and reel / Colleen J. Sheehy
"Another branch of manly sport" : American rifle games, 1840-1900 / Russell S. Gilmore
A room with a view : the parlor stereoscope, comic stereographs, and the psychic role of play in Victorian America / Shirley Wajda. Ladies of leisure : domestic photography in the nineteenth century / Madelyn Moeller
Children's play in American autobiographies, 1820-1914 / Bernard Mergen
Fox and geese in the school yard : play and America's country schools, 1870-1940 / Andrew Gulliford
The natural limits of unstructured play, 1880-1914 / Donald J. Mrozek
"This collection of essays originated from the Symposium "American Play, 1820-1900" which took place at the Strong Museum on November 6 and 7, 1987"--Introduction