Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States
Most Americans take taking a vacation for granted, but in this fascinating study Aron shows that the idea of taking time away from work for leisure is a relatively recent development. Aron, an associate professor of history, portrayed the rise of a new social and economic class withLadies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle-Class Workers in Victorian America. Now she traces the growth of vacationing as a family and a social ritual. Beginning from when vacations were the privilege of the early nineteenth-century elite, she chronicles how vacations became a middle-class custom. Because one of Aron's interests is in how vacation resorts themselves became agents of change, she limits her survey to vacations taken within the U.S. and concludes it at the beginning of World War II. She also suggests that vacations stirred "cultural anxieties," that many "struggled with the notion of taking time off from work." Aron shows how many vacations were devoted to intellectual, religious, and therapeutic activities.David Rouse--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.