The feminization of American culture
By: Ann Douglas.
Publisher: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 403
Subjects: American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Feminism and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Religion and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Calvinism -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Protestantism and literature -- History -- 19th century.; Popular culture -- Religious aspects.; Sentimentalism in literature.
Description: The Feminization of American Culture seeks to explain the values prevalent in today's mass culture by tracing them back to their roots in the Victorian era.

As religion lost its hold on the public mind, clergymen and educated women, powerless and insignificant in the society of the time, together profoundly affected the only areas open to their influence, the arts and literature, and women wrote books that idealized the very qualities that kept them powerless - timidity, piety, and a disdain for competition. These sentimental values continue to influence modern culture, preoccupied as it is with glamour, banal melodrama, and mindless consumption.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [346] 388) and index.
Originally published: New York : Knopf, 1977. With a new preface by the author.