Title: Cheap amusements
First published: 1986
Description: What did young, independent women do for fun and how did they pay their way into New York City's turn-of-the-century pleasure places? [This book] is a fascinating discussion of young working women whose meager wages often fell short of bare subsistence and rarely allowed for entertainment expenses.... [The author] follows working women into saloons, dance halls, Coney Island amusement parks, social clubs, and nickelodeons to explore the culture of these young women between 1880 and 1920 as expressed in leisure activities. By examining the rituals and styles they adopted and placing that culture in the larger context of urban working-class life, she offers us a complex picture of the dynamics shaping a working woman's experience and consciousness at the turn-of-the-century. Not only does her analysis lead us to new insights into working-class culture, changing social relations between single men and women, and urban courtship, but it also gives us a fuller understanding of the cultural transformations that gave rise to the commercialization of leisure. -Introd.
Subjects: Social life and customs, History, Amusements, Women, Recreatie, Lazer (história), Trabalho feminino (história), Freizeit, Frauenarbeit, Frau, Werkende vrouwen, Mulheres (história;vida cotidiana), Working Women, New york (n.y.), social life and customs, Amusements, new york (state), new york, Women, united states, Leisure, Recreation, Young women, Women immigrants, Working class women
Places: New York (State), New York (N.Y.), New York
Time periods: 20th century, 19th century
LC classification: F124 .P38 1986