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Cheap Amusements - School Essays

Cheap Amusements

Peiss, Kathy. (1986) . . New York: Temple University.
In , Kathy Peiss studies the customs, values, public styles, and ritualized interactions expressed in leisure time of the working-class women living in New York. The social experiences of these young women gives different clues to the ways in which these women constructed and gave meaning to their lives between the years of 1880-1920.
The laboring poor’s leisure activity was brief, casual, and non-commercial. Amusement was and had to be cheap. It mostly consisted of walks, visiting friends, and reading the penny press. The people of the Lower East Side entertained with sights of interest and penny pleasures such as organ grinders ...

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to supplement the earnings of the father, while the mother cooked, cleaned, cared for the children and manufactured goods in the home. The typical wage-earning woman of 1900 was young and single.
The young single working women experienced time and labor similar to men’s rather than married women’s. They needed to, as Peiss puts, “carve a sphere of pleasure”, out of daily life in the harsh conditions of the shop floor and the tenement. These young women found pleasure in dance halls, amusement parks, and movie theaters. The young women were not content with recreation at home so they went for “organized entertainment”. Dressing up nice, strolling the streets and staying late at amusement parks became an important cultural style for many working women.
Dancing was the greatest passion of all for the single working woman. This is where they played out their cultural style. This is also where it became easy for young men and women to interact. The ...

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/16/2004 09:43:15 PM
Category: English
Type: Free Paper
Words: 524
Pages: 2

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