Home Foul bodies cleanliness in early America by Brown, Kathleen M. (ISBN: 9780300106183)

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Foul bodies cleanliness in early America Hardcover - 2008

Name: Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (Society and the Sexes in the Modern Worl)
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Author: Professor Kathleen M. Brown
ISBN: 9780300106183

by Brown, Kathleen M.

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From the publisher

A nation s standards of private cleanliness reveal much about its ideals of civilization, fears of disease, and expectations for public life, says Kathleen Brown in this unusual cultural history. Starting with the shake-up of European practices that coincided with Atlantic expansion, she traces attitudes toward dirt through the mid-nineteenth century, demonstrating that cleanliness and the lack of it had moral, religious, and often sexual implications. Brown contends that care of the body is not simply a private matter but an expression of cultural ideals that reflect the fundamental values of a society.

The book explores early America s evolving perceptions of cleanliness, along the way analyzing the connections between changing public expectations for appearance and manners, and the backstage work of grooming, laundering, and housecleaning performed by women. Brown provides an intimate view of cleanliness practices and how such forces as urbanization, immigration, market conditions, and concerns about social mobility influenced them. Broad in historical scope and imaginative in its insights, this book expands the topic of cleanliness to encompass much larger issues, including religion, health, gender, class, and race relations."

Details

Title Foul bodies cleanliness in early America
Author Brown, Kathleen M.
Binding Hardcover
Edition First Edition
Pages 464
Language ENG
Publisher Yale University Press, New Haven
Date 2008
ISBN 9780300106183
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008022131

About the author

Kathleen M. Brown is professor of history, University of Pennsylvania, and author of "Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia." She lives in Merion Station, PA.