Synopses & Reviews
'Focusing on the city of Worcester, Massachusetts the author takes the reader to the saloons, the amusement parks, and the movie houses where American industrial workers spent their leisure hours, to explore the nature of working-class culture and class relations during this era.'
Synopsis
'In the first comprehensive study of American working-class recreation, Professor Rosenzweig takes us to the saloons, the ethnic and church picnics, the parks and playgrounds, the amusement parks, and the movie houses where industrial workers spent their leisure hours. Focusing on the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, he describes the profound changes that popular leisure underwent.\n
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. Context: 1. Workers in an industrial city, 1870-1920; Part II. Culture: The Working-Class World of the Late Nineteenth-Century: 2. The rise of the saloon; 3. Immigrant workers and the fourth of july; Part III. Conflict: Struggles Over Working-Class Leisure in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: 4. The struggle over the saloon, 1870-1910; 5. The struggle over recreational space: the development of parks and playgrounds; 6. The struggle over the fourth: the safe and sane july fourth movement and the immigrant working class; Part IV. Culture, Conflict, and Change: The Working-Class World of the Early Twentieth Century: 7. The commercialization of leisure: the rise of a leisure market and the persistence of the saloon; 8. From rum shop to Rialto: workers and movies; Conclusion; Abbreviations used in notes; Notes; A note on sources; Index.