American Social Classes in the 1950s : Selections from Vance Packard's the Status Seekers

by Packard, Vance; Horowitz, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780312111809
• ISBN10: 0312111800
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-01-15
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

This abridged edition of Vance Packard's 1959The Status Seekerspresents a picture of American society in the late 1950s that allows students to develop a more accurate and complex understanding of an often-caricatured era. Daniel Horowitz's introduction provides historical context, an assssment of the book's impact, and a discussion of its critical reception.

Author Biography

Daniel Horowitz is professor of American studies and history at Smith College. His scholarly work focuses on the cultural, social, and intellectual history of the United States. He is the author of The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940, which was selected by Choice Magazine as one of the outstanding academic books of 1984. His most recent book, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (1994), examines the life and impact of one of the nation's most widely read nonfiction writers of the postwar period.

Table of Contents

Foreword	iii
Preface	v
PART ONE Introduction: Social Criticism in an Age of Conformity and Anxiety	1	(28)
PART TWO The Document	29	(178)
The Status Seekers	31	(176)
APPENDICES
The Status Seekers in Cartoons	191	(5)
The United States and Vance Packard from the 1940s to the 1960s: A Chronology of Political Events, Consumer Culture, and Social Criticism	196	(7)
Questions for Consideration	203	(1)
Selected Bibliography	204	(3)
Index	207