Newlyweds on Tour

by Penner, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9781584657736
• ISBN10: 1584657731
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-07-31
• Publisher: Univ of New Hampshire

Summary

Newlyweds on Tour is the first historical study to trace the origins and growth of the American honeymoon from 1820 to 1900. Rather than treating the honeymoon as a simple by-product of the privatization of the family, this work argues that it was formed at the interstices of and helped articulate a variety of narratives--patriotic, conjugal, sentimental, and sexual--that were central to modern American national identity. To track these narratives, Penner moves between primary accounts of newlywed experiences--diaries and letters--and a wide range of textual, visual and architectural representations--matrimonial maps, engravings from the popular press, sensational novels, and palace hotel bridal chambers. Her wide-ranging interdisciplinary analysis demonstrates the specific ways in which newlyweds on tour prompted individual and collective feelings of attachment whether to the ideals of egalitarian marriage, domesticity, nation or sentiment itself. Above all, she argues that the honeymoon was key to legitimizing the union of sentiment and commerce, a union that continues to thrive today.

Author Biography

BARBARA PENNER is Lecturer in Architectural History, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College, London. She is co-editor of Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
	p. 1
Touring: The Northern Bridal Tour	p. 28
Mapping: The Land of Matrimony	p. 55
Affecting: Newlyweds and the Sentimental View	p. 89
Consuming: The Palace Bridal Chamber	p. 124
Retreating: The Natural Honeymoon	p. 157
Homecoming: A Domestic Initiation	p. 190
Conclusion	p. 225
Notes	p. 235
Index	p. 281
Plates follow	p. 146
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.