A Taste for Refined Culture

Cynthia Patterson

The Hub, 3
April 03, 2005, 08:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation examines the role of the Philly pictorials -- a group of illustrated, middle-class monthly magazines, including Godey's, Graham's, Peterson's, Miss Leslie's and The Union -- in constructing the boundaries of middle-class culture along the axes of race, class and gender. The dissertation specifically focuses on the magazines' embellishments as sites for the production of hegemonic ideologies, and as agents for the democratization of American art.