Hope in a Jar : The Making of Americas Beauty Culture

English

ISBN: 0812221672

EAN: 9780812221671

Category: Health & Fitness / Beauty & Grooming

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Release Date: 05/01/2011

Synopsis: How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a kitchen physic, as homemade cosmetics were once called, become a multibillion-dollar industry? And how did men finally take over that rarest of institutions, a womans business? In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us the first full-scale social history of Americas beauty culture, from the buttermilk and rice powder recommended by Victorian recipe books to the mass-produced products of our contemporary consumer age. She shows how women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare their freedom, identity, and sexual allure as they flocked to enter public life. And she highlights the leading role of white and black women-Helena Rubenstein and Annie Turnbo Malone, Elizabeth Arden and Madame C. J. Walker-in shaping a unique industry that relied less on advertising than on womens customs of visiting and conversation. Replete with the voices and experiences of ordinary women, Hope in a Jaris a richly textured account of how women created the cosmetics industry and cosmetics created the modern woman.

Hope in a Jar : The Making of Americas Beauty Culture

Illustrated: Yes

Format: Paperback

Width: 6.0 inches

Length: 9.0 inches

Pages: 352