Popular Culture is a central part of everyday life to many Americans.
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When Native Americans, blacks, and other non-whites appeared in the nineteenth-century circuses and Wild West shows, it was often to perpetuate demeaning racial stereotypes -- crowds jeered Sitting Bull at Cody\'s shows.
Ashby describes how History and politics frequently influence mainstream entertainment.
Adah Isaacs Menken astonished crowds by wearing tights that made her appear nude while performing dangerous stunts on horseback, and the shows of the voluptuous burlesque group British Blondes often centered on provocative images of female sexual power and dominance.
At the same time, however, several female performers challenged traditional notions of weak, frail Victorian women.
Sullivan.
Bailey, Wild West star "Buffalo Bill" Cody, professional baseball organizer Albert Spalding, and prizefighter John L.
Barnum and James A.
T.
Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie: the celebrities of the day were circus tycoons P.
For example, in the late nineteenth century, Americans embraced "self-made men" such as John D.
Trends in Popular entertainment often reveal the tensions between competing ideologies, appetites, and values in American society.
Paying careful attention to matters of race, gender, class, technology, economics, and politics, Le Roy Ashby emphasizes the complex ways in which Popular Culture simultaneously reflects and transforms American culture, revealing that the world of entertainment constantly evolves as it tries to meet the demands of a diverse audience.
With Amusement for All is the first comprehensive History of two centuries of mass entertainment in the United States, covering everything from the penny press to Playboy, the NBA to NASCAR, big band to hip hop, and other topics including film, comics, television, sports, dance, and music.
Personalities such as Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan are more recognizable to many people than are most elected officials.
Popular Culture is a central part of everyday life to many Americans
