Character is capital: success manuals and manhood in Gilded Age AmericaIn late nineteenth-century America, a new type of book became commonplace in millions of homes across the country. Volumes sporting such titles as The Way to Winand Onward to Fame and Fortunepromised to show young men how to succeed in life. But despite their upbeat titles, success manuals offered neither practical business advice nor a simple celebration of the American Dream. Instead, as Judy Hilkey reveals, they presented a dire picture of an uncertain new age, portraying life in the newly industrialized nation as a brutal struggle for survival, but arguing that adherence to old-fashioned virtues enabled any determined man to succeed. Hilkey offers a cultural history of success manuals and the industry that produced and marketed them. She examines the books' appearance, iconography, and intended audience--primarily native-born, rural and small-town men of modest means and education--and explores the genre's use of gendered language to equate manhood with success, femininity with failure. Ultimately, argues Hilkey, by articulating a worldview that helped legitimate the new social order to those most threatened by it, success manuals urged readers to accommodate themselves to the demands of life in the industrial age. |
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Contents
The Success Manual of the Gilded Age | 13 |
Success Manual Authors and Their World | 55 |
The Possibility | 74 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
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Acres of Diamonds advice American audience authors Bates battle book agents called career century cess manual chap chapter entitled claimed Coin's Financial School Conwell courtesy General Research Dale economic example failure Fame and Fortune farm feminine gender genre Gilded Age America Haines and Yaggy Hidden Treasures Ibid ideology illustrations Imperial Highway important Incorporation of America industrial order Knights of Labor labor literature manhood manly Marden Masters Mathews means middle class moral nineteenth Norbert Elias offered Onward to Fame opportunity Organization of American Orison Swett Marden Owen popular Portraits and Principles published readers Royal Path rural and small-town Russell Conwell Samuel Smiles Self-Help self-made sexual Smiles social social Darwinism society sold subscription book subscription trade succeed success writers Thayer Tilley tion titles Trachtenberg wealth William William Makepeace Thayer willpower women wrote success manuals York Public Library young
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Character is capital: success manuals and manhood in Gilded Age America |
| Author | Judy Arlene Hilkey |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | University of North Carolina Press, 1997 |
| ISBN | 0807846589, 9780807846582 |
| Length | 210 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Business Etiquette Business & Economics / Commerce Business & Economics / Development / General Business & Economics / Entrepreneurship Business & Economics / Personal Success Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies Social Science / Men's Studies Social Science / Social Classes |
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