Standards of value : money, race, and literature in America / by Michael Germana.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Germana, Michael, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Money in literature.

Race in literature.

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (204 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Standards of Value, Michael Germana reveals how tectonic shifts in U.S. monetary policy-from the Coinage Act of 1834 to the abolition of the domestic gold standard in 1933-34,correspond to strategic changes by American writers who renegotiated the value of racial difference. Populating the pages of this bold and innovative study are authors as varied as Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Washington Cable, Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Ralph Ellison, all of whom drew analogies between the form Americans thought the nation's money should take and t

Contents:

Jacksonian abolitionism: money, minstrelsy, and "Uncle Tom's cabin"

Real change: George Washington Cable's "The grandissimes" and the crime of '73

The gold standard of the passing novel: exploring the limits of strategic essentialism

Black is

an' Black ain't: "Invisible man" and the fiat of race.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-184) and index.

ISBN:

9781587298936

1587298937

OCLC:

646846744