Celebrating the family : ethnicity, consumer culture, and family rituals / Elizabeth H. Pleck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pleck, Elizabeth H. (Elizabeth Hafkin), 1945- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rites and ceremonies--United States.

Rites and ceremonies.

Holidays--Economic aspects--United States.

Holidays.

Special events--Economic aspects--United States.

Special events.

Families--United States.

Families.

Consumption (Economics)--United States.

Consumption (Economics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (338 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, [2000]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Nostalgia for the imagined warm family gatherings of yesteryear has colored our understanding of family celebrations. Elizabeth Pleck examines family traditions over two centuries and finds a complicated process of change in the way Americans have celebrated holidays such as Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Chinese New Year, and Passover as well as the life cycle rituals of birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. By the early nineteenth century carnivalesque celebrations outside the home were becoming sentimental occasions that used consumer culture and displays of status and wealth to celebrate the idea of home and family. The 1960s saw the full emergence of a postsentimental approach to holiday celebration, which takes place outside as often as inside the home, and recognizes changes in the family and women's roles, as well as the growth of ethnic group consciousness. This multicultural, comparative history of American family celebration, rich in detail and spiced with telling anecdotes and illustrations and a keen sense of irony, offers insight into the significance of ethnicity and consumer culture in shaping what people regard as the most memorable moments of family life.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE Festivals, Rites, and Presents

CHAPTER TWO Family, Feast, and Football

CHAPTER THREE Holiday Blues and Pfeffernusse

CHAPTER FOUR Easter Breads and Bunnies

CHAPTER FIVE Festival of Freedom

CHAPTER SIX Eating and Explosives

CHAPTER SEVEN Cakes and Candles

CHAPTER EIGHT Rites of Passage

CHAPTER NINE Please Omit Flowers

CHAPTER TEN The Bride Once Wore Black

CHAPTER ELEVEN Rituals, Families, and Identities

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [251]-323) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780674276888

0674276884