From the readings (French and Kasson), compare and contrast the public culture of Victorian America with the popular or consumer culture (amusement parks, advertising, the movies, e.g.) characteristic of 20th-century America.
In your essay, explore the following questions. How did the goals of each form of public culture differ from each other? How were the differences or similarities between the two cultures reflected in the shift from the “culture of character” to the “culture of personality”?
How did the rules of etiquette that guided the conduct of Victorian men and women in public differ from the ways men and women behaved in the world of mass culture in the 20th century?
And finally, which elements of the ideology advocated by the early 20th-century avant-garde Bohemians were adopted by the new popular or consumer culture?
In your essay, be sure to draw on the films Coney Island (1917 Coney Island Buster Keaton) and The Crowd, the video demonstrating the “Black Bottom,” and the US Army and Marine recruitment videfktos to support your arguments.
