Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York [Paperback]

Kathy Peiss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1986 | ISBN-10: 0877225001 | ISBN-13: 978-0877225003

What did young, independent women do for fun and how did they pay their way into New York City's turn-of-the-century pleasure places? "Cheap Amusements" is a fascinating discussion of young working women whose meager wages often fell short of bare subsistence and rarely allowed for entertainment expenses. Kathy Peiss follows working women into saloons, dance halls, Coney Island amusement parks, social clubs, and nickelodeons to explore the culture of these young women between 1880 and 1920 as expressed in leisure activities.By examining the rituals and styles they adopted and placing that culture in the larger context of urban working-class life, she offers us a complex picture of the dynamics shaping a working woman's experience and consciousness at the turn-of-the-century. Not only does her analysis lead us to new insights into working-class culture, changing social relations between single men and women, and urban courtship, but it also gives us a fuller understanding of the cultural transformations that gave rise to the commercialization of leisure.The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "heterosocial companionship" as a dominant ideology of gender, affirming mixed-sex patterns of social interaction, in contrast to the nineteenth century's segregated spheres. "Cheap Amusements" argues that a crucial part of the "reorientation of American culture" originated from below, specifically in the subculture of working women to be found in urban dance halls and amusement resorts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Peiss has made a major contribution to feminist scholarship...in helping to restore working-class women to history." --International Journal of the History of Sport "In her beautifully written, meticulously documented, and precisely argued study, [the author] describes in detail how young working women spent their free time and money." --David Nasaw, dissent "The author is at her best in her 'case studies' of the evolving patterns of activity, socialization, and culture in those dance halls, amusement parks, and motion picture theaters." --Susan Esterbrook Kennedy, The Journal of American History "Cheap Amusements take[s] us beyond the flat stereotypes of 19th-century poor and laboring women... Peiss' extensive research provides us with a wealth of details about amusements parks, early silent-movie plots, and dance styles in the working-class dance palaces of the city. She traces the development of Coney Island from a male-recreation bastion of gambling houses, saloons, and brothels to a mixed-sex resort of concert halls, dance pavilions, and variety shows where women occupied the audience as well as the stage... Peiss places prostitution within the context of a range of exchanges between women and men...[which] gave women access to more of the world than their wages alone could bring them, but they also enforced their dependency and rendered them vulnerable to coercion and exploitation." --Lisa Duggan, Ms. Magazine

From the Publisher

The dilemmas of work and leisure for women at the turn-of-the-century

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Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (April 6, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877225001
• ISBN-13: 978-0877225003
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Women's Appropriation of Leisure, December 8, 2001

By 

Tanja M. Laden (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cheap Amusements:Working Women & Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Hardcover)

Peiss begins her argument by explaining the relationship of industrial capitalism to wage labor in creating class-conscious leisure arenas, literally recalling Roy Rosenzweig's study. Peiss's distinction lies in "this conception of leisure did not develop historically in the same way for both sexes." (Peiss, 4). Sexual division ultimately shaped and confined women's leisure to their homes. Thus, the typical wage-earning females in pursuit of leisure were young and single. Their youth and marriage status turned their attentions from the leisurely pursuits of Rosenzweig's working men but to dance halls, amusement parks, and movie theatres.
The emerging youth-oriented forms of recreation could not be ignored by the commercial industry, which viewed female participation as lucrative. In addition, these commercialized forms of amusement fostered a heterosocial culture that eventually brought new meanings and restriction to same-sex gender friendships. Rather than stand by and chronicle these changes in leisure for working-class women, Peiss makes the bold argument that these women were actual agents in shaping the nature of their leisure, and Peiss proves again and again to be correct. Even more impressive is her claim that the majority of these women were immigrants or second-generation immigrants (Peiss, 56-88). In examining the actual amusements of working-class women--dance halls, excursions, amusement parks, and the movies, Peiss illustrates vividly how women had a place in the architecture of their own leisure.
It is Peiss's conclusion that women's suffrage and the growth of women in the public sphere "infectiously appealed to other middle-class women who were less politicized. Dancing sensual dances, attending cabarets and nightclubs, living as "bachelor girls" in apartment houses, these women expressed a new-found sense of freedom and possibility." (Peiss, 185). Interestingly, the phenomena of entertainment for working-class women eventually made its way to the middle-class, though the "cheap" amusements deliberately shed their vulgarity for the more formal tastes of the middle-class. Although the adventures of the single working-class woman often ceased with marriage, their new leisure pursuits would only grow with consumerism.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye opener., December 3, 1999

By 

N. S. Burk (NH, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Paperback)

Peiss's work reveals in detail the social implications of young, middle class women's free time in turn-of-the century New York. Based on diaries and reports from the time, Peiss delivers with impact a convincing and highly interesting discussion on how just a few extra hours, a few days out of the week eroded American Victorianism. She writes with authority while keeping her writing very readable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the other half played, March 14, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Paperback)

In her book, GILDED CITY, M.H. Dunlop chronicled the execesses and outrages of upper class New Yorkers (especially the women of the uppermost uppers) at the turn of the 20th century. While hiding behind the facade that the lavish parties and balls they threw and the exorbitant clothes they had tailored for themselves were giving jobs to the lower classes, their effect was to shamelessly display their wealth and, ultimately, enrage a lower class that was finding the economy and job market less and less bearable. Peiss' style is scholarly yet without the distancing effect that that form of writing usually exhibits in less skilled hands. Her knowledge and passion for the subject are easily identifiable in this wonderful book.

Kathy Peiss' CHEAP AMUSEMENTS, for me, is the flipside of the situation. The working women of New York, especially immigrant women, needed some way to spend what little leisure time they had with the little discretionary spending they had. Rather than simply identifying the spots like some old guidebook, Peiss explores each type of simple pleasure ground available to the girls, and how and why they became so popular. On a second level, the book examines the social and sometimes political consequences of this class of working women--bachelorettes--and their spending habits.