From Publishers Weekly
Montgomery uses letters, print media sources, etiquette manuals and the New York fiction of Edith Wharton and Henry James to explore the role of women in New York at the turn of the 19th century. Her study is a fascinating one that follows women through the machinery of manners as they move, for the first time, out of doors?not to run errands, but to see and be seen. Women became the markers of the new leisure class. Where they led, everyone wanted to follow. And it was the emerging print media that let everyone know where they were going. Weeklies like Town Topics alerted readers as to where, what and with whom these women ate. The more the press wrote about what they wore and did, the more attention they paid to such things, until each outing became an exhibition. The idea of "the male gaze" came into fruition along with, as Montgomery puts it, "the sexualization of women's appearance in public space." Although women seemed to be coming into their own, little changed in their position in relation to men: their behavior was just as regulated as ever and even more scrutinized; their public display of wealth reflected the power of their husbands. High society wooed the media for this purpose, but also cowered from its ceaseless gaze?an irreconcilable situation that ended up creating an infinite dependence. In essence, Montgomery deftly shows how turn-of-the-century New York brought about the marriage of publicity and culture?a relationship where one could not survive or, rather, thrive, without the other. Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Montgomery offers vital insight into the operation of [gender and class] in one particular, and culturally significant, place and time. --
American Literary RealismStudents of US literature, culture, and women's history will welcome this well-documented, readable study of fashionalbe post-Civil War New York...All academic collections. --
Choice...Montgomery deftly shows how turn-of-the-century New York brought about the marriage of publicity and culture--a relationship where one could not survive or, rather, thrive without the other. --
Publisher's WeeklyRecommended for all collections. --
ChoiceThe leisured world of society women in Edith Wharton's New York may have disappeared completely as Schliemann's Troy or Imperial Rome, but it is brought vividly to life by Maureen Montgomery in this fascinating study of a rigidly and artificially ordered culture that brought women curiously unexpected advantages as well as deadly drawbacks. -- Louis Auchincloss
Finally! A study of the truly elite women of the turn of the century metropolis, which uses all the best new tools of cultural studies and gender analysis. Maureen Montgomery has given us a crucial element for our understanding of class relations and of femininity at the dawn of the twentieth century. -- Ellen Carol DuBois, UCLA
...the book is as interesting as it is relaxing, and as relaxing as it must have been for a pampered woman of the times to have that cup of tea after her rounds of debutante balls... --
The New York Times Book ReviewStudents of US literature, culture, and women's history will welcome this well-documented, readable study of fashionable post-Civil War New York. --
ChoiceThis excellent study of New York society women takes us well beyond the question of whether upper-class women are worthy of our attention; Displaying Women demonstrates convincingly that they played a key role in the formation of America's ruling class and of our late twentieth-century cult of celebrity.
