Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (Society and the Sexes in the Modern Worl) [Hardcover]

Professor Kathleen M. Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Society and the Sexes in the Modern Worl | Publication Date: January 27, 2009

A nation’s standards of private cleanliness reveal much about its ideals of civilization, fears of disease, and expectations for public life, says Kathleen Brown in this unusual cultural history. Starting with the shake-up of European practices that coincided with Atlantic expansion, she traces attitudes toward “dirt” through the mid-nineteenth century, demonstrating that cleanliness—and the lack of it—had moral, religious, and often sexual implications. Brown contends that care of the body is not simply a private matter but an expression of cultural ideals that reflect the fundamental values of a society.

The book explores early America’s evolving perceptions of cleanliness, along the way analyzing the connections between changing public expectations for appearance and manners, and the backstage work of grooming, laundering, and housecleaning performed by women. Brown provides an intimate view of cleanliness practices and how such forces as urbanization, immigration, market conditions, and concerns about social mobility influenced them. Broad in historical scope and imaginative in its insights, this book expands the topic of cleanliness to encompass much larger issues, including religion, health, gender, class, and race relations. (20100809)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brown has framed an intriguing new area of research and gathered a surprisingly rich source of textual evidence. Marvelous."—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A Midwife''s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

(Laurel Thatcher Ulrich )

“Foul Bodies offers readers the highest reward of historical scholarship: the ability to see their own actions in new and wiser ways. Under Kathleen Brown''s intense scrutiny things as routine as bathing become complex and consequential historical productions.”—Mary P. Ryan, Johns Hopkins University

(Mary P. Ryan )

"A wonderful book and an astute mixture of unobtrusive theory and dogged research. Brown links ideology and value, the negotiation of gender, class and race, with the body as lived and performed. But it is the author''s ability to appreciate and represent the almost tactile circumstantiality of life that makes Foul Bodies so special—and so readable."—Charles E. Rosenberg, author of Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now 

(Charles E. Rosenberg )

“With path breaking and provocative precision, Foul Bodies analyzes the historical body. Brown shows how trans-Atlantic migrations and gendered body work co-determine race and class hierarchies and define civility, cultural values and citizenship. This text enriches previous scholarship immeasurably.”—Susan E. Cayleff, San Diego State University

(Susan E. Cayleff )

"Brown must be congratulated for offering historians the first sustained consideration of early American preoccupations with ideas and practices of cleanliness. . . . A big and important contribution. . . . Brown''s is a sophisticated and convincing analysis. . . . The research, analysis, and writing are wonderfully evocative. One gets a profound sense, not just of the constant fight against filth waged by early Americans, bit of this fight''s powerful moral, economic, and political implications. . . . Foul Bodies should do more than any previous work to draw historians of early America into this important area of study."—Jonathan Eacott, Journal of World History

(Jonathan Eacott Journal of World History )

"A fascinating, ambitious, and creative book. . . . Beyond the compelling, gritty details that help illustrate its sweeping argument, Foul Bodies suggests several promising new directions for historians to explore further, particularly at the intersections of material culture, technology, sexuality, class, gender, race, and the environment."—Ann M. Little, William and Mary Quarterly

(Ann M. Little William and Mary Quarterly )

"Foul Bodies is provocative in the best way, raising troubling questions about how we do history and how we live our lives."—Jan Ellen Lewis, William and Mary Quarterly

(Jan Ellen Lewis William and Mary Quarterly )

About the Author

Kathleen M. Brown is professor of history, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. She lives in Merion Station, PA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300106181
• ISBN-13: 978-0300106183
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #990,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Written with brilliance!, March 21, 2011

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This review is from: Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (Society and the Sexes in the Modern Worl) (Paperback)

It would be truly impossible to articulate that vast depth and expanse that this author/professor has accomplished in her latest book. Nothing has previously been done in such a range and scope that can come to properly compare itself to the brilliant theoretical chain that ties our relationship to clean ideals, or "body work," and our western reality today.

This book was not as burdensome as some other academic books often come off as, but rather is fairly accessible and fun to flip through if one has only some spare time to. And don't let the bland cover toss you as it almost did for me!