"The contradiction between parlor culture and business culture of the enveloping national economy grew out of the history of the parlor, a history that introduced a deep-seated ambivalence into parlor life. The reason for this disjuncture was that parlors were borrowed from another culture, from royal courts and aristocratic drawing rooms, and did not grow organically from the everyday experiences of the ordinary people who inhabited them. By so borrowing, the middle class introduced into their houses a culture that was alien to their ordinary lives, a culture that valued polish and repose and repudiated work in contrast to the homely, middle-class regard for industry and efficiency. In the aristocratic drawing room, polished manners were the means to advancement in a world of real power; in the middle-class parlor they were an adornment, irrelevant to the world of business in farmyard, shop and factory."
parlored
-- The Refinement of America, Persons, Houses, Cities, Richard L. Bushman, 1992, p. 264.
No comments:
Post a Comment