Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America / Edition 1

by Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

Overview

This first collection of essays by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, one of the leading historians of women, is a landmark in women's studies. Focusing on the "disorderly conduct" women and some men used to break away from the Victorian Era's rigid class and sex roles, it examines the dramatic changes in male-female relations, family structure, sex, social custom, and ritual that occurred as colonial America was transformed by rapid industrialization. Included are two now classic essays on gender relations in 19th-century America, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America" and "The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Order and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936," as well as Smith-Rosenberg's more recent work, on abortion, homosexuality, religious fanatics, and revisionist history.
Throughout Disorderly Conduct, Smith-Rosenberg startles and convinces, making us re-evaluate a society we thought we understood, a society whose outward behavior and inner emotional life now take on a new meaning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195040395
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/29/1986
Series:	Galaxy Books
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	8.61(w) x 5.61(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

University of Michigin

Editorial Reviews

"This eagerly awaited book is sure to become a classic...It's the most comprehensive, elegant, and persuasive account to date of the relationships between gender, class, and culture in nineteenth-century America."—Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

"These essays are among the most carefully informed, well-balanced, and informative sources available to readers interested in women's history."—Bram Dijkstra, Los Angeles Times

"A vital historical backdrop for students."—Gertrude Fraser, Cornell University

"Carroll Smith-Rosenberg is unquestionably the most quoted and cited feminist historian in America today. It is a boon to all serious scholars that her works now appear in one major, accessible volume."—Susan Brownmiller

"A splendid book...A provocative collection of essays...Few historians have used the streams of myth and history so productively."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times Book Review

"Carroll Smith-Rosenberg has left an enduring mark on women's history...She ranks among the most exciting, original voices of the consciously feminist historians."—The Women's Review of Books

"One of those rare books that sets off explosion after explosion in a reader's mind; connection after connection leaps into consciousness from Smith-Rosenberg's richly suggestive tapestry."—Signs

"An excellent, challenging book for upper division students."—April Bullock, Santa Clara University

From the Publisher