Rethinking Social Class and American Music

[...] Jennifer Goloboy traces the adoption of middle-class values by lower-middleand working-class Americans in the early nineteenth century, including through music and dance lessons, in a conscious effort to obtain the American ideal of upward class mobility.33 Might Goloboy's study offer his...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of the American Musicological Society Vol. 64; no. 3; p. 696
Main Author Magee, Gayle Sherwood
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Richmond University of California Press Books Division 01.10.2011
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Summary:[...] Jennifer Goloboy traces the adoption of middle-class values by lower-middleand working-class Americans in the early nineteenth century, including through music and dance lessons, in a conscious effort to obtain the American ideal of upward class mobility.33 Might Goloboy's study offer historical detail concerning music teaching, musical instruments, and the imported European traditions embraced by lower income populations that longed to, but in many cases never achieved, middle-class status? Since scholars from diverse class backgrounds may be more conscious of class identity, and may ask fresh, provocative questions concerning entidement and privilege, one of the major obstacles to a more class-conscious approach to American music history is "the academy's prevalent classism," in the words of Kenneth Oldfield and Richard Greggory Johnson III.
ISSN:0003-0139
1547-3848