Kathy Peiss delves into modern American cultural history, with a specific focus on the history of American sexuality, women, and gender. Her research spans the history of working women, cross-class and interracial sexuality, leisure, style, and popular culture, as well as the beauty industry and the role of libraries in American cultural policy. She is particularly interested in how culture shapes the everyday lives and popular beliefs of Americans throughout history. Peiss's work critically examines the dynamic interplay between cultural forces and the formation of social norms and individual identities.
During and immediately after World War II, an unlikely band of librarians and scholars, soldiers and spies were dispatched to Europe to collect books and documents, to acquire and preserve the written word as well as provide critical information for intelligence purposes.
Exploring the iconic Zoot Suit, this book delves into its rise during World War II and its subsequent influence across the globe. It highlights the intersection of youth culture and fashion politics, providing a fresh viewpoint on how this distinctive style became a symbol of identity and resistance. Through its journey from Harlem to international prominence, the narrative reveals the cultural significance of the Zoot Suit in shaping social dynamics during a pivotal era.
How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a "kitchen physic," as homemade cosmetics were once called, become a multibillion-dollar industry? And how did men finally take over that rarest of institutions, a woman's business? In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us the first full-scale social history of America's beauty culture, from the buttermilk and rice powder recommended by Victorian recipe books to the mass-produced products of our contemporary consumer age. She shows how women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare their freedom, identity, and sexual allure as they flocked to enter public life. And she highlights the leading role of white and black women—Helena Rubenstein and Annie Turnbo Malone, Elizabeth Arden and Madame C. J. Walker—in shaping a unique industry that relied less on advertising than on women's customs of visiting and conversation. Replete with the voices and experiences of ordinary women, Hope in a Jar is a richly textured account of the ways women created the cosmetics industry and cosmetics created the modern woman.
Designed for courses in American sexuality, gender studies, and LGBTQ+ studies, this book offers a curated selection of readings that enable students to engage with primary sources. It encourages critical evaluation of historical interpretations by renowned historians, fostering independent analysis and conclusions.