Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical
- ISBN-10
- 0674011651
- ISBN-13
- 9780674011656
- Series
- Making Americans
- Category
- History (General)
- Pages
- 253
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Author
- Andrea Most
Description
From 1925 to 1951--three chaotic decades of depression, war, and social upheaval--Jewish writers brought to the musical stage a powerfully appealing vision of America fashioned through song and dance. It was an optimistic, meritocratic, selectively inclusive America in which Jews could at once lose and find themselves--assimilation enacted onstage and off, as Andrea Most shows. This book examines two interwoven narratives crucial to an understanding of twentieth-century American culture: the stories of Jewish acculturation and of the development of the American musical.
Here we delve into the work of the most influential artists of the genre during the years surrounding World War II--Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, Dorothy and Herbert Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, and Richard Rodgers--and encounter new interpretations of classics such as The Jazz Singer, Whoopee, Girl Crazy, Babes in Arms, Oklahoma!, Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, and The King and I. Most's analysis reveals how these brilliant composers, librettists, and performers transformed the experience of New York Jews into the grand, even sacred acts of being American. Read in the context of memoirs, correspondence, production designs, photographs, and newspaper clippings, the Broadway musical clearly emerges as a form by which Jewish artists negotiated their entrance into secular American society. In this book we see how the communities these musicals invented and the anthems they popularized constructed a vision of America that fostered self-understanding as the nation became a global power.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2002-06-15
- 400 pages
- Paperback
- Harvard University Press
-
- 2023-10-03
- - pages
- Paperback
- Beacon Press
-
- 2022-10-04
- 378 pages
- Paperback
- Beacon Press
-
- 2022-10-04
- 378 pages
- Paperback
- Beacon Press
Similar books
-
History of the British Standing Army.
By Clifford WaltonClerk (or) Clark, Esqre.," held the appointment ; he was son to Sir Wm. Clarke, :1 sort of Secretary-at-War, and does not appear to have been bred up to the law. In Ireland the post was held from 1635 to 1637 by W. Clerke, J.C.B., E.
-
Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics
By Karen M. Paget, Linda Witt, Glenna Matthews... and, judging by the strange new media venues, "Saturday Night Live," "Donahue," and gossip columnist Lany King's radio and television call-in shows on which 1992's Losing 245.
-
Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925
By Karen A. J. MillerHis stature within the party leadership would suffer a significant blow at the Cleveland convention . Although both Lodge and Coolidge came from Massachusetts , they represented very different elements in their state's Republican party ...
-
你一定爱读的极简世界史
By , 李菲(英)玛丽奥特, 李菲. 疆域达到了最大,罗德岛、塞浦路斯和安纳托利亚西南岸上都是他们的地盘。迈锡尼人还将克里特文字变成了一种希腊文,翻译过来的文字显示,迈锡尼人也信仰一些古典希腊的神灵,如海神波塞冬、太阳神阿波罗和主神宙斯。
-
原始富足
By 詹姆斯．舒茲曼★ 《人類大歷史》作者哈拉瑞盛讚：「深具啟發、精彩好看！」 ★ 2017年《華盛頓郵報》最佳非虛構類寫作圖書 ★ 2017年美國國家公共廣播平台（NPR）年度好書 ...
-
The American Journey: A History of the United States
By David R. Goldfield, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, William L. BarneyAnna J. Cooper , A Voice from the South , 1892 Anna Julia Cooper , A Voice from the South ( Xenia , Ohio : The Aldine Printing House , 1892 ) : 134-135 , 138–140 , 142–145 . The book may be accessed from the Internet ...
-
A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to...
By Frank Hamilton CushingThis book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide.
-
The Winning of the West
By Theodore Roosevelt... inhabitants are greatly Exposd . to the Saviges by whome our wives and Childring are daly Cruily murdered Notwithstanding our most Humble Petitions Canot Obtain Redress- By an other act we are Taxd . which in our 398 APPENDICES .
-
History of American Abolitionism; Its Four Great Epochs, Embracing Narratives of the Ordinance of 1787, Compromise of 1820, Annexation of...
By F. G. 1832-1896 De FontaineThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
-
The African-American Odyssey: To 1877
By Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley HarroldSupreme Court Justices ( continued ) Name * Years on Court Appointing President John Marshall Harlan William J. Brennan , Jr. Charles E. Whittaker Potter Stewart Byron R. White Arthur J. Goldberg Abe Fortas Thurgood Marshall WARREN E.