@phdthesis{bibcite_13344,
  author = {J. Arthur Bond},
  title = {Elevating American Culture: Realism, Refined Taste, and the Print Artifact in the Century Magazine during the 1880s},
  abstract = {This dissertation examines the Century Magazine{\textquoteright}s inculcation of a refined American taste through the dissemination of significant print artifacts. Conceptualizing taste as a specific kind of late-nineteenth- century literacy practice, the dissertation analyzes how the Century{\textquoteright}s cultivation of taste served as an overlay for other cultural work, particularly by displacing concerns about the workforce, class strife, gender relations, and national cultural legitimacy. By interpreting texts of literary realism, editorials, domestic advice, wood engravings, literary criticism, and advertisements which appeared in the pages of the magazine, this project ultimately argues that the Century conceived of its enterprise as a stabilizing and uplifting influence on its readers, and in turn conceived those readers as participating in the elevation of lower, non-Century readers to those same taste standards. The dissertation provides a rich historical understanding of the engagement of periodicals, through their editorial projects, in the advancement of an ideal of culture.},
  year = {1999},
  pages = {261 pp.},
  publisher = {Indiana University},
  language = {English},
}