1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910792341103321

Autore

Germana Michael <1971->

Titolo

Standards of value [[electronic resource] ] : money, race, and literature in America / / by Michael Germana

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Iowa City, : University of Iowa Press, c2009

ISBN

1-58729-893-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (204 p.)

Disciplina

813/.009/355

Soggetti

American fiction - 19th century - History and criticism

Money in literature

Race in literature

American fiction - 20th century - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-184) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Jacksonian abolitionism: money, minstrelsy, and "Uncle Tom's cabin" -- Real change: George Washington Cable's "The grandissimes" and the crime of '73 -- The gold standard of the passing novel: exploring the limits of strategic essentialism -- Black is-- an' Black ain't: "Invisible man" and the fiat of race.

Sommario/riassunto

In Standards of Value, Michael Germana reveals how tectonic shifts in U.S. monetary policy-from the Coinage Act of 1834 to the abolition of the domestic gold standard in 1933-34,correspond to strategic changes by American writers who renegotiated the value of racial difference. Populating the pages of this bold and innovative study are authors as varied as Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Washington Cable, Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Ralph Ellison, all of whom drew analogies between the form Americans thought the nation's money should take and t