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The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies
Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America
In this unusually wide-ranging study, spanning more than a century and covering such diverse forms of expressive culture as Shakespeare, Central Park, symphonies, jazz, art museums, the Marx Brothers, opera, and
vaudeville, a leading cultural historian demonstrates how variable and dynamic cultural boundaries have been and how fragile and recent the cultural categories we have learned to accept as natural and eternal are.
For most of the nineteenth century, a wide variety of expressive forms--Shakespearean drama, opera, orchestral music, painting and sculpture, as well as the writings of such authors as Dickens and
Longfellow--enjoyed both high cultural status and mass popularity. In the nineteenth century Americans (in addition to whatever specific ethnic, class, and regional cultures they were part of) shared a public culture less hierarchically
organized, less fragmented into relatively rigid adjectival groupings than their descendants were to experience. By the twentieth century this cultural eclecticism and openness became increasingly rare. Cultural space was more sharply
defined and less flexible than it had been. The theater, once a microcosm of America--housing both the entire spectrum of the population and the complete range of entertainment from tragedy to farce, juggling to ballet, opera to
minstrelsy--now fragmented into discrete spaces catering to distinct audiences and separate genres of expressive culture. The same transition occurred in concert halls, opera houses, and museums. A growing chasm between "serious" and
"popular," between "high" and "low" culture came to dominate America's expressive arts.
"If there is a tragedy in this development," Levine comments, "it is not only that millions of Americans were
now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Verdi, whom they had enjoyed in various formats for much of the nineteenth century, but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made
it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. Too many of those who considered themselves educated and cultured lost for a significant period--and many
have still not regained--their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves and understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible and highly popular it was not therefore
necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit."
In this innovative historical exploration, Levine not only traces the emergence of such familiar categories as highbrow and lowbrow at the
turn of the century, but helps us to understand more clearly both the process of cultural change and the nature of culture in American society.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
31 people are currently reading
1130 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence W. Levine
21 books18 followersLawrence William Levine was a celebrated American historian. He was born in Manhattan and died in Berkeley, California.
A model of the engaged scholar throughout his life, Levine lived both his scholarship and his politics. From the very outset, he immersed himself in the political life of Berkeley – in, for example, a sleep-in in the rotunda of the state capitol in Sacramento to press for fair housing legislation, and the sit-ins in Berkeley organized by CORE to force stores to hire black people.
He participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery, expressing his solidarity with the civil rights movement. During the Free Speech upheaval at Berkeley, he came to the defense of students protesting a ban on political activity on campus in support of the civil rights movement.
He received numerous awards and accolades over the course of his career, most of which was spent in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Among the honors bestowed upon him were a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1983, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, election as President of the Organization of American Historians in 1992, recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1994, the 2005 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Historical Association, and the posthumous designation of the Lawrence W. Levine Award, which is given annually by the OAH to the author of the best book in American cultural history.
His books include:
• Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925. Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1978.
• Highbrow/Lowbrow. Harvard University Press, 1990.
• The Unpredictable Past. Oxford University Press, 1993.
• The Opening of the American Mind. Beacon Press, 1997.
• [with Cornelia R. Levine] The people and the President: America's Conversation with FDR. Beacon Press, 2002.
A model of the engaged scholar throughout his life, Levine lived both his scholarship and his politics. From the very outset, he immersed himself in the political life of Berkeley – in, for example, a sleep-in in the rotunda of the state capitol in Sacramento to press for fair housing legislation, and the sit-ins in Berkeley organized by CORE to force stores to hire black people.
He participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery, expressing his solidarity with the civil rights movement. During the Free Speech upheaval at Berkeley, he came to the defense of students protesting a ban on political activity on campus in support of the civil rights movement.
He received numerous awards and accolades over the course of his career, most of which was spent in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Among the honors bestowed upon him were a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1983, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, election as President of the Organization of American Historians in 1992, recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1994, the 2005 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Historical Association, and the posthumous designation of the Lawrence W. Levine Award, which is given annually by the OAH to the author of the best book in American cultural history.
His books include:
• Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925. Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1978.
• Highbrow/Lowbrow. Harvard University Press, 1990.
• The Unpredictable Past. Oxford University Press, 1993.
• The Opening of the American Mind. Beacon Press, 1997.
• [with Cornelia R. Levine] The people and the President: America's Conversation with FDR. Beacon Press, 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
June 14, 2023
This book was donated to the BU library (where I work) several years ago, which put it on my radar. I've long been interested in the subject of “elite” culture in the arts (literature, film, music, and visual art), as opposed to so-called “popular” art, and its relationship to “elite” socio-economic and political ideology. Like most people who work in the library profession and/or academia, I'm exposed to this phenomenon; but I've never studied it seriously, especially not in terms of its historical origins and development, and never read a definitive description and analysis of it. Last year, when a Goodreads group I'm in chose a so-called “literary fiction” (in the elitist sense) novel as a group read, I didn't feel that I could credibly describe its genre and situate it in terms of that context, so I chose not to review it. I concluded then that I need to actually educate myself on this subject. Hence, this read.
The body of the text here is made up of 256 pages, divided into just three chapters, with a relatively short Prologue and Epilogue. A goodly number (the credits fill a page) of black-and-white period photographs, mostly of people or groups of people and places, genuinely enhance the presentation. We're provided with an over 10-page index, and Levine documents his references in a bit over 35 pages of endnotes (the occasional added elaborations of points made in the main text are made in footnotes); but there's no bibliography as such. That's a flaw, because that would have provided a handy reference to the author's sources. However, the book does seem to be very well documented, with mostly reference to primary sources. I detected one factual error; a quote from Sidney Lanier, who died in 1881, is dated 1898 (and I don't think the quote illustrates the point being made).
Lawrence W. Levine (d. 2006) was a longtime prestigious history professor at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, and a pillar of the left-wing political establishment, who garnered numerous professional honors and awards (just four years after the 1988 publication of this book –one of at least 15 that he wrote-- he was elected president of the Organization of American Historians). In other words, he had impeccable elite credentials himself, and his publisher for this tome, Harvard Univ. Press, is about as elite as they come in American academia. (The book itself is largely based on his 1986 William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard Univ.) He was eminently positioned to observe the American elite culture of his own time from the inside.
However, his focus in this book is almost entirely on the 19th century, with some reference to such early 20th-century persons and events as show the continuing outworking of late 19th-century trends. So this is not a comprehensive history of American elite culture down to the present. Levine also concentrates heavily on Shakespeare (other literature is mostly ignored), classical music and opera, and museums. Nor does he set American developments in the broader context of Western culture as a whole. What he does, though, is first solidly demonstrate that America in the antebellum years of the 19th century had a common public culture shared by the rich, middle classes and the poor, which included such components as the plays of Shakespeare and Italian operas, both of which were hugely popular with all social classes. Second, he documents how, during the later 19th century, upper class cultural arbiters backed by big money popularized a view of certain art works –Shakespeare's plays, the classical music of German composers of the 17th through the early 19th centuries, and the visual art of classical antiquity and the Old Masters-- as “high” art possessed of a quasi-sacral quality, to be received and appreciated as a supposedly morally uplifting experience apart from any entertainment value, and which the uneducated and lower-class members of the community lacked the understanding to “properly” appreciate for the “right” reasons. This was accompanied by a conscious program of segregating cultural spaces by class, with the Great Unwashed, as much as possible, kept out of venues where “high” art was performed or displayed.
Many of the actual quotes Levine cites from the men (this was largely a boy's club) driving this trend suggest to me that a big part of the appeal of embracing this position was psychological validation as a person morally and intellectually superior to the masses. And the underlying attitudes weren't without a hefty component of racism, xenophobia, and class entitlement. (The term “highbrow,” which was coined in the 1880s, and its opposite “lowbrow” are themselves drawn from the pseudo-science of phrenology, which was an integral part of the “scientific racism” of that day.) To his credit, Levine stresses that these developments were complex and multi-faceted, with causes in a wide range of socio-cultural phenomena, and are not to be reductively explained as driven only by racial/class antagonism and desire for prestige and cultural power. (Nor were the underlying concerns all necessarily illegitimate. A big motivation in the quest for greater decorum in theaters and concert halls, for instance, was the outrageous behavior of many people in early 19th-century audiences, which could consist not just of making noise that prevented others from hearing, but of throwing things at performers who displeased them, and even vandalism and violence in extreme cases like the Astor Place Riot, which I'd never heard of before.) In the closest thing he has to a thesis statement, the author writes, “If there is a tragedy in this development, it is not only that millions of Americans were now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven and Verdi... but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. Too many of those who considered themselves educated and cultured lost for a significant period –and many still have not regained-- their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves and understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible and highly popular it was not therefore necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit.” With this view, I heartily agree!
As already noted, the focus here is on the 19th century, with relatively little reference to the 20th. (The author does make the revealing statement that, “Although this... may have been the creation of conservative elites, it became part of the intellectual equipment of many on the left later in this century,” but only in a footnote that he doesn't develop.) In the roughly 13-page Epilogue, he does try to briefly survey the state of things in 1988, noting that while there are indications of a rising tendency in some elite circles to be more eclectic and open to “popular” culture, the late 19th-century mindset still shapes most people's perceptions. Much of the Epilogue, though, oddly focuses on casting a few conservative academics, especially Allan Bloom with particular reference to his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind (which I read decades ago, but don't remember well and would need to reread to discuss intelligently), as today's spokespersons for the concept of elite culture. Bloom's position and cultural canon may resemble that of the conservative late 19th-century pundits of, say, 1888; but it's fairly obvious that the actual elite conception of 'high” culture that prevailed in 1988 was vastly different –the sense of superiority over the supposed vulgar herd and the tight link between cultural elite authority and political power and wealth remain constants, but the content of supposed “high” culture is radically redefined. (And the differences have grown greater by 2023.) Most of today's conservative cultural critics do argue for a canon (though not necessarily a closed one!) of serious works of art and thought that have stood the test of time and have continuing relevance; but they advocate this from outside the circle of elite privilege, and argue for, rather than against, the accessibility of these works to ordinary people.
Overall, this was an illuminating read; I learned a substantial amount of significant factual information I did not previously know, and picked up some serious new insights. (Because of time and space constraints, this review just scratches the surface in that respect.) That it's prompted me to want to explore the subject more with additional reading, rather than providing a definitive final treatment of it, is a good thing rather than a defect!
The body of the text here is made up of 256 pages, divided into just three chapters, with a relatively short Prologue and Epilogue. A goodly number (the credits fill a page) of black-and-white period photographs, mostly of people or groups of people and places, genuinely enhance the presentation. We're provided with an over 10-page index, and Levine documents his references in a bit over 35 pages of endnotes (the occasional added elaborations of points made in the main text are made in footnotes); but there's no bibliography as such. That's a flaw, because that would have provided a handy reference to the author's sources. However, the book does seem to be very well documented, with mostly reference to primary sources. I detected one factual error; a quote from Sidney Lanier, who died in 1881, is dated 1898 (and I don't think the quote illustrates the point being made).
Lawrence W. Levine (d. 2006) was a longtime prestigious history professor at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, and a pillar of the left-wing political establishment, who garnered numerous professional honors and awards (just four years after the 1988 publication of this book –one of at least 15 that he wrote-- he was elected president of the Organization of American Historians). In other words, he had impeccable elite credentials himself, and his publisher for this tome, Harvard Univ. Press, is about as elite as they come in American academia. (The book itself is largely based on his 1986 William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard Univ.) He was eminently positioned to observe the American elite culture of his own time from the inside.
However, his focus in this book is almost entirely on the 19th century, with some reference to such early 20th-century persons and events as show the continuing outworking of late 19th-century trends. So this is not a comprehensive history of American elite culture down to the present. Levine also concentrates heavily on Shakespeare (other literature is mostly ignored), classical music and opera, and museums. Nor does he set American developments in the broader context of Western culture as a whole. What he does, though, is first solidly demonstrate that America in the antebellum years of the 19th century had a common public culture shared by the rich, middle classes and the poor, which included such components as the plays of Shakespeare and Italian operas, both of which were hugely popular with all social classes. Second, he documents how, during the later 19th century, upper class cultural arbiters backed by big money popularized a view of certain art works –Shakespeare's plays, the classical music of German composers of the 17th through the early 19th centuries, and the visual art of classical antiquity and the Old Masters-- as “high” art possessed of a quasi-sacral quality, to be received and appreciated as a supposedly morally uplifting experience apart from any entertainment value, and which the uneducated and lower-class members of the community lacked the understanding to “properly” appreciate for the “right” reasons. This was accompanied by a conscious program of segregating cultural spaces by class, with the Great Unwashed, as much as possible, kept out of venues where “high” art was performed or displayed.
Many of the actual quotes Levine cites from the men (this was largely a boy's club) driving this trend suggest to me that a big part of the appeal of embracing this position was psychological validation as a person morally and intellectually superior to the masses. And the underlying attitudes weren't without a hefty component of racism, xenophobia, and class entitlement. (The term “highbrow,” which was coined in the 1880s, and its opposite “lowbrow” are themselves drawn from the pseudo-science of phrenology, which was an integral part of the “scientific racism” of that day.) To his credit, Levine stresses that these developments were complex and multi-faceted, with causes in a wide range of socio-cultural phenomena, and are not to be reductively explained as driven only by racial/class antagonism and desire for prestige and cultural power. (Nor were the underlying concerns all necessarily illegitimate. A big motivation in the quest for greater decorum in theaters and concert halls, for instance, was the outrageous behavior of many people in early 19th-century audiences, which could consist not just of making noise that prevented others from hearing, but of throwing things at performers who displeased them, and even vandalism and violence in extreme cases like the Astor Place Riot, which I'd never heard of before.) In the closest thing he has to a thesis statement, the author writes, “If there is a tragedy in this development, it is not only that millions of Americans were now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven and Verdi... but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. Too many of those who considered themselves educated and cultured lost for a significant period –and many still have not regained-- their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves and understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible and highly popular it was not therefore necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit.” With this view, I heartily agree!
As already noted, the focus here is on the 19th century, with relatively little reference to the 20th. (The author does make the revealing statement that, “Although this... may have been the creation of conservative elites, it became part of the intellectual equipment of many on the left later in this century,” but only in a footnote that he doesn't develop.) In the roughly 13-page Epilogue, he does try to briefly survey the state of things in 1988, noting that while there are indications of a rising tendency in some elite circles to be more eclectic and open to “popular” culture, the late 19th-century mindset still shapes most people's perceptions. Much of the Epilogue, though, oddly focuses on casting a few conservative academics, especially Allan Bloom with particular reference to his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind (which I read decades ago, but don't remember well and would need to reread to discuss intelligently), as today's spokespersons for the concept of elite culture. Bloom's position and cultural canon may resemble that of the conservative late 19th-century pundits of, say, 1888; but it's fairly obvious that the actual elite conception of 'high” culture that prevailed in 1988 was vastly different –the sense of superiority over the supposed vulgar herd and the tight link between cultural elite authority and political power and wealth remain constants, but the content of supposed “high” culture is radically redefined. (And the differences have grown greater by 2023.) Most of today's conservative cultural critics do argue for a canon (though not necessarily a closed one!) of serious works of art and thought that have stood the test of time and have continuing relevance; but they advocate this from outside the circle of elite privilege, and argue for, rather than against, the accessibility of these works to ordinary people.
Overall, this was an illuminating read; I learned a substantial amount of significant factual information I did not previously know, and picked up some serious new insights. (Because of time and space constraints, this review just scratches the surface in that respect.) That it's prompted me to want to explore the subject more with additional reading, rather than providing a definitive final treatment of it, is a good thing rather than a defect!
October 17, 2012
An excellent, useful cultural history. It jumps back and forth a little too much in time and subject, but the gradual collapse of an inter-class, unified American culture detailed here is almost heartbreaking.
In response to the growing cultural gulf between upper and lower class, the American elite (which meant, particularly after the Civil War, the Northeastern elite) pursued a two-pronged strategy of mass uplift and (you'll recognize this one from Baltzell's masterpiece) cloistered retreat. Obviously the first part failed, and we were left with a high culture kept rigidly separate from mass entertainment, a far cry from, for instance, the universal embrace of Shakespeare that characterized American culture in the first half of the 19th century.
So Levine is very good on the what and the how, whereas on the why I think he's a little lacking. He seems to for some reason think this is all the elite's fault, for snobbishly turning up their noses at the masses in an attempt to maintain their privilege. Obviously every aesthetic system involves agents attempting to gain status, but this theory is unworthy of the book.
Norbert Elias (who gets cited) has pointed out how culture did, in fact, trickle down over the centuries in Europe. That is to say, an elite sincerely desires to enforce and expand the reach of its culture. Turning their backs on the rest of society is, as Baltzell pointed out, a second-best option, or what they engage in after they discover they can no longer exercise public authority.
So then the real question becomes, what happened to America that led to a loss of elite confidence and authority? I don't think here even Baltzell (who points to the enervating influence of Quakerism) is entirely fair. The most important factors, in my current opinion (this is one of the basic questions about America, but I don't have a good handle on it yet):
1. Immigration
2. The Civil War
3. Technological Change (increasing the scale and scope of society, creating a chaotic urbanized mass where before were independent farmers more susceptible to cultural domination)
4. Unfavorable Differential Reproduction
In response to the growing cultural gulf between upper and lower class, the American elite (which meant, particularly after the Civil War, the Northeastern elite) pursued a two-pronged strategy of mass uplift and (you'll recognize this one from Baltzell's masterpiece) cloistered retreat. Obviously the first part failed, and we were left with a high culture kept rigidly separate from mass entertainment, a far cry from, for instance, the universal embrace of Shakespeare that characterized American culture in the first half of the 19th century.
So Levine is very good on the what and the how, whereas on the why I think he's a little lacking. He seems to for some reason think this is all the elite's fault, for snobbishly turning up their noses at the masses in an attempt to maintain their privilege. Obviously every aesthetic system involves agents attempting to gain status, but this theory is unworthy of the book.
Norbert Elias (who gets cited) has pointed out how culture did, in fact, trickle down over the centuries in Europe. That is to say, an elite sincerely desires to enforce and expand the reach of its culture. Turning their backs on the rest of society is, as Baltzell pointed out, a second-best option, or what they engage in after they discover they can no longer exercise public authority.
So then the real question becomes, what happened to America that led to a loss of elite confidence and authority? I don't think here even Baltzell (who points to the enervating influence of Quakerism) is entirely fair. The most important factors, in my current opinion (this is one of the basic questions about America, but I don't have a good handle on it yet):
1. Immigration
2. The Civil War
3. Technological Change (increasing the scale and scope of society, creating a chaotic urbanized mass where before were independent farmers more susceptible to cultural domination)
4. Unfavorable Differential Reproduction
Read
April 30, 2011This title has really reignted my historical curiosity concerning American Popular Culture. Essentially, Levine is arguing that a cross-class American cultural consensus existed in the first half of the nineteenth century, but was eroded by the turn of the century by elite efforts to separate "art" from "popular culture." While colonial and antebellum elites had contented themselves with the same performances as their middling neighbors, through the second half of the 1800s they successfully established the theater as a venue for "polite" company only. While serious performances of Shakespeare had been presented alongside popular songs, farces, and other "unelevated" fare in the early part of the century, latter-day cultural elites insisted that such masterworks be presented unsullied by popular material. The effort to separate "high" and "popular" culture was often presented didactically- as a necessary element in the uplift of the less fortunate. Levine stresses, however, that the impetus behind the move was just as often a desire to cordon off "respectable" performances from the unworthy.
His assumption- that the shift was fundamentally cultural in nature as opposed to economically or politically determined- is probably on firm ground. Levine's approach to the topic is broad and inclusive, but I'm inclined to wonder about other "lenses" through which to assess this shift in American culture. Levine assumes that the distinction between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" is culturally-defined, and this is assuredly true to an extent. But, I contend that a cross-cultural analysis of "folk" forms just might establish some similarities that distinguish them, collectively, from those forms which different cultures have deemed "highbrow." Further, it seems that the study might benefit from a dose of theory, for example- what does the psychological literature say about the reception of music?
Alternatively, I would like to see the same material addressed through an economic framework. The intersection of cultures and markets is something in which I'm interested in, and I believe an investigation of this topic could be enriched by a more thorough exploration of the ways in which economic considerations shaped American culture. Isn't it possible, for example, that elites suffered the indignities of mixed company only so long as they were forced to by the economic realities of early American entertainment? It's equally as possible than the lower-classes weren't as receptive to the "highbrow" aspects of the early performances as Levine asserts. Might they have been just as enthusiastic about jettisoning their elite fellow theater-goers as the gentry were to leave?
His assumption- that the shift was fundamentally cultural in nature as opposed to economically or politically determined- is probably on firm ground. Levine's approach to the topic is broad and inclusive, but I'm inclined to wonder about other "lenses" through which to assess this shift in American culture. Levine assumes that the distinction between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" is culturally-defined, and this is assuredly true to an extent. But, I contend that a cross-cultural analysis of "folk" forms just might establish some similarities that distinguish them, collectively, from those forms which different cultures have deemed "highbrow." Further, it seems that the study might benefit from a dose of theory, for example- what does the psychological literature say about the reception of music?
Alternatively, I would like to see the same material addressed through an economic framework. The intersection of cultures and markets is something in which I'm interested in, and I believe an investigation of this topic could be enriched by a more thorough exploration of the ways in which economic considerations shaped American culture. Isn't it possible, for example, that elites suffered the indignities of mixed company only so long as they were forced to by the economic realities of early American entertainment? It's equally as possible than the lower-classes weren't as receptive to the "highbrow" aspects of the early performances as Levine asserts. Might they have been just as enthusiastic about jettisoning their elite fellow theater-goers as the gentry were to leave?
December 10, 2019
Working on this for one of my uni classes, interesting stuff.
August 5, 2017
This book is a wonderful example of how scholarship can challenge our preconceptions and help us to reconsider the way we view the world. The author shows that Shakespeare and opera were both considered popular entertainment in America until just before the turn of the 20th century. In the first half of the book, he provides abundant evidence to support this remarkable claim, and then he invites the reader to wonder not only why things changed around 1900, but also why we are blind to the way things used to be.
You will have to be patient and read all the way to the end of the book if you want the author's complete answer to these questions, but the trip is worth it. Along the way, you'll be invited to think about the proper function of museums and libraries, and most importantly, you'll be faced with the question: Is "culture" something that every group has (in other words, is it simply the system of beliefs, values, and practices that conditions how that group of people interacts with the world around them), or is "culture" the possession of only a certain segment of society (that is, those who have been properly initiated and taught to interpret art, music, and literature according to certain evaluative standards)?
If you come away from this book with nothing more than an appreciation of the question and why it's important, then you will have gained something valuable. If you then go on to wrestle with the question, it could change your life. And that's quite a claim to make about a scholarly book.
You will have to be patient and read all the way to the end of the book if you want the author's complete answer to these questions, but the trip is worth it. Along the way, you'll be invited to think about the proper function of museums and libraries, and most importantly, you'll be faced with the question: Is "culture" something that every group has (in other words, is it simply the system of beliefs, values, and practices that conditions how that group of people interacts with the world around them), or is "culture" the possession of only a certain segment of society (that is, those who have been properly initiated and taught to interpret art, music, and literature according to certain evaluative standards)?
If you come away from this book with nothing more than an appreciation of the question and why it's important, then you will have gained something valuable. If you then go on to wrestle with the question, it could change your life. And that's quite a claim to make about a scholarly book.
January 25, 2012
This book was interesting in that it addressed culture in America in the 19th century and the segregation into 'high culture' and 'low culture'. In the first half of the 1800's, there was no 'class' in culture. As societal classes developed, so did the separation between high or 'real' culture and popular culture. This book speaks to the evolution of the audience from participatory with a voice to a silent, passive audience.
This book is good food for thought. You have to ask yourself about your own ideas of culture. What do you consider highbrow (or hoity-toity as it's known in my house)? And why you think it's highbrow? For myself, I realized that my ideas of culture are like most - highbrow = opera, the symphony and Shakespeare. After reading the booth, I realized I only thought it was highbrow because that's how our society thinks of it. Future plans will include the Shakespeare festival in Ashland this summer and an opera. Next book is about Beethoven, so I'll be getting familiar with at least one of his works as well. I don't expect to become an aficionado of highbrow culture, but I do expect that I'll enjoy learning more about it.
Happy reading.
This book is good food for thought. You have to ask yourself about your own ideas of culture. What do you consider highbrow (or hoity-toity as it's known in my house)? And why you think it's highbrow? For myself, I realized that my ideas of culture are like most - highbrow = opera, the symphony and Shakespeare. After reading the booth, I realized I only thought it was highbrow because that's how our society thinks of it. Future plans will include the Shakespeare festival in Ashland this summer and an opera. Next book is about Beethoven, so I'll be getting familiar with at least one of his works as well. I don't expect to become an aficionado of highbrow culture, but I do expect that I'll enjoy learning more about it.
Happy reading.
July 23, 2018
Levine has written a lively and well-researched book on the creation of highbrow aesthetics in the Gilded Age. Patrician critics, patrons, museum curators, and businessmen, who feared immigration and demographic change, championed sophisticated, edifying art, in contrast to popular amusements. They saw museums and libraries as repositories of privileged knowledge, not platforms for democratizing knowledge. This desire for social control prompted the creation of new spaces and new codes of conduct that kept the broader public at a distance from opera, Shakespeare, and fine art. New professional associations such as the Theatrical Trust exported highbrow standards from Eastern cities to the rest of the country. I learned a lot from this book, but it has two major flaws. First, Levine does not adequately connect wealthy Americans' highbrow aesthetics to the creation of the corporate economy. Second, Levine suggests that an impervious boundary between high and low culture existed for most of the twentieth century. This narrative ignores most examples of "middlebrow culture," or attempts to convey fine art to the general public.
July 30, 2010
I concentrated on Levine's methodology as opposed to the content, in particular. Most reviewer's of this monograph do not mention the fact that the author is arguing with Allen Bloom about the definition of art. Levine comes out on the side of process philosophy (pragmatism). He highlights the second-generation Straussian tendency towards radical esotericism. For him this means a sort of unspoken elitism among the Straussian school. Of course he's right. However his conclusion is that culture should be thought about somewhat subjectively, or better said, culture should not be fixed. This is pretty typical 1980s cultural war stuff.
February 29, 2016
After hearing it referenced by professors and peers for what seemed like years, I finally read it. I'm so glad that this book lived up to my expectations.
Levine explores the shifts from a shared, perhaps 'popular' culture, to one of heirarchy at the end of the 1800s. Chapters focus on Shakespeare's popularity, theater and opera, symphonic music, and museums.
I feel like this book could be read by academics and laymen alike (how dare I use that term!) because of Levine's writing style. He isn't Foucault-flowery or long-winded. Plus his arguments are nicely supported with loads of interesting (if not also amusing) sources of evidence.
Levine explores the shifts from a shared, perhaps 'popular' culture, to one of heirarchy at the end of the 1800s. Chapters focus on Shakespeare's popularity, theater and opera, symphonic music, and museums.
I feel like this book could be read by academics and laymen alike (how dare I use that term!) because of Levine's writing style. He isn't Foucault-flowery or long-winded. Plus his arguments are nicely supported with loads of interesting (if not also amusing) sources of evidence.
September 24, 2012
Excellent text. Levine brings to light the history behind the current cultural hierarchy that exists in America. It helps me feel better about despising modern art, as Levine would suggest, it only exists to create distinguished groups-you're not supposed to get it. The format is simple and clear. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how enjoying Shakespeare or opera now makes you part of a distinguished class.
October 26, 2020
This is a book I’ve known about for 30+ years and always thought I’d wanted to read but it never made it to the top of my to-read list. I’ve seen it referred to repeatedly over the years, so when I once again saw a reference to it in Alex Ross’s article about Richard Wagner in a recent New Yorker (excerpted from his book), I finally purchased an ebook edition. Alas, I found it somewhat disappointing. Not as disappointing as the other book I had a similar history with, the biography of Max Perkins, but still. . . . Levine writes in the tradition of academic writing that arranges note cards (when they were still a thing), then writes a topic sentence followed by 3 or 4 (or more) quotations that support or at least illustrate the topic sentence, then moves on to the next topic sentence. He did find plenty of juicy quotations, but still . . . And since those quotations on both sides of the issue tended to come from throughout the 19th century, it didn’t necessarily support his argument of a steady progression (or regression) from a mixed culture accessible to all classes to an “highbrow” culture protected and preserved only by and for an elite, though with lip service to culture’s potential educational, uplifting benefits for the lower classes. It seems more appropriate to speak of an ongoing debate (that continued into the 20th and 21st centuries more than he seems willing to acknowledge except somewhat reluctantly in the epilogue for the very recent past). One final frustration to note: I paid $20 for this ebook, but the text was apparently scanned from the printed book back when scanning was not entirely reliable, and the publisher seems to have felt no need to proofread and correct the text (“the” was rendered countless times for some reason as “die). Furthermore, caption illustrations are included but readers are referred to the print edition if they actually want to see the illustrations themselves. Despite my complaints, the book does include plenty of valuable observations and insights, and I’m glad I read it, but it was a slog.
July 30, 2020
Why are some modes of entertainment (e.g., Shakespeare, Opera, symphonic music) considered "highbrow" and some modes of entertainment (slapstick, vaudeville, baseball) considered "lowbrow?" It wasn't always this way. Lawrence Levine in this 1988 book examines how through the 19th century this division occured. There are only three chapters in the book. The first one on Shakespeare in America was most interesting to me with a lot of discussion on 19th century Shakespeare perfomances (Edwin Forrest, Edwin Booth, Charlotte Cushman, etc). The second chapter, "The Sacralization of Culture,"covers Opera and symphony music. The third chapter puts it together to talk about how culture was viewed at the turn of the 20th century.
I enjoyed the book, but found it annoying in that it ends in the early 19th century. The author leaps from very early Hollywood to an epilogue that just asserts it's pretty much the same now (which is 1988). Reading this book 30 years later made me wonder what the author thought about today's use of culture.
I enjoyed the book, but found it annoying in that it ends in the early 19th century. The author leaps from very early Hollywood to an epilogue that just asserts it's pretty much the same now (which is 1988). Reading this book 30 years later made me wonder what the author thought about today's use of culture.
August 16, 2018
Although I emphatically disagree with Levine’s thesis, and in the epilogue he goes out of his way to clarify his poor instincts, I give this book a positive rating. It largely presents a clear historical picture of the cultural shifts that shaped America’s popular conscience. And in this researched work the reader may find their own bit of pleasure. Three decades after its publishing, we can see Levine’s thesis has been utterly exposed as fraudulent. American culture has dissolved into a forgetfulness that leaves even the college educated without much sense of their cultural identity—unless one thinks American cultural identity is healthily expressed through self-loathing. When it comes to Art we need the voice of the trained and their encouragement towards understanding or we all fall into chaos.
April 21, 2020
It was great to re-read this book more than thirty years later. It's an excellent companion to Shakespeare in a Divided America. There were no distinctions between so-called popular and highbrow culture in early 19th-century America. Shakespeare was known and loved (and parodied) as well as Italian opera. How "high art" was wrested from the hands of the people and enshrined as something rarefied makes for fascinating reading.
March 13, 2017
I wanted to LOVE the subject, but because I volunteer as a museum docent, I hoped to score a big heap of information and insights about art collecting, then and now. The book spends a lot more time on Shakespeare and music, just not my main interest right now.
But I have to give the book happy credit for providing me with this:
By the close of its first year of Sunday attendance, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reported that Sunday visitors (some 30% of all visitors) had, through a rigorous policy of protection and education, become "respectable, law-abiding, and intelligent." The entire staff, including the curators and the director, were in the galleries every Sunday to answer questions and keep order.
Mark Twain ridiculed these precautions. The story circulated that when he was requested to leave his cane in the [Museum] cloakroom, he responded, "Leave my cane! Leave my cane! Then how do you expect me to poke holes through the oil paintings!"
Director Louis de Cesnola reiterated the great progress the Museum had made in training its visitors:
"You do not see any more persons in the picture galleries blowing their nose with their fingers; no more dogs brought into the Museum openly or concealed in baskets. There is no more spitting tobacco juice on the gallery floors, to the disgust of all other visitors. There are no more nurses taking children to some corner to defile the floors of the Museum. No more persons come now with 'Kodaks' to take 'snap views' of of things and visitors. No more whistling, singing, or calling aloud to people from one gallery to another."
This was c. 1897.
But I have to give the book happy credit for providing me with this:
By the close of its first year of Sunday attendance, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reported that Sunday visitors (some 30% of all visitors) had, through a rigorous policy of protection and education, become "respectable, law-abiding, and intelligent." The entire staff, including the curators and the director, were in the galleries every Sunday to answer questions and keep order.
Mark Twain ridiculed these precautions. The story circulated that when he was requested to leave his cane in the [Museum] cloakroom, he responded, "Leave my cane! Leave my cane! Then how do you expect me to poke holes through the oil paintings!"
Director Louis de Cesnola reiterated the great progress the Museum had made in training its visitors:
"You do not see any more persons in the picture galleries blowing their nose with their fingers; no more dogs brought into the Museum openly or concealed in baskets. There is no more spitting tobacco juice on the gallery floors, to the disgust of all other visitors. There are no more nurses taking children to some corner to defile the floors of the Museum. No more persons come now with 'Kodaks' to take 'snap views' of of things and visitors. No more whistling, singing, or calling aloud to people from one gallery to another."
This was c. 1897.
April 17, 2019
2.5 stars
July 12, 2021
Perhaps even more important than ever 30 years later
March 3, 2025
A historical examination of the dichotomy of American culture between high and low. Well written, accessible, convincing arguments. Great book.
paused-reading
June 11, 2024still haven't gotten around to finishing it, but here are some notes to self:
p.4 - Shakespeare actually used to be popular entertainment back in 19th-century America... you don't need to be "educated" to enjoy him -- just grown up with it constantly around you, labeled clearly as popular entertainment.
p. 31 - Gerald Nachman: "Shakespeare becomes theatrical spinach: He's good for you. If you digest enough of his plays, you'll grow up big and strong intellectually like teacher."
"Alfred Harbage characterized the mood prevailing at Shakespearean performances as "reverently unreceptive," containing "small sense of joy, small sense of sorrow;...rarely a moment of that hush of absorption which is the only sign-warrant of effectual drama." People attended Shakespeare the way they attended church: "gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go.""
p. 67 - people believed it to be a natural right to boo actors if they deserved it, not just applaud whether or not it was good. nowadays there's no way you could boo/hiss a performance even if it sucks! it's like you have to protect actors' egos instead of be honest about what you paid for. why does art need to be protected from its audience?
p. 89 - "Opera... was not presented as a sacred text". Composers like Rossini even intentionally left places in their operas for the company to put in a popular song of the day!
p. 97 - apparently England DID have highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in art already in 1850s, and some Americans were aware of this -- does that break down author's thesis that highbrow/lowbrow distinctions are a recent invention, or is he just claiming these distinctions weren't AS important, in America in particular, until lately, in specific fields?
p. 103 - people started to think opera is too important of an art form to permit the uneducated to watch it, as if that'd demean its integrity! especially if you take selections instead of putting on one whole show, sacred-text style. opera became "more of a symbol of culture than a real cultural force"
p.4 - Shakespeare actually used to be popular entertainment back in 19th-century America... you don't need to be "educated" to enjoy him -- just grown up with it constantly around you, labeled clearly as popular entertainment.
p. 31 - Gerald Nachman: "Shakespeare becomes theatrical spinach: He's good for you. If you digest enough of his plays, you'll grow up big and strong intellectually like teacher."
"Alfred Harbage characterized the mood prevailing at Shakespearean performances as "reverently unreceptive," containing "small sense of joy, small sense of sorrow;...rarely a moment of that hush of absorption which is the only sign-warrant of effectual drama." People attended Shakespeare the way they attended church: "gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go.""
p. 67 - people believed it to be a natural right to boo actors if they deserved it, not just applaud whether or not it was good. nowadays there's no way you could boo/hiss a performance even if it sucks! it's like you have to protect actors' egos instead of be honest about what you paid for. why does art need to be protected from its audience?
p. 89 - "Opera... was not presented as a sacred text". Composers like Rossini even intentionally left places in their operas for the company to put in a popular song of the day!
p. 97 - apparently England DID have highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in art already in 1850s, and some Americans were aware of this -- does that break down author's thesis that highbrow/lowbrow distinctions are a recent invention, or is he just claiming these distinctions weren't AS important, in America in particular, until lately, in specific fields?
p. 103 - people started to think opera is too important of an art form to permit the uneducated to watch it, as if that'd demean its integrity! especially if you take selections instead of putting on one whole show, sacred-text style. opera became "more of a symbol of culture than a real cultural force"
September 7, 2020
Written in the wake of Allen Bloom's blockbuster, 'Closing of the American Mind,' Levine makes the case of the other side. That the need for the elite to dictate the terms of what is culture and what is trash is hardly new. Our current iteration comes from the late 19th century when Matthew Arnold and his adherents walled off Culturetown and made sure they issued a list of requirements for anyone seeking to enter.
Levine relies primarily on Shakespeare to make his case for a much more elastic definition of culture. Shakespeare was beloved by all in early 19th century America. Hamlet could be preceded by a minstrel show and succeeded by tear-jerking melodrama. Audiences were equipped with fruits and vegetables to hurl at performers they didn't like. Reverence might be in short supply but it appeared that a good time was had by all.
But after the Civil War, non-English speaking immigrants flooded into America and suddenly the elites needed to create barriers to keep out the great unwashed from polluting cultural artifacts. They decided to make rules about dress and decorum. To keep out crowd pleasers from the programs. Throw out the bums who couldn't avoid raucous behavior. Today, low has merged more with high in terms of cultural offerings; jazz is now elite, More contemporary figures like Steve Jobs and Richard Nixon now are appropriate figures for Opera. Shakespeare became rock n' roll with Leo DiCaprio playing Romeo. But the legacy of decorum has stayed with us. Perhaps for good reason because that helps the audience to appreciate the culture that is being presented. This decorum has been around so long now that it no longer seems class, ethnicity or race based.
Levine relies primarily on Shakespeare to make his case for a much more elastic definition of culture. Shakespeare was beloved by all in early 19th century America. Hamlet could be preceded by a minstrel show and succeeded by tear-jerking melodrama. Audiences were equipped with fruits and vegetables to hurl at performers they didn't like. Reverence might be in short supply but it appeared that a good time was had by all.
But after the Civil War, non-English speaking immigrants flooded into America and suddenly the elites needed to create barriers to keep out the great unwashed from polluting cultural artifacts. They decided to make rules about dress and decorum. To keep out crowd pleasers from the programs. Throw out the bums who couldn't avoid raucous behavior. Today, low has merged more with high in terms of cultural offerings; jazz is now elite, More contemporary figures like Steve Jobs and Richard Nixon now are appropriate figures for Opera. Shakespeare became rock n' roll with Leo DiCaprio playing Romeo. But the legacy of decorum has stayed with us. Perhaps for good reason because that helps the audience to appreciate the culture that is being presented. This decorum has been around so long now that it no longer seems class, ethnicity or race based.
August 8, 2007
If you are only going to read one historical analysis of American culture, read this one, if only for the humorous anecdotes about popular audiences in the 19th century. Riots and burlesques? The wrath of the gallery gods? The prestige of symphony directors? The eclectic collection of Victorian museums? The consequences of fiddling with Shakespeare?
Found the answers to these questions and more in Levine's account of the shifting divide between "pop" and "high" cultures, a divide that we could perhaps blame, amongst other things, on the French. :)
Found the answers to these questions and more in Levine's account of the shifting divide between "pop" and "high" cultures, a divide that we could perhaps blame, amongst other things, on the French. :)
February 28, 2015
The last 100 pages was extremely interesting and insightful and worthwhile. Levine's questions about culture are thoughtful and provocative and they definitely made the first 2/3 of the book worthwhile. The first 2/3, while interesting and well-researched and documented, didn't have nearly the interest to me as the consideration of what his recounting of history in the earlier sections of the work meant for our understanding of the dynamic history of culture and its development.
May 11, 2016
A must read for all jazz music lovers. Gives a great understanding of how high and low dynamics emerged, which are of a great importance to jazz music, too. Although the author touch the subject of jazz very briefly only by the end of the study, to those who know about the placing of the music between two categories, the book will be of a huge interest and enlightenment. After all, the author deals largely with the advent of 20th century, which marked the emergence of jazz music.
September 26, 2009
An excellent, fascinating, and often hilarious demonstration that the distinction between "highbrow" and "popular" culture in the United States is a creation of the order-obsessed later nineteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, Shakespeare productions often looked like vaudeville, and opera was frequently translated into English (with altered endings!).
January 21, 2012
There have been so many changes since the author finished this book. Wealth and technology now are culture game changers. This book concentrates to heavily on 1800s & 1900s and not more current times.
June 1, 2013
Must read for anyone thinking there is any legitimacy between the labels high and low brow. This is mostly a survey of 19th Century entertainment in America and the moment and for what purpose high-brow was created.
January 27, 2014
A wonderful book into the emergence of contemporary cultural categories in historical America. Fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand historical patterns of reception and their influence on contemporary life.
October 29, 2013
An important touchstone book in culture studies. While later critics like Jan Radway, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Amy Blair have complicated Levine's central construct (high/low brow) with the middlebrow, it still is an important foundational work.
August 26, 2007
Incredibly influential on my thinking as a scholar. Great examples mixed with insight yields books like this. Helped shape the course of New Historicism in America.
January 22, 2008
fascinating study of the idea of highbrow in the united states, mostly told through how shakespeare was considered populist dreck in the 19th century, and how it shifted, and what that means.
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