American nervousness, 1903 : an anecdotal history / Tom Lutz.
"In 1903 an epidemic raged among American artists, writers, and intellectuals, and through the leisure class as well. Called "American nervousness" or "the blues," the psychological disorder diagnosed as neurasthenia loomed large in the lives and writings of such diverse fig...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Ithaca :
Cornell University Press,
1991.
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| Summary: | "In 1903 an epidemic raged among American artists, writers, and intellectuals, and through the leisure class as well. Called "American nervousness" or "the blues," the psychological disorder diagnosed as neurasthenia loomed large in the lives and writings of such diverse figures as Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry and William James, W.E.B. Du Bois, Edgar Saltus, Hamlin Garland, Frank Norris, William Dean Howells, and Mary Wilkins Freeman. In this fascinating account, Tom Lutz examines the complex role played by neurasthenia in a variety of works by both canonized authors and popular writers. His wide-ranging book illuminates a network of attitudes toward gender, class, and ethnicity at a time when social hierarchies were perceived as being in a state of crisis. He argues persuasively that whether perceived as an index of refinement, a disease of the shabby gentility, a fearful response to modernity, or a sign of old-fashioned values, neurasthenia was an illness that helped Americans to come to terms with the cultural and economic changes that radically altered social life between the Civil War and World War I. Written with verve and wit, American Nervousness, 1903, is a book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in American cultural and literary history. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 329 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-317) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0801425816 9780801425813 0801499011 9780801499012 |