Grasping Things

In Pennsylvania, the "back to the city" movement causes a conflict of cultures. In Indiana, an old tradition of butchering turtles for church picnics evokes both pride and loathing among residents. In New York, folk-art exhibits raise choruses of adoration and protest. America stocks its shelves with mass-produced goods but fills its imagination with handmade folk objects. These are a few of the examples Simon Bronner uses to illustrate the ways Americans physically and mentally grasp things. Bronner moves beyond the usual discussions of form and variety in America's folk material culture to explain historical influences on, and the social consequences of, channeling folk culture into a mass society.Bronner, Simon J. is the author of 'Grasping Things' with ISBN 9780813108124 and ISBN 0813108128.