Title: Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870

Author: Karen Halttunnen

Year of Publication: 1982

Thesis:

The middle-class of the nineteenth century expressed their anxieties about their competitive, tenuous, and liminal state through the caricature of the "confidence" (con) man and "painted women," whom they identified as a menacing presence. Relying heavily on etiquette literature, Halttunnen notes a shift from a culture of sentimentalism, in which sincerity was meant to reflect one's inner state, was later overcome by a self-consciousness in etiquette writing, leading to an embrace of more performative culture.

Time: 1830-1870

Geography: U.S.

Organization:

List of Illustrations

Preface

1. The Era of the Confidence Man

2. Hypocrisy and Sincerity in the World of Strangers

3. Sentimental Culture and the Problem of Fashion

4. Sentimental Culture and the Problem of Etiquette

5. Mourning the Dead: A Study in Sentimental Ritual

6. Disguises, Masks, and Parlor Theatricals: The Decline of Sentimental Culrure in the 1850s

Conclusion

- Tocqueville's critiques of Americans

- "American democrat" and "middle-class American" appear synonymous

Epilogue: The Confidence Man in Corporate America

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

Guides on etiquette

Historiography:

Keywords:

Etiquette - performance

Themes:

Critiques:

Perhaps a greater variety of sources to support the thesis.

Questions:

Quotes:

Notes:

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