Prologue : popular culture on the brink
Blackface, Barnum, and newspaper ballyhoo
Taming rough amusements, 1840s-1860s
Building an entertainment industry
"The billion-dollar smile" : from burlesque to vaudeville and amusement parks
The "leisure problem" at the turn of the century
Popular culture and middle-class respectability in the early twentieth century
Battling the Great Depression
Building a wartime consensus in the 1940s and 1950s
Counterpoints to consensus
Popular culture and 1960s ferment
Up for grabs : leaving the 1960s
Epilogue : pop culture in a post-9/11 world.
