About the Book:
Imagine a new critical theory that bases its literary value on fashion. In this theory exists a community that explores and interrogates conventionality, and in American literature of the 20th century, it includes fashion and home decoration, two paths to achieving white femininity, a prized component of many novels written by and for women. Drawing on cultural materialism and its connection to the cultural forms of objects, including apparel, Making it Work: 20th Century American Fiction and Fashion provides readers a new understanding of the aims of American writers, and the desires of their readers.
About the Author:
Jan Goggans is an associate professor and founding faculty at University of California Merced. She published California on the Breadlines: Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and the making of a New Deal Narrative in 2010.