Beauty and Business - Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America (Paperback)

Here, leading historians explore how our ideas of what is attractive are influenced by a broad range of social and economic factors. They force us to reckon with the ways that beauty has been made, bought and sold in modern America, how retailers have shaped popular consciousness about beauty and how cultural assumptions have influenced the commodification of beauty. In order to address these topics the authors look at particular examples including:
* the sexual dynamics of bathing suits and shirtcollars
* the deeper meanings of corsets
* the social role of the African American hair salon.