Undercut: Cut Glass in Working-Class Life During the Long Gilded Age - Paperback

by Joseph Larnerd (Author)

How did workers experience cut glass during its cultural heyday? Rather than privilege the stories of factory owners or wealthy consumers, Undercut: Cut Glass in Working-Class Life During the Long Gilded Age refracts the medium's history through the labors required to make and maintain these dazzling artifacts as well as popular representations of this work, from demonstrations at world's fairs to images of domestic workers with finished pieces in their charge. Cut glass and the many manifestations of public interest in its labors offered working people, too, occasions for self-reflection and, perhaps, self-realization. Foregrounding their lives, Undercut offers a multifaceted social art history of a once-popular genre of decorative art that cuts across class, gender, and race.

Author Biography

JOSEPH LARNERD is an assistant professor of design history in the Department of Art and Art History at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.