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Gossip is one of the most common, and most condemned, forms of discourse in which we engage - even as it is often absorbing and socially significant, it is also widely denigrated. This volume examines fascinating moments in the history of gossip in America, from witchcraft trials to People magazine, helping us to see the subject with new eyes.
List of contents
Introduction; Kathleen Feeley and Jennifer Frost 1. "They make one very handsome Mirkin amongst them": Gossip and Church Politics in Seventeenth-Century Virginia; Christine Eisel 2. "The Time When There Was So Much Talk of the Witchcraft in this Country": Gossip and the Essex County Witchcraft Crisis of 1692; Mary Beth Norton 3. Governed Gossip: The Personal Letters and Public Purpose of Philip Ludwell in Early-Eighteenth-Century Virginia; Virginia Price 4. The Infamous Anne Royall: Jacksonian Gossip, Scribbler, and Scold; Nancy Isenberg 5. "Gadding," "Gainsaying," and Negotiating Gossip in the Antebellum Black Press; Erica L. Ball 6. Gossip Law: Popular Journalism and Transformations in Law and American Legal Culture; Samantha Barbas 7. Diplomacy and Gossip: Information-Gathering in the U.S. Foreign Service, 1900-1940; Molly M. Wood 8. "As Told By Helen Ferguson": Hollywood Publicity, Gender, and the Public Sphere; Mary Desjardins 9. Gossip in the Women's Pages: Legitimizing the Work of Women Journalists in the 1950s and 1960s; Kimberly Wilmot Voss 10. The Smearing of Joe McCarthy: The Lavender Scare, Gossip, and Cold War Politics; Andrea Friedman 11. Gossip Goes Mainstream: People Magazine, the National Enquirer, and the Rise of Personality Journalism; Anne Helen Petersen 12. Is Charles Trippy Famous?: Vlog Culture and Twenty-First-Century Celebrity Gossip on Internet Killed Television; Tim Seiber
About the author
Christine Eisel, Bowling Green State University, USA
Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University; USA
Virginia Price, Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service, USA
Nancy Isenberg, Louisiana State University, USA
Erica L. Ball, California State University, Fullerton, USA
Samantha Barbas, University of Buffalo, USA
Molly M. Wood, Wittenberg University, USA
Mary Desjardins, Dartmouth College, USA
Kimberly Wilmot Voss, University of Central Florida, USA
Andrea Friedman, Washington University, St. Louis, USA
Anne Helen Petersen, Whitman College, USA
Tim Seiber, University of Redlands, USA
Summary
Gossip is one of the most common, and most condemned, forms of discourse in which we engage - even as it is often absorbing and socially significant, it is also widely denigrated. This volume examines fascinating moments in the history of gossip in America, from witchcraft trials to People magazine, helping us to see the subject with new eyes.
