Birth Of An Industry

In Birth of an Industry, Nicholas Sammond describes how popular early American cartoon characters were derived from blackface minstrelsy. He charts the industrialization of animation in the early twentieth century, its representation in the cartoons themselves, and how important blackface minstrels were to that performance, standing in for the frustrations of animation workers. Cherished cartoon characters, such as Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, were conceived and developed using blackface minstrelsy's visual and performative conventions: these characters are not like minstrels; they are minstrels. They play out the social, cultural, political, and racial anxieties and desires that link race to the laboring body, just as live minstrel show performers did. Carefully examining how early animation helped to naturalize virulent racial formations, Sammond explores how cartoons used laughter and sentimentality to make those stereotypes seem not only less cruel, but actually pleasurable. Although the visible links between cartoon characters and the minstrel stage faded long ago, Sammond shows how important those links are to thinking about animation then and now, and about how cartoons continue to help to illuminate the central place of race in American cultural and social life.

Spirituals performed by jubilee troupes became a sensation in post-Civil War America. First brought to the stage by choral ensembles like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, spirituals anchored a wide range of late nineteenth-century entertainments, including minstrelsy, variety, and plays by both black and white companies. In the first book-length treatment of postbellum spirituals in theatrical entertainments, Sandra Jean Graham mines a trove of resources to chart the spiritual's journey from the private lives of slaves to the concert stage. Graham navigates the conflicting agendas of those who, in adapting spirituals for their own ends, sold conceptions of racial identity to their patrons. In so doing they lay the foundation for a black entertainment industry whose artistic, financial, and cultural practices extended into the twentieth century. A companion website contains jubilee troupe personnel, recordings, and profiles of 85 jubilee groups. Please go to: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/graham/spirituals/

Joy was just a little girl when she became enamored by the glitz and glamour associated with the celebrity lifestyle. A musical video of Madonna was all that was needed to set her on the path of aspiring to become a star. This book chronicles her foray into the American music industry, and the African entertainment industry Nollywood; her scandalous experiences therein and the lessons learned in her eleven-year journey. In this deeply personal narration, you are given a front-row seat as she uncovers the rot concealed by the glitz and glamour and how God eventually opened her eyes to the lies and deception in the entertainment industry. This is a full exposé; no punches pulled! There is a high price for fame, and you need to know it.

A groundbreaking history of African Americans in the early recording industry, Lost Sounds examines the first three decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the surprising roles black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age and the remarkably wide range of black music and culture they preserved. Drawing on more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black recording artists and profiles forty audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and recordings of George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, plus a host of lesser-known voices. Many of these pioneers struggled to be heard in an era of rampant discrimination. Their stories detail the forces––black and white––that gradually allowed African Americans to enter the mainstream entertainment industry. Lost Sounds includes Brooks's selected discography of CD reissues and an appendix by Dick Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the Caribbean and South America.

The Art of Objects is a cultural history of early Italian industrialism, set against the political, social, and intellectual background of post-unification Italy, and a cutting-edge investigation of the formation of Italy's industrial culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Providing a close examination of several objects of mass consumption, including watches, photographs, bicycles, gramophones, cigarettes, and toys, author Luca Cottini explores the transformation of these objects from commercial items into aesthetic and philosophical icons. By focusing on the cultural significance of these objects as they enter the market and appear in contemporary works of art and literature, The Art of Objects outlines a comprehensive view of the age between the unification of Italy and Fascism, encompassing production and consumption, aesthetics and entrepreneurship, industry and the humanistic tradition. The observation of the slow formation of new languages, practices, and experiences around these objects also provides valuable insight into the creative laboratory of Italy's early industrial culture. By reconstructing the origins of the Italian culture of design, the book ultimately investigates Italy's critical reception of industrialism, the nation's so-called "imperfect" modernization, and its ongoing quest for an original way to modernity.

This book focuses on the history of video games, consoles, and home computers from the very beginning until the mid-nineties, which started a new era in digital entertainment. The text features the most innovative games and introduces the pioneers who developed them. It offers brief analyses of the most relevant games from each time period. An epil

Animated by the stories of some of the last century's most charismatic and conniving artists, writers, and businessmen, Men of Tomorrow brilliantly demonstrates how the creators of the superheroes gained their cultural power and established a crucial place in the modern imagination. "This history of the birth of superhero comics highlights three pivotal figures. The story begins early in the last century, on the Lower East Side, where Harry Donenfeld rises from the streets to become the king of the 'smooshes'-soft-core magazines with titles like French Humor and Hot Tales. Later, two high school friends in Cleveland, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, become avid fans of 'scientifiction,' the new kind of literature promoted by their favorite pulp magazines. The disparate worlds of the wise guy and the geeks collide in 1938, and the result is Action Comics #1, the debut of Superman. For Donenfeld, the comics were a way to sidestep the censors. For Shuster and Siegel, they were both a calling and an eventual source of misery: the pair waged a lifelong campaign for credit and appropriate compensation." -The New Yorker