Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870

Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (1982)
By Karen Halttunen

Synopsis: This book is "a cultural history of the sentimental ideal of social conduct" that defined the morals and behaviors of the antebellum nineteenth-century middle-class in America (xvi). Asks: Why did nineteenth-century conduct manuals, etc, see hypocrisy as such a huge threat? Analyzes etiquette books, conduct manuals, advice books, fashion magazines, and mourning books to uncover the fact that perfect sincerity and transparency of character was essential to the sentimental ideal of the time. Includes sections on fears of the "confidence man" or trickster in urban culture, the important of sincerity as a middle class ideal, sentimental culture's influence on fashion and etiquette, mourning as a huge gesture of genteel theatricality, the decline of sentimental culture and the increased acceptance of theatricality, disguise, and performance. Each of these illustrates the ways in which Americans grappled with the urbanizing mass of strangers via initial resistance to artifice, followed by the eventual acceptance of the highly stylized and individualized mode of fashion, disguise, and theatricality. Argues that an influx of young people into crowded cities led to fears that the young would be duped and corrupted (and young people were seen as metaphor for the nation at that point). The increased fluidity and amorphous liminality of people meant that you never really knew what someone was like, hence the middle class demand that one always be sincere. This elaborate performance of sentimental sincerity ultimately gave way in the 1850-70s to a gradual acceptance of disguise and theatricality. So, in the end, skillful social performance beat out transparent sincerity. The middle class preference for sincerity does live on a bit today. [Who hates sincerity? What is the benefit of insincerity? Are we talking sarcasm here, or what?] Bottom line: "...sentimental demand for sincerity was a defensive strategy against the perceived dangers of placelessness in the open society and of anonymity in the urban world of strangers" (194). Also, "it was through their definition of the problem of hypocrisy, and their efforts to resolve that problem in the sentimental cult of sincerity, that American seeking to rise in the urban world of strangers became resolutely middle-class" (197). [Hmm, try to think about how this connects with other explanations for the rise of the middle class. Does it differ?]

Interesting Specifics:

The incredibly mobile Victorian culture meant positions were no fixed, and so there was an intense fear that people were passing for something they were not (xv).

American were thrown rather suddenly into a world dominated by strangers, and this vastness led people to characterize others based on appearance, as that's all they had to go on (36). [Wow, almost identical argument that Rudeness and Civility makes]

Middle class women struggled over what kind of fashion would not obscure their sincerity and true nature (73). The clean, minimalist, body-conscious classical style gave way to the "sentimental style" in the 1830s (characterized by bonnets and plain styles/simplicity (89).

With the rise of sentimentality and the domestic ideal, the parlor became even more important, and the genteel hostess felt increasingly pressured to act as a kind of "stage manager" (105). Parlor as zone between private and public. All about the "controlled communication of proper sentiments" (121).

Mourning was a huge deal; seen as the most transparent and hence sincere/genteel sentiments.

"By the 1850s, the sentimental view that a particular dress form could embody a particular feeling or moral quality was losing credence" (158).

1860s = increased use of makeup.

1850s = increased acceptance of theatricality and with parlor stages and games like charades.

1848-1875 was an era of huge economic prosperity, creating a "bourgeois world" (187).

By the 1850s, the middle class decided to rely on a general confidence in the good intentions of others, as opposed to a strict trust in their Christian morals.

Interacts With:

Rudeness and Civility, Urban Masses and Moral Order, The Arts of Deception (basically any book about P.T. Barnum - as an example of the place of "fraud" in nineteenth-century culture), Horrible Prettiness (evolution of Americans' view of theatricality and performance)