Download or read book Bowing to Necessities written by C. Dallett Hemphill and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1999 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bowing to Necessities argues that manners provided ritual solutions to these central cultural problems by allowing Americans to act out - and thus reinforce - power relations just as these relations underwent challenges. Analyzing the many sermons, child-rearing guides, advice books, and etiquette manuals that taught Americans how to behave, this book connects these instructions to individual practices and concerns found in contemporary diaries and letters. C. Dallett Hemphill also illuminates crucial connections between evolving class, age, and gender relations."--BOOK JACKET.