Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America

Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America

by Elizabeth Fraterrigo
ISBN-10:
0195386108
ISBN-13:
9780195386103
Pub. Date:
11/05/2009
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0195386108
ISBN-13:
9780195386103
Pub. Date:
11/05/2009
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America

Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America

by Elizabeth Fraterrigo
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Overview

Playboy was more than a magazine filled with pictures of nude women and advice on how to mix the perfect martini. Indeed, the magazine's vision of sexual liberation, high living, and "the good life" came to define mainstream images of postwar life. In exploring the history of America's most widely read and influential men's magazine, Elizabeth Fraterrigo hones in on the values, style, and gender formulations put forth in its pages and how they gained widespread currency in American culture. She shows that for Hugh Hefner, the "good life" meant the freedom to choose a lifestyle, and the one he promoted was the "playboy life," in which expensive goods and sexually available women were plentiful, obligations were few, and if one worked hard enough, one could enjoy abundant leisure and consumption. In support of this view, Playboy attacked early marriage, traditional gender arrangements, and sanctions against premarital sex, challenging the conservatism of family-centered postwar society. And despite the magazine's ups and downs, significant features of this "playboy life" have become engrained in American society.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780195386103
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 11/05/2009
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Fraterrigo is Assistant Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. "We Aren't a Family Magazine": Sex, Gender, and the Family Ideal in Postwar Society
2. "Work Hard and Play Hard, Too": Modern Living and the Morality of the Playboy Life
3. Pads and Penthouses: Playboy's Urban Answer to Suburbanization
4. The Ideal (Play) Mate: Gender, the Workplace, and the Single Girl
5. "For Us It Is the Good Life": The Ascendant Playboy Life
6. "Casualties of the Lifestyle Revolution": Playboy, the Permissive Society, and Women's Liberation
Epilogue: America's Playboy Culture
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
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