Lauren Rabinovitz was Professor Emeritus of American Studies and Cinema at the University of Iowa. She published widely on popular culture, focusing on American foodways, amusement parks, and early cinema. She is the author of Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2012) and For the Love of Pleasure: Women, Movies, and Culture in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (Rutgers University Press, 1998).

• Introduction Lauren Rabinovitz; Prologue, a brief history of popular culture studies Lauren Rabinovitz; Part I. The Rise of Commercialized Leisure, From Industrialization to Mass Urbanization: 1. Popular literature in nineteenth-century America Paul C. Gutjahr; 2. Sentimentalism and women's popular culture Lori A. Merish; 3. The visual in nineteenth century American popular culture Justin T. Clark; 4. Nineteenth century popular theatre and performance Kim Marra; 5. Minstrel shows and blackface Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen; 6. Wild west shows Joy S. Kasson; 7. Burlesque and vaudeville David Monod; 8. The rise of American sports Daniel A. Nathan; 9. Amusement parks Lauren Rabinovitz; 10. American world's fairs in the gilded age Robert W. Rydell; Part II. The American Century, New Technologies, Media Consumers, and the Modern Sway of Popular Culture: 11. The global ascendancy of Hollywood cinema Ross Melnick; 12. The culture of radio, Inventing soundwork, imagining the nation Michele Hilmes; 13. Jazz and American popular culture Michael Borshuk; 14. Pulp fiction and the paperback revolution Paula Rabinowitz; 15. American world's fairs in the depression and atomic age Robert W. Rydell; 16. Television, From the broadcast era to the digital age Amanda D. Lotz; 17. Postwar rock music, race, liberalism, and mass bohemianism Ari Katorza; 18. Country music Pamela A. Fox; 19. The Broadway Musical Ryan Donovan; 20. Popular dance Sherril Dodds; 21. Sport in the age of mass media Travis Vogan; 22. New Hollywood and post-classical cinema Jon Lewis; 23. American comedy in the media Nicholas Holm; 24. Pornography and the adult entertainment industry Eric Schaefer; 25. Theme parks Lauren Rabinovitz; 26. Comic book culture, fandom, and superheroes Matthew J. Pustz; 27. Cooking as popular culture Emily J. H. Contois; Part III. The Power of Popular Culture, Political and Social Intervention: 28. Immigrant identities and popular culture at the turn of the century M. Alison Kibler; 29. Discordant music? Jews, African Americans, and the great American songbook Ari Katorza; 30. Cold war celebrity, the red scare, and civil rights Lauren Rabinovitz; 31. Hollywood and the pentagon, projecting state power through popular culture Roger Stahl; 32. Americanization and global popular culture Jaap Kooijman; 33. African Americans and popular culture Kinohi Nishikawa; 34. Jewish identities and popular culture Jonathan Branfman; 35. Asian Americans and popular culture Kent A. Ono; 36. Native Americans, media sovereignty, and popular culture Angelica M. Lawson; 37. Latino-Latina popular culture Anthony Macías; 38. Queer culture in mass media Jennifer Reed; 39. Epilogue, the enshrinement of popular culture in twenty-first century museums Lauren Rabinovitz, Editor; For further reading; Index.