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"As Popular as Pin-Up Girls": The Armed Services Editions, Masculinity, and Middlebrow Print Culture in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States
Journal article   Peer reviewed

"As Popular as Pin-Up Girls": The Armed Services Editions, Masculinity, and Middlebrow Print Culture in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States

Alex H. Poole
Information & culture, v 52(4), pp 462-486
01 Jan 2017

Abstract

Arts & Humanities History History Of Social Sciences Information Science & Library Science Science & Technology Social Sciences Social Sciences - Other Topics Technology
Produced between 1943 and 1947, the Armed Services Editions comprised 1,322 titles and 122,951,031 books. A central part of middlebrow culture's institutionalization, they democratized reading for servicemen, setting the stage for a massive consumption of middlebrow print culture postwar. Further, the Editions illuminate the ways in which this culture dovetailed with anxieties about masculinity. While the Editions shored up GIs' morale, they helped revitalize long-standing concerns about men's reputed softening and even effeminacy. In consuming middlebrow print culture, critics argued, men opted for the weak and spurious instead of the virile and vigorous-a dereliction of duty in Cold War America.

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Web of Science research areas
History
History Of Social Sciences
Information Science & Library Science
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