Description
How did the tension between the Puritan vision of America as a “New Israel” and Thomas Morton’s vision of America as a “New Canaan” shape the later development of popular culture in the nineteenth century? How and why did powerful Americans try to use popular culture (including Christmas) to create a more orderly society? How and why did less powerful Americans use popular culture to resist efforts to control them? Was popular culture more effective as a means of control or resistance?