Joseph Larnerd
Hardback
June 2026 • ISBN 978-1-64453-420-5 • $130.00
Paperback
June 2026 • ISBN 978-1-64453-419-9 • $49.95
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Material Culture Perspectives
How did workers experience cut glass during its cultural heyday? Rather than privilege the stories of factory owners or wealthy consumers, Undercut: Cut Glass in Working-Class Life during the Long Gilded Age refracts the medium’s history through the labors required to make and maintain these dazzling artifacts as well as popular representations of this work, from demonstrations at World Fairs to images of domestic servants with finished pieces in their charge. Cut glass and the many manifestations of public interest in its labors offered working peoples, too, occasions for self-reflection and, perhaps, self-realization. Foregrounding their lives, Undercut offers a multifaceted social art history of a once-popular genre of decorative art that cuts across class, gender, and race.
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