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Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Woman and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century

New York. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.

Kathy Peiss’s book Cheap Amusements: Working Woman and Leisure in Turn-of-

the-Century New York is a study of the working-class woman’s culture during the turn-of-

the-century in the city of New York. The basis of the study focuses on how this culture

changed and how these women pioneered new forms of gender relations through their

leisure activities. Piess argues that the rapid expansion and commercialization of the late

nineteenth century allowed the working-class woman to seek autonomy and leisure

activities in order to counteract dependency in the workplace and in their Old World

homes that eventually led to a cultural transformation between generations of the

working-class gender relations or roles. She explores this culture by looking at the

working-class woman of Manhattan that were typically immigrants or second-generation

immigrants. She clearly states the classification of this case study in her introduction

stating that “the working class woman discussed in the following pages typically were

immigrants or daughters of immigrants, lived in…tenement districts, and labored for

wages while unmarried” (9).

Peiss divides this argument into three main parts. The first part (first three

chapters) consists of an overview of the status of leisure for men and woman and how

they spent this time. She explains how men enjoyed the freedom of doing as they wished

while woman could only explore certain if any leisure other than housework or the street

and stoop. This part also includes not only the married woman and first generation

immigrant, but also the single working-class woman and how they were able to live and

spend their leisure time. In this first part of the book, Peiss gives the reader a solid base
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to support her argument by explaining how it was and setting the stage for how it would

change.

The second part of the book consists of three chapters that consists of the ways

that working-class woman were able to begin to get away from dependence and find their

desired autonomy and leisure. Each chapter consists of a certain type of leisure activity

and explains how these working-class women were able to take part in these activities.

For example, the fourth chapter is about dancing and how during the turn-of-the-century

how these immigrant and second-generation woman transformed night-life into a

heterosexual event where woman were able to freely express their sexualities. Peiss goes

on to explain the other forms of leisure activities that these woman were able to take part,

which included amusement parks like Coney Island and going to the theatre.

The third part of the book consists of a final chapter that explains how the middle-

class reformers “assailed…the dance halls and resorts.” This final chapter explains how

the middle-class was uncomfortable with these cultural changes that were taking place in

New York City and how they reacted to these changes. For example, some middle-class

reformers tried to make some of the “dirty dances” more sophisticated and more suitable

for their statures. Peiss concludes this part by explaining how the middle-class reformers

failed to control this cultural change and that the gender role of woman had changed by

the turn-of-the-century.

Peiss has offered the scholarly world a very interesting study of the cultural

transformation of woman at the end of the nineteenth century. She has provided inclusive

evidence and has excelled in the organization that has resulted in a skillfully written and

meticulously argued study. She provides a solid argument and cleverly shows that she is
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not arguing a “trickle up” or “trickle-down” theory, but instead that the line of cultural

transformation travels in both directions (8). Her study should be considered a valuable

source by all historians and should become a reoccurring theme of the Gilded and

Progressive Era as far as the history of American woman is concerned.

John C. McKnight

Appalachian State University