American Social Classes in the 1950s: Selections from Vance Packard's the Status Seekers

This abridged edition of Vance Packard's 1959 The Status Seekers presents a picture of American society in the late 1950s that allows students to develop a more accurate and complex understanding of an often-caricatured era. Daniel Horowitz's introduction provides historical context, an assssment of the book's impact, and a discussion of its critical reception.

This abridged edition of Vance Packard's 1959 The Status Seekers presents a picture of American society in the late 1950s that allows students to develop a more accurate and complex understanding of an often-caricatured era. Daniel Horowitz's introduction provides historical context, an assssment of the book's impact, and a discussion of its critical reception.

Daniel Horowitz is professor of American studies and history at Smith College. His scholarly work focuses on the cultural, social, and intellectual history of the United States. He is the author of The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940, which was selected by Choice Magazine as one of the outstanding academic books of 1984. His most recent book, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (1994), examines the life and impact of one of the nation's most widely read nonfiction writers of the postwar period.