The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, 1992 M11 27 - 260 pages
The Journey of Life is both a cultural history of aging and a contribution to public dialogue about the meaning and significance of later life. The core of the book shows how central texts and images of Northern middle-class culture, first in Europe and then in America, created and sustained specifically modern images of the life course between the Reformation and World War I. During this long period, secular, scientific and individualist tendencies steadily eroded ancient and medieval understandings of aging as a mysterious part of the eternal order of things. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, postmodern images of life's journey offer a renewed awareness of the spiritual dimensions of later life and new opportunities for growth in an aging society.

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Contents

cultural origins of the modern
3
The aging pilgrims progress in the New World
32
the late Calvinist ideal of aging
48
THE DUALISM OF AGING IN VICTORIAN AMERICA
71
Popular health reform and the legitimation of longevity 1830
92
Aging popular art and Romantic religion in midVictorian
110
selfhelp and the ideal of civilized
139
SCIENCE AND THE IDEAL OF NORMAL AGING
159
the formative
191
G Stanley Hall and
212
Beyond dualism and control reflections on aging
227
Index
253
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