Description
Book SynopsisIn the early twentieth century, a group of elite Eastern-coast women turned to the American Southwest in search of an alternative to European-derived concepts of culture. This book provides a narrative of the growing influence that this network of women had on the Native American art market to investigate the social construction of value.
Trade Review“Mullin makes a real contribution by exploring the dynamics of identity and social relations on the one side and knowledge and consumption on the other in her case study of the affluent women who influenced the direction and caste of the Indian art market.”—Charles McGovern, National Museum of American History
“This excellent and interesting work contributes to the question of how discourses about ‘art’ and ‘art-making’ circulate broadly within society. With subtlety and care Mullin traces out how ‘Indian arts’ and the Southwest come to have distinctive meanings within the context of American culture and its historical situation. It is a model of what an anthropology that links political economy, gender, and interpretation can and should do.”—Fred Myers, coeditor of
The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology“Reader-friendly. Anyone interested in Santa Fe history, Indian art, or women’s studies will find
Culture in the Marketplace a fascinating book.” -- Gretchen Garner * Santa Fe New Mexican *
Table of ContentsPreface
1. Culture and Cultures
2. Elizabeth Sergeant, Buying and Selling the Southwest
3. Shopping for a Better World in a “City of Ladies”
4. The Patronage of Difference: Making Indian Art “Art, not Ethnology”
5. Culture and Value at the Indian Market
Abbreviations
Notes
References
Index
