How cultural capital emerged in gilded age america: Musical purification and cross-class inclusion at the New York Philharmonic

Fabien Accominotti, Adam Storer, Shamus R. Khan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article uses a new database of subscribers to the New York Philharmonic to explore how high culture became a form of socially valuable capital in late-19th-century America. The authors find support for the classic account of high culture’s purification and exclusiveness, showing how over the long Gilded Age the social elite of New York attended the Philharmonic both increasingly and in more socially patterned ways. Yet they also find that the orchestra opened up to a new group of subscribers hailing from an emerging professional, managerial, and intellectual middle class. Importantly, the inclusion of this new audience was segregated: they did not mingle with elites in the concert hall. This segregated inclusion paved a specific way for the constitution of cultural capital. It meant that greater purity and greater inclusiveness happened together, enabling elite cultural participation to remain distinctivewhile elite tastes acquired broader social currency.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1743-1783
Number of pages41
JournalAmerican Journal of Sociology
Volume123
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2018
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Sociology and Political Science

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