Illustrations

1. Coney Island Beach (1935) by Reginald Marsh (etching). The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn. Gift of Helen Benton Boley.

2. H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan (1947) by Irving Penn (platinum-palladium print). Vogue , February 1,1948. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Irving Penn. Courtesy Vogue. Copyright © 1948 (renewed 1976) by Condé Nast Publications, Inc.

3. Tuesday Evening at the Savoy Ballroom (1930) by Reginald Marsh (tempera on panel). Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. Gift of the Honorable William Benton, New York.

4. Russell Lynes (1949). Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

5. Taste-level chart drawn by Tom Funk for Life magazine, April 11, 1949, pp. 100–01. Courtesy of Tom Funk.

6. Arturo Toscanini (1939) by Herbert Gehr (gelatin silver print). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

7. Edward L. Bernays (1984) by Patricia Tate (oil on canvas). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Richard Hinds.

8. Jeanne Gordon of the Metropolitan Opera crowning Paul Whiteman as the “King of Jazz” in 1926. From Paul Whiteman, Jazz (New York: J. H. Sears & Company, 1926), p. 206.

9. Benny Goodman (1960) by René Robert Bouché (oil on canvas). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Benji Goodman Lasseau and Rachel Goodman Edelson.

10. Taste-level chart from The New Republic , March 2, 1992, p. 26. Courtesy of Tad Friend.

11. Taste-level chart from The Utne Reader , Sept.–Oct. 1992, p. 83. Courtesy of Tad Friend.

12. H. L. Mencken (1949) by Al Hirschfeld (gouache on board). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Courtesy of Al Hirschfeld.

13. Hollywood (1937) by Thomas Hart Benton (tempera with oil on canvas). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (bequest of the artist). © T. H. Benton and R. P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.

14. The New Television Set (1949) by Norman Rockwell (oil on canvas). Saturday Evening Post cover, November 5, 1949. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Ned Crowell.

15. Andy Warhol (1975) by James Browning Wyeth (gouache and pencil on paper). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Coe-Kerr Gallery.

Ignatz Mouse says to Offisa Pup: Ignatz’s ambitions go beyond the mere flat comic strip: the intricate plot of Krazy Kat encompasses Ignatz’s diabolically contrived efforts to transcend the familiar two dimensions, the lowly flatland of popular culture, and attain to the roundness of high art. Ignatz explains his intentions to Offisa Pup: “Like other immigrants and their children ... I’m ready to give America a big Chanukah present back—a new image of the self. But this time why lock ourselves up in the pop-culture ghetto? Why not strut uptown to the mansion of high art, of roundness, and say that our gift to America could rank with Eugene O’Neill’s or Henry James’s? America needs a truly democratic high art. America needs the round comic strip!”

—Jay Cantor, Krazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels (1987)

Without tradition there can be no taste, and what is worse, there can be little for taste to act upon.

—John Erskine, Democracy and Ideals: A Definition (1920)

Good taste does pay off, without any question.

—Harry Scherman, founder of the Book-of-the-Month Club (1926), reminiscing in 1955

We need to recover the history of the concept of “popular culture.” We have to understand the origins of certain sorts of judgements about popular culture: as debased, as bastion of authenticity, or as irrelevant. We have to see popular culture in its historically shifting relation to dominant cultural forms, in order to avoid the temptation to naturalize existing social and cultural relations. Above all, we must not lose sight of the fact that popular culture matters: it has clearly mattered to those who have sought to classify it or to control it.

—Morag Shiach, Discourse on Popular Culture (1989)