Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-253) and index.
Contents:
Frankie and Johnny take center stage : African American folk culture in 1930s America -- Lead Belly's Ninth Symphony : Huddie Ledbetter and the changing contours of American folk music -- Pistol Packin' Mama: imperiled masculinity in Thomas Hart Benton's a social history of the state of Missouri -- Whiteface Marionettes: John Huston's comic melodrama -- The finest woman ever to walk the streets : Mae West's outlaw exploits in She Done Him Wrong -- The lynching of Johnny : Sterling Brown's social realist critique -- Epilogue. African American women's voices and the tightrope of respectability.
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