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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S When I was a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to participate in a method of teaching called ‘‘Inductive Approaches to History,’’ which explored vivid public controversies, used only primary sources, and taught students how to conduct historical research and analysis. The 1943 zoot suit riot seemed a fitting topic in a pedagogical tradition whose topics included the Salem witchcraft trials, the Lizzie Borden ax murders, the Beecher-Tilton affair, and the Black Sox scandal. While developing the course, I became a member of an innovative seminar intended to teach senior faculty how to use instructional technology. Developing a website allowed me the opportunity to explore a wide range of audiovisual material, and to ponder the relationship between aesthetics and politics on the home front. These pedagogical experiences stuck with me long after I taught the course, and indeed laid the groundwork for this project. I am grateful to the University of Massachusetts History Department, the Center for Teaching, and members of the Teachnology faculty seminar, led by Mei Shih, for their support and inspiration; thanks are also due James Kelly, Doris Peterson, Fred Zinn, the UMass Library’s Interlibrary Loan staff, and the UMass Provost’s Office. I owe a special debt to Laura Abato-Paulus, who did extensive primary research for me in Los Angeles, and to the staffs of two libraries at UCLA, the Charles E. Young Research Library and the Chicano Studies 238 Acknowledgments Research Library, for their assistance to her. At the University of Pennsylvania , I had excellent research assistance from Olga Gorodetsky and Aro Velmet; research librarian Nick Okrent and the Interlibrary Loan office have been unfailingly helpful. Thanks also go to Rita Barnard, Erin Park Cohn, Susan Delson, Mary Catherine French, Kim Gallon, Janine Giordano, David Glassberg, Rob Goldberg, Beth Hillman, Peter Holquist , Sarah Igo, Phoebe Kropp, Heather Murray, Elizabeth Pleck, Greg Robinson, Barbara Savage, Nick Spitzer, Kristen Stromberg-Childers, and Johnny Vardeman for references, information, and leads. Heather Murray and Matthew Kolasa translated several key texts. I have benefited from the responses and suggestions of faculty and students in presentations to the Montreal History Group, Texas A&M University Humanities Center, the University of Illinois Miller Com Lecture Series, Monmouth University, the University of Pennsylvania’s Provost’s Lecture Series, and in seminars at the University of Massachusetts and University of Pennsylvania . I especially appreciate the careful readings of the entire manuscript by Rob Goldberg, Daniel Horowitz, Bruce Kuklick, Heather Murray, and Susan Strasser; Carlo Rotella’s review for the University of Pennsylvania Press provided excellent guidance as I completed revisions. Numerous conversations with Roger Abrahams, as well as his inspiring scholarship, shaped my thinking about extreme style. My editor, Robert Lockhart, offered an astute reading and advice that improved the final manuscript. I thank Mariellen Smith for securing permissions, and Mindy Brown, Noreen O’Connor-Abel, and Julia Rose Roberts for their superb work in the editing and production process. My husband, Peter Agree, encouraged me to write this work and has lived with drape shapes and reet pleats for many years now; he has pushed me to develop the larger argument and blue penciled every line. For this and everything else, I am grateful to him beyond measure. ...

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