{"product_id":"9780822971344","title":"The Spencers of Amberson Avenue: A Turn-of-the-Century Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis appealing memoir introduces the family of Charles Hart Spencer and his wife Mary Acheson: seven children born between 1884 and 1895. It also introduces a large Victorian house in Shadyside (a Pittsburgh neighborhood) and a middle-class way of life at the turn of the century.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMr. Spencer, who worked--not very happily--for Henry Clay Frick, was one of the growing number of middle-management employees in American industrial cities in the 1880s and 1890s. His income, which supported his family of nine, a cook, two regular nurses, and at times a wet nurse and her baby, guaranteed a comfortable life but not a luxurious one. In the words of the editors, the Spencers represent a class that \"too often stands silent or stereotyped as we rush forward toward the greater glamour of the robber barons or their immigrant workers.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThrough the eyes of Ethel Spencer, the third daughter, we are led with warmth and humor through the routine of everyday life in this household: school, play, church on Sundays, illness, family celebrations, and vacations. Ethel was an observant child, with little sentimentality, and she wrote her memoir in later life as a professor of English with a gift for clear prose and the instincts of an anthropologist. As the editors observe, her memoir is \"a fascinating insight into one kind of urban life of three generations ago.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Pittsburgh Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47124299645168,"sku":"9780822971344","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780822971344_p0.jpg?v=1763753634","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780822971344","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}