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Title: Good description of Leisure in History
Review: Hard at Play; Leisure in America, 1840-1940 edited by Kathryn Grover one of the first books on the subject that targets objects of male leisure, namely rifle sports. Russell S. Gilmore, director of the Harbor Defense Museum in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn and PhD, in American History studies the implications of rifle games from 1840-1900 in "Another Branch of Manly Sport." He makes the astute observation that shooting galleries were part of American saloon culture since the 1830s, but the civil war turned the recreation into a necessary skill for the military.It is interesting how Gilmore traces the origins of some American military practices to leisure, further articulating leisure's importance in shaping not only social and consumer power, but politics as well.
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