Fads: America's Crazes, Fevers & Fancies

1978, undated later edition, from Crowell
Peter L. Skolnik, with Laura Torbet & Nikki Smith
Fads:  America's Crazes, Fevers & Fancies, from the 1890's to the 1970's
Original price $5.95, purchase price $3.50
Worn paperback with "mutilation" by me (I put Zeppo's face over George Harrison's, and of course Groucho's over John Lennon's)
B-

In very roughly chronological order, Skolnik and friends trace over a century of America's fads.  (Despite the subtitle, they actually start back in the 1860s, with croquet and roller skates.)  Their definition of "fads" includes not just wacky products and practices,but enthusiasms that are political or spiritual.  They offer explanations for why things caught on and then faded away, and in some cases, as with table tennis, came back again and again.  They discuss how large a fad was-- some were very local-- and how people reacted, as with protests against goldfish-swallowing. 

Beatlemania is of course is one of the fads, which is how I came to mutilate one page.  (As I recall, I was overly impressed by parallels between the Marx Brothers and the Beatles.)  As with Schaffner, the resurgence of Beatle fanship is also recognized.  Also like Schaffner's book, there's full nudity, in the former case that of John & Yoko, here of several streakers.

Although the book doesn't address fads beyond 1976, there are a couple mentions of Carter (including a caricature of him brushing the Washington Monument with a toothbrush), and this amusing prediction:  "We can speculate, but only precariously, about future fads: punk rock; more sophisticated computer games; satin boxing shorts a la Rocky; mopeds; and a fourth great roller-skating renaissance."  Not bad, guys, not bad at all, although I'm sure roller discos weren't quite what you were expecting.