Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American CultureAaronLecklider. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Abstract

Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture Aaron Lecklider. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.Although the use of the term dates back to the 1950s, the negotiation of what Lecklider calls in the US has existed since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. On one hand, there are intellectual elites such as writers, journalists, scholars, and others with formal education who often account for a large part of the upper and upper middle class. On the other hand, there are those who are frequently categorized as working class laborers and are not engaged in intellectual work. The sheer number of these laborers is large, despite their limited socioeconomic impact. Lecklider argues that the rise of mass culture and waves of social transformation helped the eggheads lose their control over cultural productions as the masses increasingly determined how a culture would develop. Consequently, the brainpower of the non-elites started to overpower that of those who were considered to be out of touch with reality. In Inventing the Egghead, Lecklider examines the history of American popular and mass culture in the twentieth century to chronicle how this negotiation occurred and how traditional intellectual minorities-working class Americans, women, racial minorities, and others -acquired intellectual authority.The author uses the term to refer to intelligence that empowered ordinary Americans who did not have access to formal higher education. Brainpower challenged existing social and political hierarchical structures and oftentimes led to their demise. This shift occurred when popular and mass culture, and not formal educational and political institutions, became the means of sharing knowledge. From Coney Island to Albert Einstein, the array of evidence the book provides is broad. For example, Luna Park at Coney Island was where tens of thousands of people, if not more, gathered for both simple and educational amusement. Early in the twentieth century, intellectual experiences at an amusement park did not top formal intellectualism. However, the fact that ordinary citizens could obtain education and intellectual experiences through mass popular culture signaled the egghead negotiation which was to come during the following century. For example, even though many intellectuals at the time were confused by intricate works by Einstein, Lecklider argues that he simultaneously gave a sense of hope to many Americans that perhaps one day they would become intellectuals like himself. In other words, Einstein embodied the negotiation between the intellectual elites and non-elites, enemies and friends, and fear for and the fascination of the unknown. …