Popular Culture in American History collects the most widely cited and important writings on 300 years of American popular culture. Each of the ten essays serves as a case study of a particular moment, issue, or form of popular culture, from seventeenth-century chapbooks to hip hop. Each essay is paired with relevant primary sources, among them illustrations, advertising, and excerpts from works ranging from dime novel fiction to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and Ralph Waldo Emerson. With further reading lists, contextualizing editorial introductions, discussion questions, and chronologies of key events built into the book's pedagogical framework, Cullen has created an indispensable teaching tool for instructors in American History and American Studies and the first book of its kind on the history of pop culture in the United States.