Publishers Weekly
08/17/2020
Historian Beauman (Shapely Ankle Preferr’d) analyzes American courtship rituals in this lively survey of 250 years of personal ads. Contending that these advertisements should be recognized as a crucial gauge of national modernity, Beauman examines the first known American personal ad, placed in a Boston newspaper in 1759, before focusing on the mid-19th-century “penny press”—inexpensive dailies targeted at an increasingly literate, ever-curious public. She documents the popularity of personal ads placed by Civil War soldiers, suggesting that flirtatious correspondence was a form of patriotic emotional labor as well as personal entertainment. Though some ads resulted in wedded bliss, Beauman notes, they could just as easily lead to deception, fraud, and far worse. Bigamists, con artists, and prostitutes placed and answered ads for nefarious purposes, as did Belle Gunness, the most prolific female serial killer in American history, who lured more than 40 men to their deaths on her Indiana farm. Though Beauman’s scattershot approach—she devotes just one chapter to the period between 1908 and 2020, and makes little reference to other work done on the history of courtship in America —undermines her argument about the scholarly value of personal ads, she is a companionable and witty narrator and an excellent curator of primary source material. History buffs will be entertained. (Oct.)
New York Daily News
Francesca Beauman’s “Matrimony, Inc.” is a lively history of America’s commercialized hunt for romance, from the quaint personals in 18th century gazettes to the crude come-ons of the internet age. Though the specifics change, the challenges remain constant.”
Kathryn Hahn
Who among us hasn’t been a voyeur of the personal ad? Beauman’s deep historical dive into a person’s most naked ask into the universe is hilarious and maddening and heartbreaking, and reveals through these incredible finds how the needs and expectations of what we look for in a mate have evolved, and what has stubbornly remained the same. You won’t be able to hear the phrase ‘swipe right’ quite the same way again."
Amanda Foreman
Beauman has uncovered a treasure trove of fascinating detail. Matrimony Inc is the ultimate proof that we humans are fools for love. But also desperate, courageous, and occasionally lucky."
The New York Post
"Advertising for a partner was, in 1778, pretty radical. But according to historian Francesca Beauman’s t wouldn’t be long before men and women from all over the new country would embrace this unconventional, optimistic and deeply American way of finding a mate.
Joey Soloway
Fascinating. Ever since there were newspapers there were personal ads. Reading them is a peek into the romantic hopes and dreams of people who felt the desire to reach out in this public way. Beauman’s book gives us a window into the history of the U.S. and the politics of how marriage shaped this country."
Patrick Radden Keefe
A fascinating, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking work of history. With wry wit and a trained eye for the absurd, Beauman takes a cultural artifact that seems so perishable and rescues it from the scrap heap. These lonely-heart epistles tell a larger story about social life in America, homesteads, cities, newspapers, gender relations, and the enduring appeal of ‘a good set of teeth.’
Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral - Richard Curtis
A gorgeous book. It turns out that the search for love actually was always funny, sad, weird and wonderful.
Elizabeth Day
"Francesca Beauman writes with elegance, wit and profound intelligence. Matrimony, Inc. is a wonderful book full of impressive original research which charts how personal ads shaped the course of American history. A joyous and clever read.
Independent (Praise for Shapely Ankle Preferr'd)
"This thorough and thoroughly amusing book suggest that what lonely hearts have always needed is a thick skin, a willing heart and, above all, a GSOH."
The Sunday Times (Praise for Shapely Ankle Preferr'd)
"An absorbing and intelligent history of the pursuit of love."
Mail on Sunday (Praise for Shapely Ankle Preferr'd)
"Wonderfully enjoyable."
Sunday Telegraph (Praise for Shapely Ankle Preferr'd)
"A perfect little history of the surprisingly long story of those who WLTM."
Library Journal
10/01/2020
Historian Beauman explores the evolving nature of matrimony in the United States through the lens of personal ads, which blossomed in the 1800s. Homesteading policies encouraged marriage and incentives by Western states, including female suffrage, were meant to address the dearth of females on the frontier. Newly arrived immigrants lacked the kind of community ties that facilitate the meeting of a life partner and industrialization, characterized by long shifts in factories, also meant that workers had little time for courting. Personal ads in newspapers were seen as an expeditious way to find a mate. Whereas early ads emphasized a desire for financial solvency, at the end of the century, when more women were placing ads due to a gender imbalance following the Civil War, the focus was on sobriety. Beauman notes that post-Enlightment virtues, as well as an emphasis on romantic love in literature, made Americans choosier. Immigrants in particular were looking to shed the yoke of Old World traditions by rejecting arranged marriage and seeking a more "American" approach. However, the anonymity of the ads made scam, fraud, and murder increasingly viable. VERDICT An amusing history that charts the progression of the personals, and which makes "swiping right" seem less newfangled than it is.—Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID
