The Tastemakers, 2026

In February 1949, Harper’s published the essay “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow” by its managing editor, Russell Lynes. There, he observed a new structure determining prestige in the country: where once wealth and family were the markers of status, now taste and intelligence—what Pierre Bourdieu would later call cultural capital—were paramount. Two months later Life magazine had ... Read more The…