@_jennasayquoi: With all of this old world imagery and rejection of technology and romanticized rose-colored tint of colonialism, Lozano writes, Americans craved an alternative to “overcivilized” modernity that, they feared, fostered exhaustion and nervousness. Direct contact with nature (and especially bountiful tropical nature), combined with observations of or interactions with nonwhite “tropical races” (regarded by many whites as more “primitive” and therefore relatively untouched by modernity’s constraints), assumed appealing therapeutic elements: so-called “racial gifts.” #gildedage #thegildedage #victorianera #historytiktokcontest #historytok