WAS OUR FAMILY MIDDLE BROW?

WAS OUR FAMILY MIDDLE BROW? Looking at the Life article now, I come to the same conclusion that Elmer and I must have reached when we first encountered it. Our family was on the dividing line between Lower Middle Brow and Upper Middle Brow. Tellingly, our parents read solid nonfiction and the better novels (Upper Middle Brow). But they also read book club selections and mass circulation magazines (Lower Middle Brow). We played both charades (Upper Middle Brow) and bridge (Lower Middle Brow). And so forth. There is one criterion, however, that suggests that we were after all Lower Class. The Life article says that the Low Brow’s attitude toward the arts is “strictly live and let live.” Which would have made our family Low Brow.