La esprimo "popola kulturo" estis kreita en la 19-a jarcento por aludi al la eduko kaj ĝenerala "klereco" de la malsuperaj klasoj, kiel tia liverita en prezentaĵo ĉe la Urbodomo de Birmingham, Anglio.[2] La esprimo komencis supozi la signifon de kulturo de la malsuperaj klasoj apartaj (kaj foje opone) kontraŭ "vera eduko" ĝis la fino de la jarcento, uzokutimo kiu iĝis establita por la intermilita periodo.[3] La nuna signifo de la esprimo, kulturo por amaskonsumo, aparte origina de Usono, estas establita proksime de la fino de Dua Mondmilito.
Per Adam Siljeström, The educational institutions of the United States, their character and organization, J. Chapman, 1853, p. 243: "Influence of European emigration on the state of civilization in the United States: Statistics of popular culture in America". John Morley prezentis eseon On Popular Culture ĉe la Urbodomo de Birmingham en 1876, rilate al edukado de malaltaj klasoj.
e.g. "the making of popular culture plays [in post-revolutionary Russian theater]", Huntly Carter, The new spirit in the Russian theatre, 1917-28: And a sketch of the Russian kinema and radio, 1919-28, showing the new communal relationship between the three, Ayer Publishing, 1929, p. 166.
Ashby, LeRoy. "The Rising of Popular Culture: A Historiographical Sketch," OAH Magazine of History, 24 (April 2010), 11–14.
Ashby, LeRoy. With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830 (2006)
Bakhtin, M. M. and Michael Holquist, Vadim Liapunov, Kenneth Brostrom. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays[rompita ligilo] (University of Texas Press Slavic Series). Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.
Browne, Ray B. and Pat Browne, eds. The Guide to U.S. Popular Culture (2001), 1010 pages; essays by experts on many topics
Burke, Peter. "Popular Culture Reconsidered," Storia della Storiografia 1990, Issue 17, pp 40–49
Freitag, Sandria B. "Popular Culture in the Rewriting of History: An Essay in Comparative History and Historiography," Peasant Studies, 1989, Vol. 16 Issue 3, pp 169–198,
Gerson, Stéphane. "'A World of Their Own': Searching for Popular Culture in the French Countryside," French Politics, Culture and Society, Summer 2009, Vol. 27 Issue 2, pp 94–110
Hassabian, Anahid (1999). "Popular", Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, eds.: Horner, Bruce and Swiss, Thomas. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-21263-9.
John Seabrook. NoBrow: the culture of marketing the marketing of culture, New York: A.A. Knopf, 2000. ISBN 0-375-40504-6
Storey, John (2006). Cultural theory and popular culture. Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0-13-197068-7