Race and Affluence

by Mullins, Paul R.

• ISBN13: 9780306460890
• ISBN10: 0306460890
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

An archaeological analysis of the centrality of race and racism in American culture. Using a broad range of material, historical, and ethnographic resources from Annapolis, Maryland, during the period 1850 to 1930, the author probes distinctive African-American consumption patterns and examines how those patterns resisted the racist assumptions of the dominant culture while also attempting to demonstrate African-Americans' suitability to full citizenship privileges.

Table of Contents

Racializing Consumer Culture	p. 1
Racism and Consumption in Annapolis, Maryland	p. 5
Archaeology and African-American Annapolis	p. 8
"If We Were Black": The Politics of Naming	p. 15
Race and Consumption	p. 18
The Politicization and Politics of African-American Consumption	p. 19
Partisan Politics and African-American Material Politicization	p. 22
Politicizing Consumer Culture: The Politics of Consumption, or the Consumption of Politics?	p. 25
Material Symbolism, Social Subjectivity, and Consumer Agency	p. 28
Complicating Social Position: Conscious Experience and Dominant Structure	p. 35
Racialization and Subjectivity in Consumer Culture	p. 37
Material and Symbolic Racism in Consumer Space	p. 41
Black Simulacra: Advertising Racial Difference	p. 43
Patent Medicines and Africa-American Body Discipline	p. 50
"I Left There an Innocent Man": Racism and White Public Space	p. 67
Race and Racism as Constraining and Enabling	p. 76
"Producers as Well as Consumers": Market Space in African-American Annapolis	p. 79
"What Can Be Done by the Negro": African-American Entrepreneurship	p. 81
African-American Marketing in Jim Crow Annapolis	p. 88
African-American Consumers and Jewish Merchants	p. 92
Chain and Corner Stores	p. 96
African-American Consumer Discipline	p. 98
Moralizing Work and Materialism: The Morals of African-American Labor and Consumption	p. 99
The Work Ethic and African-American Subjectivity	p. 101
Wage Slavery: Labor and Material Opportunity in Annapolis	p. 103
Constructing Genteel Consumers	p. 118
Moralizing Discourses and Social Struggle	p. 123
Modes of Consumption: African-American Consumption Tactics	p. 127
"What a Race They Are!": Racializing Domestic Labor	p. 129
Domestic Labor and the Movement of Goods	p. 140
Ceramics and Communal Reciprocity	p. 147
Tactical Mediations	p. 153
Affluent Aspiration: African-American Consumer Desire	p. 155
"It Is Your Duty to Live Well": Democratizing Materialism	p. 157
"To Live Is to Consume!": Consumption as Empowerment	p. 160
National Markets and African-American Consumers	p. 170
Racializing Thrift	p. 175
Aspiration and African-American Consumption	p. 182
Double Consciousness, Whiteness, and Consumer Culture	p. 185
References	p. 191
Index	p. 213
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.