Race and Class Identities in Early American Department Stores

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-53
Author(s):  
Traci Parker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Department Store ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Free Entry ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Early American

An exploration of the racial and class dimensions of early American department stores is provided in this chapter. It reveals why these retail institutions became prime locations for protesting and claiming civil rights. Early American department stores operated under the principle of free entry and browsing—a principle that helped usher in a new conception of American democracy that was intricately tied to the practices of consumption that the department store fostered. Stores, however, also conformed to and endorsed aspects of Jim Crow (including notions of racial order and purity): many stores received African Americans under the principle of free entry and browsing but then constrained their movement and participation in this space; and stores hired blacks as maintenance and stockroom workers, elevator operators, porters, and maids—all invisible from the salesroom floor—but barred them from white-collar staff positions in sales, clerical, and management. The racialized democracy of the department store shaped the ways that race and class were imagined and employed to create both worker and consumer identities, making department stores an epitome of racial discrimination and thus an ideal site to challenge racial discrimination.

Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Traci Parker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Department Store ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
Black Freedom Movement ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
Freedom Movement

In this book, Traci Parker examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores, and broadens our understanding of historical transformations in African American class and labor formation. Built on the goals, organization, and momentum of earlier struggles for justice, the department store movement channeled the power of store workers and consumers to promote black freedom in the mid-twentieth century. Sponsoring lunch counter sit-ins and protests in the 1950s and 1960s, and challenging discrimination in the courts in the 1970s, this movement ended in the early 1980s with the conclusion of the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. affirmative action cases and the transformation and consolidation of American department stores. In documenting the experiences of African American workers and consumers during this era, Parker highlights the department store as a key site for the inception of a modern black middle class, and demonstrates the ways that both work and consumption were battlegrounds for civil rights.

The Department Store Movement in the Postwar Era

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-147
Author(s):  
Traci Parker
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Department Store ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
Preliminary Testing ◽  
White Community ◽  
Racial Liberalism ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 4 considers the department store movement and the birth of a modern middle-class consciousness in the 1940s and 1950s. Department stores remained key battlegrounds and took on greater significance as black purchasing power had reached an unprecedented level of $8-9 million by 1947 and the relationship between consumption and citizenship had changed. For the most part, the department store movement remained a fight for jobs in the immediate postwar era, taking on consumer issues as it saw fit. This phase of the movement marked a period of preliminary testing that would eventually lead to militant protests in the 1950s and 1960s. Under the leadership of the National Urban League (NUL) and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the movement relied on intercultural education and moral exhortations. Emblematic of racial liberalism and the early civil rights movement, the NUL and AFSC believed that if respectable blacks and white community leaders simply asked store officials to hire African Americans in sales and clerical, they would, and after that “their attitude about integrated workplaces and African Americans generally would change,” helping them “topple barriers in other industries and locations.”

Before Montgomery

2019 ◽  
pp. 54-82
Author(s):  
Traci Parker
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Department Store ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Purchasing Power ◽  
Office Work ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Black Neighborhoods ◽  
Depression Era ◽  
Black Consumer

Chapter 2 examines the rise of the department store movement in the urban North and Midwest. It begins with a look into the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movement. The “Don’t Buy” movement built on an earlier tradition of black consumer protests and leveraged black purchasing power to secure better jobs in sales and office work in white-owned business located in urban black neighborhoods. The department store movement was an outgrowth of this Depression-era campaign. Shaped by New Deal and wartime programs, the department store movement built on the tactics, goals, and momentum of its predecessor but targeted department stores exclusively. These stores were now not only symbols of American democracy and prosperity but also inherently public spaces where all the races, gender, and classes might confront each other daily, and consequently where conflict and eventual resolution would be most visible.

scholarly journals Resistance to Marginalization in America as Reflected in Kathryn Stockett's 'The Help'

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-18
Author(s):  
Devita Normalisa ◽  
Mohamad Ikhwan Rosyidi
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Black Characters ◽  
The Us

Slavery and racial segregation are two important events that shaped American history. Although slavery had been abolished constitutionally by the Thirteenth Amendment, racial segregation remained existing in some southern states of the US until Civil Rights Movement in 1960s. Racial segregation in the US was regulated by Jim Crow laws which promoted “separate but equal” rules. This situation is reflected in Kathryn Stockett’s novel entitled The Help which mostly portrays the life of black maids under Jim Crow laws in Jackson, Mississippi during 1960s. This study aims to find the resistance to marginalization that is caused by racial discrimination, as well as the factors that underlies the resistance. The method of this study is a qualitative study. The data is analyzed by Gramsci’s hegemony theory and scooped by sociology of literature. Then, the method of data analysis is based on the conflicts of characters in the novel; white and black characters. The Help shows that marginalization of African Americans is created from the opposition that occur because of racial hegemony; the ruling class and the ruled class, the controlling and the controlled, the free ones and the restricted ones, the strong ones and the weak ones, or the voiced ones and the silenced ones. The Help also shows that the resistance to marginalization can be done by producing literature. The resistance of the African Americans happens as a result of oppression and inhumane treatment. It also happens as a result of black people’s consciousness that sees racial discrimination as a system that is full of flaws. Keywords: hegemony, marginalization, racial discrimination, resistance

Pengaruh Positive Emotion, Time Availability, dan Money Availability terhadap Impulsive Buying Behavior Konsumen Mahasiswa pada Department Store di Kota Yogyakarta

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Faizal Ardiyanto
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Department Store ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
Buying Behavior ◽  
Managerial Implication ◽  
Impulsive Buying ◽  
Time Availability ◽  
Unplanned Buying ◽  
Buying In ◽  
Yogyakarta City

This research was conducted to examine the influence of positive emotion, time availability, and money availabilty toward impulsive buying behavior both partially and simultaneously. The respondent of this research are university students who have experienced unplanned buying in several department stores at Yogyakarta City. Purposive sampling method was utilized then 102 respondents were chosen. The results indicate that positive emotion, time availability, and money avaiability positively and significantly influence impulsive buying behavior. The three independent variables as stated above, simultaneously influence impulsive buying behavior also. Finally, as the managerial implication stated, it can be concluded that understanding consumers condition related with unplanned buying is important topics in recent years, especially in department store.

Religion, Race, and Sports

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Scholes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Baseball Player ◽  
Sports History ◽  
Jim Crow Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
African American Race

Race, religion, and sports may seem like odd bedfellows, but, in fact, all three have been interacting with each other since the emergence of modern sports in the United States over a century ago. It was the sport of boxing that saw a black man become a champion at the height of the Jim Crow era and a baseball player who broke the color barrier two decades before the civil rights movement began. In this chapter, the role that religion has played in these and other instances where race (the African American race in particular) and sports have collided will be examined for its impact on the relationship between race and sports. The association of race, religion, and sports is not accidental. The chapter demonstrates that all three are co-constitutive of and dependent on each other for their meaning at these chosen junctures in American sports history.

Federal Policy and the Racial Integration of Southern Industry, 1961–1980

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Minchin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
Racial Integration ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Federal Intervention

In the last two decades, one of the central debates of civil rights historiography has concerned the role that the federal government played in securing the gains of the civil rights era. Historians have often been critical of the federal government's inaction, pointing out that it was only pressure from the civil rights movement itself that prompted federal action against Jim Crow. Other scholars have studied the civil rights record of the federal government by analyzing a single issue during several administrations. In this vein, there have been studies of the federal government's involvement in areas as diverse as black voting rights and racial violence against civil rights workers. These studies have both recognized the importance of federal intervention and have also been critical of the federal government's belated and half-hearted endorsement of civil rights.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document