Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture

by Paul R. Mullins

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306460890
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	03/31/1999
Series:	Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology
Edition description:	1999
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.36(d)

Table of Contents

Racializing Consumer Culture.- The Politicization and Politics of African-American Consumption.- Material and Symbolic Racism in Consumer Space.- “Producers as Well as Consumers”.- Moralizing Work and Materialism.- Modes of Consumption.- Affluent Aspiration.- Double Consciousness, Whiteness, and Consumer Culture.

Editorial Reviews

Crossing the many studies of the rise of racial ideology and its impact from the middle 19th century well into the 20th, with the many studies of the rise of consumer culture and mass advertising over the same period, Mullins (George Mason U.) investigates how consumer culture was fundamentally structured by race and racism. He argues that race was a social mechanism that ensured that emergent mass markets, public discourses, and economics were never utterly egalitarian, classless, or blind to ethnic and social distinction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

‘The book is a good example of the fruits an interdisciplinary approach can bear, for the author mixes very skillfully documents, oral testimony, photographs, and material evidence. Mullins is also keen to draw on anthropology, sociology, semiotics, history, and philosophy, not restricting himself to archaeology, and the result is clearly worth of praise... Most importantly, though, is his commitment to write a specific people's history...'
Historical Archaeology, 34:2
‘...his work is rigorous, well-founded historically, and carefully considered theoretically. ...successfully brought together archaeology, history, and social theory and applied them to a critically important contemporary issue. This is a fine piece of scholarship that marks a major step forward in the maturation of historical archaeology. Race and Affluence should be an obvious choice for a variety of courses on history, historical archaeology, and anthropological theory. For this research, Mullins was given the 2000 John J. Cotter Award by the Society for Historical Archaeology.'
Journal of Anthropological Research, 56 (2000)

From the Publisher