![]() | Commerce in Color: Race, Consumer Culture, and American Literature, 1893-1933 Subjects: American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Consumption (Economics) in literature; Material culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Racism in popular culture; Afri; Commerce in Color exploresthe juncture of consumer culture and race by examining advertising, literary texts, mass culture, and public events in the United States from 1893 to 1933. James C. Davis takes up a remarkable range of subjects--including the crucial role publishers Boni and Liveright played in the marketing of Harlem Renaissance literature, Henry James's critique of materialism in The American Scene, and the commodification of racialized popular culture in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man --as he argues that racial thinking was central to the emergence of U.S. consumerism and, conversely, that an emerging consumer culture was a key element in the development of racial thinking and the consolidation of racial identity in America. By urging a reassessment of the familiar rubrics of the "culture of consumption" and the "culture of segregation," Dawson poses new and provocative questions about American culture and social history. "A welcome addition to existing scholarship, Davis's study of the intersection of racial thinking and the emergence of consumer culture makes connections very few scholars have considered." --James Smethurst, University of Massachusetts James C. Davis is Assistant Professor of English at Brooklyn College.James C. Davis is Assistant Professor of English at Brooklyn College. |
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