Black Consumer: a Study of African-American Consumer Culture in Washington, D.C., 1910S - 1930S

The “Bad” Black Consumer: A Study of African-American Consumer Culture in Washington, D.C., 1910s - 1930s by Sandra Rena Heard B/ARC, 1992, Mississippi State University Th.M., 1998, Xavier University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2010 Dissertation directed by Chad Heap Associate Professor of American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Sandra Rena Heard has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of June 30, 2010. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. The “Bad” Black Consumer: A Study of African-American Consumer Culture in Washington, D.C., 1910s - 1930s Sandra Rena Heard Dissertation Research Committee: Chad Heap, Associate Professor of American Studies Dissertation Director Melani McAlister, Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs Committee Member James Miller, Professor of English and American Studies Committee Member ! ""! Dedication For Jennie Ruth Heard, Catherine Heard, Brian Hughes and Reia Don Stock-Heard ! """! Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my partner Ginger Rumph and other family members for their unwavering support as I labored to complete this project over the past five years. Ginger’s creative insight, close reads and edits were most useful in keeping the content engaging and current. I am also appreciative of the guidance that my dissertation advisor Chad Heap gave during the many rewrites of chapters. The strength of this work is due, in part, to his insistence on pulling more from the sources even when I was convinced that there was nothing left to find in seemingly innocuous documents. Of course, a word of gratitude must be extended to the additional members of my doctoral committee, Melani McAlister and James Miller. Because of their targeted criticisms, I have been able to produce what I believe is a significant piece of scholarship. And, I cannot say enough about the archivists at the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, the Library of Congress and the Historical Society of Washington, DC. These professionals were always patient and knowledgeable as I sometimes fumbled through collections, asking a multitude of questions. Lastly, I would like to send a shout out to the many readers, especially Ramzi Fawaz, Kim Yates and Jeremy Hill, who helped me think through the tough spots and encouraged intellectual curiosity. ! "#! Abstract of Dissertation The “Bad” Black Consumer: A Study of African-American Consumer Culture in Washington, D.C., 1910s - 1930s My dissertation is a social and cultural history of African-American consumption in the nation’s capital during the interwar period. It argues that commodity culture fashioned a black consumer class that willingly and unintentionally stigmatized the Race during the rise of Jim Crow. This project specifically explores how members of the capital city’s black elite worked to delimit the mobility of their constituency when they reproduced the idea that African Americans who conspicuously consumed were villainous or disreputable. It also looks at the role that mass culture played in distracting poor and middle-class black Washingtonians from addressing the structural forces that systematically disenfranchised peoples of African descent. Instead of collaborating to remedy the inequities that were responsible for creating a large black servant class, a number of African Americans within D.C. turned to the market to style themselves in ways that were in line with popular images of success. In so doing, they helped to preserve the reigning racial and class ideology of the era, which prefigured the white consumer as the ideal citizen and the black consumer as a potential criminal and threat to the existing social order. I focus on Washington, D.C. because it did not have a large black industrial working class in the early twentieth century. The absence of an organized black proletariat partially contributed to the emergence and dominance of a black consumer ! #! class, which reinforced the supremacy of the bourgeoisie instead of cultivating a blue- collar racial identity that countered middle-class “white” cultural norms. As this project maintains, black Washingtonians participated in marginalizing their community when they bought into mainstream ideas of what constituted status or propriety and publicly linked African-American consumption patterns with deviance. That is, commodity culture united various classes of the District’s African-American residents to the dominant white society while undermining their ability to fully participate in collective action to resist the vagaries of racism or gain equality between WWI and WWII. ! #"! Table of Contents Dedication………………………………………………………….....iii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………...iv Abstract of Dissertation………………………………………..............v Table of Contents…………………………………………………….vii List of Figures……………………………………………………….viii Introduction………………………………………………………........1 Chapter 1: The “Bad” Black Consumer……………………………...24 Chapter 2: Colored Chauffeurs: Negotiating Stereotypes While Working and Cruising……………………………..65 Chapter 3: Consuming Melodrama in Black and White……............115 Chapter 4: Black Homes: Places of Refuge and Threats to Civil Society……….………………………………...162 Conclusion……………………………………………………..........221 Bibliography………………………………………………………...227 ! #""! List of Figures Figure 1: 1930 Map of Washington, DC………………………….. 220 ! #"""! Introduction Black newspaperman Calvin Chase was one of the most prolific purveyors and resolute arbiters of consumer culture in Washington, D.C.’s African-American community throughout the early twentieth century. During the summer of 1917, he declared in his weekly paper that blacks gravitated toward “flimsy schemes” and “sharp practice” (deception or shoddy and low-quality work) because they wanted to avoid real labor and were unduly enticed by a life of “ease,” fascinated with “finery” and lured by “luxury.” While admitting that white America had its share of scam artists who cheated the public out of its hard earned property, Chase claimed that the rate of fraud or double- dealing was higher among the nation’s African-American populace.1 Why would Calvin Chase couple criminality with leisure and flowery apparel when discussing blacks and their labor practices? More importantly perhaps, what purpose could it have served for Chase to conjure up the stereotype of the conning, lazy, conspicuous Negro consumer when he charged that African Americans lacked a proper work ethic and regularly engaged in deceitful behavior so that they could consume like the upwardly mobile? It is possible that Chase was addressing white Washingtonians’ anxiety about well-dressed African Americans or black dandies who have, at least since the early 1800s, symbolized socioeconomic mobility for free persons of color and served as a form 1 Chase stated that 1 of 25 people in Black America and 1 of 100 persons in white America were con artists. See “The Commercial Exchange No 6. – Graft,” Washington Bee, June 2, 1917. Also check out: “The Commercial Exchange No 5,” Washington Bee, May 26, 1917; and “The Commercial Exchange No 7. – Opportunism,” Washington Bee, June 9, 1917. 1 of resistance to the “prescribed…class and racial order” in the U.S.2 Chase could have also blindly parroted white urban dwellers who linked the fashionably-attired black man with pimping, pick pocketing and other illicit enterprises at the dawn of the twentieth century. In 1908, for example, Progressive Era reformer Ray S. Baker noted that the African-American man who paraded city streets in aristocratic garments “stir[red] the deepest animosity” in some whites, who were convinced that the immaculately dressed “Negro” male was usually an unemployed freeloader who “live[d] on the wages of a hard-working colored woman and spen[t] all he [could] get on” fine clothing.3 On the other hand, Chase may have simply frowned upon extravagant displays because he wanted to show his constituency that a respectable consumer or a proper citizen was one who was committed to industry and thrift, or he was eager to dispel a well-established white American perception that blacks were naturally indolent and overly preoccupied with flaunting the symbols of success.4 2 For a detailed analysis of the “black dandy” and its associated meanings, see Barbara L. Webb, “The Black Dandyism of George Walker: A Case Study in Genealogical Method,” TDR: The Drama Review 45.5 (Winter 2001), 12. 3 Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1908), 125-126. Also note that the Washington Post ran numerous stories of well-dressed black men who reportedly robbed others of their money, clothes and jewels. See “Choked And Robbed Her: Negro’s Bold Crime Near Marine Barracks – Third Case in a Week,” Washington Post, January 28, 1900; “He Dressed Too Well: Negro Arrested on Charge of Collecting Money on False Pretenses,” Washington Post, April 18, 1900; “Has New Suit For The Fourth: Negro Received C.O.D. Package at Vacant House and Clothier Loses,” Washington Post, July 4, 1900; “Drank Drugged Beer: Atlanta Business Man Robbed in Washington,” Washington Post, September 7, 1903; “Negro Thief Arrested: John West Believed to Have Practiced Robbing

Load more