Consumerism As A Strategy For Negotiating Racism: A Comparative Study Of African Americans In Jim Crow Era Annapolis, MD

Summary

Archaeologists have studied many different ways in which African Americans coped with the racist structures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. One way in which this was done was through consumer choice as part of the capitalist market used to create African American consumer aesthetics. With this understanding, archaeologists can study how commodities were used to express internally imposed classes within the African American community. In this paper, the archaeological evidence of consumptive behaviors are examined as a demonstration of conscious choices made by four different African American households in Annapolis, Maryland. The aesthetics created by these choices are then compared to show the similarities and differences between them and how these demonstrate that Victorian ideals were ignored in order to create a dining etiquette that was both uniquely African American and had an ability to differentiate status groups within a single African American community. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Boundaries, Barriers, and Beliefs: Racism and Communities in African Diaspora Archaeology

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 378