Essay #2--Making Cultural Claims In Turn of the Century America

Looked down upon and barred from fully participating in society, African Americans living in turn of the century America had to develop a way to work within the white dominated social system while maintaining and evolving their own culture.  African Americans and their allies were able to counter the demeaning signification of the times and establish themselves as fully American by changing the literature, music, goods and ideas that as a group they produced and therefore consumed; this in turn helped to change the assumptions that the majority white society held with regards to the African American population.

African Americans of the time period seized upon the idea of ‘democratization of consumption’; that is, they were emboldened to partake in the consumption but also saw and quasi-emulated what it was that the majority was consuming.  Harlem became “the pulse of the Negro world” and acted as a mecca of black culture from which African American culture poured (Locke, par. 23).

White Americans at the turn of the century would have subscribed to and read newspapers and magazines, presumably some so that they would seem worldly, especially in contrast to the supposedly unintelligent and unsophisticated African American minority. Attempting to combat misperceptions and raise their intellectual and cultural stock in the eyes of the white majority, African Americans living in Harlem began publishing an international newspaper written in several different languages.  This newspaper ran for over five years and was proof to the white majority that white claims on intellectual curiosity and capability were not unassailable, and that the African American community could not be so readily discounted.   Two major national magazines were edited in Harlem, lending further credence to the African American assertion that blacks were every bit as intellectual and aware as their white counterparts.  In producing and consuming these major news sources, African Americans gained intellectual territory that whites had unilaterally claimed, and showed themselves to be on par with the white majority.

Music offered African Americans another opportunity to show themselves to be sophisticated, talented Americans of equal value to the white majority.  James Reese Europe of the 369^th US Army Regiment and his Clef Club Orchestra were wildly popular and provided entertainment not only to white Americans but to white Europeans as well.  The widespread success of the band showed African American society to be innovative and equal, not a cultural backwater.  The mass consumption of the music amongst the white majority ensured that it would continue and constantly be perfected by the African American musicians who honed the genre.  Although jazz was viewed as unrestrained and almost primitive, its broad appeal put African Americans on the same level—and quite possibly ahead—of their white counterparts in this aspect of culture.

African Americans forced themselves upon white society with regards to consumer goods; if producing such models of culture as jazz would not allow African Americans entrance into mainstream society, then they would emulate what they believed white society was and what white society wanted. The size and opportunity of the African American consumer market could not be denied in the same way that their assertions of equality were.  As a result, of the three niche markets that were present in the early cosmetics industry, one—the ‘ethnic’ market—was dedicated to African American consumers (Peiss, 373).  As cosmetics took hold over the imaginations and purses of white American women, African American women wanted to be a part of what they perceived as an opportunity to make cultural claims for themselves and put themselves on equal footing with the white majority. The ‘ethnic’ market consumed large amounts of skin bleachers and other various cosmetic products in an attempt to assimilate into white society. In becoming more like those denigrated them, African American women hoped to move beyond being second-class citizens. African American entrepreneurs such as Madame C.J. Walker were able to bring themselves to a level of society that few white Americans achieved, and in doing so made a major claim for African Americans as equal to their white counterparts; such success clearly negated any assertion that African Americans were any less capable than white Americans.  The consumption of upper-class clothing was also an attempt at asserting African American cultural and social equality. James Van Der Zee’s Harlem photography depicts African American families impeccably dressed and partaking in what may be considered ‘white’ and ‘upper-class’ activities such as going to a salon or playing or listening to the piano. Again, African American families here tried to include themselves in the activities of the ‘dominant’ white culture.

The single most effective manner of establishing equality and making cultural claims was through the production and consumption of news ideas and theories on the part of the African American community. Writers and thinkers such as Alain Locke developed the idea of the “new negro,” an African American archetype who rejected the “historical fiction…[and] shadows” of the past (Locke, 1). This group sought to make a clean break with the past stereotypes and expectations of African Americans, and to prove that modern day African Americans should be treated as social and cultural equals. Widespread consumption of the ideas that came out of this movement was the most important factor in making and backing up claims for equality because it showed that African Americans were capable of articulating their grievances, were able to spot white-perceived faults, and were willing to take action to correct and disprove these supposed flaws in their culture and very beings. African Americans also made claims for full ‘Americanship’ by not only mentally and emotionally distancing themselves from the past, but by doing so physically as well. The diaspora of African Americans out of the South and into the North and Midwest in search of jobs helped to break the white impression of the African American as a Southern cultural and intellectual child. African Americans took jobs in white-dominated fields such as the army, and in doing so showed themselves willing and capable of doing the same work as white Americans.

In developing a vibrant culture that both borrowed from white culture and innovated, African Americans in turn of the century America tried to reject white American assertions that they were not fully American, but were rather intellectually and culturally at the same level of development as white Americans. In the ‘democracy of consumption,’ African Americans could partake in the same activities and buy the same goods as white Americans, in some cases improving upon what the white Americans developed. Where the ‘democracy of consumption’ failed to be inclusive, African Americans developed different aspects of their own culture, creating such popular cultural touchstones as jazz. Although the democratic nature of consumption in turn of the century America did not immediately yield fruit in regards to equal rights, it allowed African Americans to further develop their own culture alongside that of white America’s, which would eventually lead to full legal, social, and cultural equality.