Topics of Interest: Assimilation through Consumption. How was this characterized in turn-of-the-century America? In what ways did it mitigate, permit, and sustain the hybrid American identifier (how did the act of consumption make you “American” while simultaneously permitting you to hold onto your ethnic identity?)
How I Anticipate this Research to Evolve: Ideally, I’d like to find more sources that emphasize the maintenance of ethnic identity in the negotiation of assimilation and the factors that facilitated it. My initial theory hypothesized that catalogs and mail order shopping were two such factors, as they permitted immigrants to buy and visually consume “American” without leaving the confines of their ethnic enclave, but I have yet to find any academic discussion on the societal effects of mail order shopping, let alone text that is specific to my theory, so, in the confines of the project, answering this question is not exactly possible yet.
I refuse to give up on the incorporation of catalogs into my research though! As of right now, I anticipate that they will serve as primary source documentation of the theories I lift from the texts included in this list. With a little luck and more research, though, I hope mail order shopping can become a larger focus of this task. (In a perfect world, I would be using this assignment to answer the following question: How did turn-of-the-century mail order shopping serve to mitigate, permit, and sustain the hybrid American Identifier?)
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Alexander, June Granatir. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 2007.
This source is purely historical background information. It provides an excellent description of life in urban and rural immigrant community enclaves at the turn-of-the-century, particularly in Chapter Five: Life in Ethnic Communities- Immigrant Institutions and Business. I plan to insert and examine the theories of Heinze, Potter, and Salins in this historical context.
Cherry, Robin. Catalog: The Illustrated History of Mail Order Shopping. New York,
New York: Princeton Architectural Press: 2008.
The extreme prevalence of Mail Order Shopping was a unique characteristic of turn-of-the-century shopping. Communities of every shape, color, and size in every type of environment across the country subscribed to Sears-Roebuck and other publications, and therefore were exposed to the same, mass-produced image of what “American” was supposed to look like and the products that could make it possible. This source provides a point to dive into the consumption of specific products in the process of assimilation, visually displays what Immigrants were trying to achieve in the renegotiation of their home country identities in the American context, and offers insight into a hallmark consumption practice of the period. Through its additional provision of a bevy of primary source documents, it largely serves to inform the theories presented in the following secondary sources.
Enstad, Nan. Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture,
and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Century. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. 1999.
Through it’s discussion of hats, English-language dime novels, fashion, and a bit of consumption in general in the process of the “Americanization” of young, urban immigrant women, this source displays the traditional view of consumption in assimilation (it blurred ethnic boundaries by homogenizing the appearance of immigrants in their clothing choices and topics of interest). It will be a good point to begin a counter-argument from.
Heinze, Andrew R. Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity.” New York, New York: Columbia University Press. 1990.
Heinze’s intelligent mix of case study (he specifically focuses on the urban Jewish population of New York City) and sociological theory serves as an excellent source for general ideas and suggestions for primary sources documents. It argues that, although “consuming” American through the purchase of specific products was practiced during this time period, the act of feverish consumption itself and the gradual demand for the characteristically high “American standard of living” in the “land of abundance” was ultimately the consumption process through which these immigrants through which these immigrants “Americanized” themselves. These immigrants were able to culturally maintain their ethnic identity while becoming American (hence the hybrid “Jewish-American” identifier we use both today & throughout history) because the process itself was markedly emphasized over good-specific consumption, thus allowing them to negotiate the process while adapting “America” to their Jewish identity and vice versa.
“…Immigrants explored a whole range of products and services that pulled them into the new culture and uprooted them from the old.” (Page 11).
“then the adaptation of immigrants to the “perspective of abundance” must be considered an essential part of Americanization” (3).
Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University
Press. 1986.
Both “Cheap Amusements” and “Ladies of Labor” use consumption as a process of connection in the assimilation process. It discusses the “homosocial pattern of recreation in this period”, and asserts that the “forms of amusement in [immigrant] tenement districts crossed ethnic lines,” (31). It hints at the gradual formation of the hybrid American identifier by providing snapshots supporting the notion that “Americanized leisure activities did not entirely supplant traditional cultural forms, but coexisted with them uneasily,” (31). This source
Potter, David Morris. People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American
Character. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago University Press. 1954.
This source supports Heinze’s arguments through its reinterpretation of Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”. Potter intelligently argues that it was not the geographic frontier itself but rather the prospect of material abundance represented by the never-ending landscape that distinctly characterized America. The frontier is transformed into a metaphor for the expansive turn-of-the-century American economy that ultimately inspired the belief in attainment of a better (and subsequently more “American) way of life through consumption. This source is an excellent place to explore the larger, unconscious ideas governing and guiding immigrant consumer patterns as they became more and more assimilated to their new country.
Salins, Peter D. Assimilation, American Style. New York, New York: BasicBooks of
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 1997.
This source provides sociologically and historically rooted information about the unique process of assimilation to American culture. Chapter 8 in particular, “Americans United but Living Apart” informs my topic through its support of my “hybrid” American identity thesis. It suggests that the “passive assimilation” theory used around the turn of the century allowed “[tolerance] of immigrant’s exotic ways but made absolutely no concessions to them,” (162). They had to “work hard, learn English, and believe in the American Idea,” but could do so while retaining their traditions from the old world. Although there is no consumption-specific discussion in this source, it is rich in information on the uniquely American assimilation process itself, (Ibid). Ultimately, “Assimilation, American Style” provides the theoretical framework I wish to insert the topic of consumption into.
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How I Anticipate this Research to Evolve: Ideally, I’d like to find more sources that emphasize the maintenance of ethnic identity in the negotiation of assimilation and the factors that facilitated it. My initial theory hypothesized that catalogs and mail order shopping were two such factors, as they permitted immigrants to buy and visually consume “American” without leaving the confines of their ethnic enclave, but I have yet to find any academic discussion on the societal effects of mail order shopping, let alone text that is specific to my theory, so, in the confines of the project, answering this question is not exactly possible yet.
I refuse to give up on the incorporation of catalogs into my research though! As of right now, I anticipate that they will serve as primary source documentation of the theories I lift from the texts included in this list. With a little luck and more research, though, I hope mail order shopping can become a larger focus of this task. (In a perfect world, I would be using this assignment to answer the following question: How did turn-of-the-century mail order shopping serve to mitigate, permit, and sustain the hybrid American Identifier?)