1930s
A01=Lawrence B. Glickman
abolition
academic
activism
america
american
Author_Lawrence B. Glickman
boston tea party
boycott
british
Category=JBFS
Category=JPWG
Category=NHTB
college
colonial
colonialism
consumer protection agency
consumerism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethics
fascism
fashion
historical
history
imperialism
import
imports
independence
jim crow
legislation
political
politics
professor
purchasing power
rebellion
research
revolution
revolutionary
scholarly
slavery
slow food
textbook
tradition
united states
university
wartime
Product details
- ISBN 9780226298658
- Weight: 709g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2009
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Far from ephemeral consumer trends, buying green and avoiding sweatshop-made clothing represent the most recent points on a centuries-long continuum of American consumer activism. A sweeping and definitive history of this political tradition, "Buying Power" traces its lineage back to our nation's founding, revealing that Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word boycott even entered our lexicon. Taking the Boston Tea Party as his starting point, Lawrence B. Glickman argues that the rejection of British imports by revolutionary patriots inaugurated a continuous series of consumer boycotts, campaigns for safe and ethical consumption, and efforts to make goods more broadly accessible. He explores abolitionist-led efforts to eschew slave-made goods, African American consumer campaigns against Jim Crow, a 1930s refusal of silk from fascist Japan, a range of contemporary boycotts, and emerging movements like fair trade and slow food. Uncovering previously unknown episodes and analyzing famous events from a fresh perspective, Glickman emphasizes both change and continuity in the long tradition of consumer activism.
In the process, he illuminates moments when its multifaceted trajectory intersected with fights for political and civil rights. He also sheds new light on activism's relationship with the consumer movement, which gave rise to lobbies like the National Consumers League and Consumers Union as well as ill-fated legislation to create a federal Consumer Protection Agency. A powerful corrective to the notion that a consumer society degrades and diminishes its citizenry, "Buying Power" provides a new lens through which to view the history of the United States.
Lawrence B. Glickman is professor of history at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society.
