Remaking Respectability

African American Women in Interwar Detroit

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, African-American Studies, Gender Studies, Women&, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book Remaking Respectability by Victoria W. Wolcott, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Victoria W. Wolcott ISBN: 9781469611006
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: January 1, 2013
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Victoria W. Wolcott
ISBN: 9781469611006
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: January 1, 2013
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of African Americans arrived at Detroit's Michigan Central Station, part of the Great Migration of blacks who left the South seeking improved economic and political conditions in the urban North. The most visible of these migrants have been the male industrial workers who labored on the city's automobile assembly lines. African American women have largely been absent from traditional narratives of the Great Migration because they were excluded from industrial work. By placing these women at the center of her study, Victoria Wolcott reveals their vital role in shaping life in interwar Detroit.

Wolcott takes us into the speakeasies, settlement houses, blues clubs, storefront churches, employment bureaus, and training centers of Prohibition- and depression-era Detroit. There, she explores the wide range of black women's experiences, focusing particularly on the interactions between working- and middle-class women. As Detroit's black population grew exponentially, women not only served as models of bourgeois respectability, but also began to reshape traditional standards of deportment in response to the new realities of their lives. In so doing, Wolcott says, they helped transform black politics and culture. Eventually, as the depression arrived, female respectability as a central symbol of reform was supplanted by a more strident working-class activism.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of African Americans arrived at Detroit's Michigan Central Station, part of the Great Migration of blacks who left the South seeking improved economic and political conditions in the urban North. The most visible of these migrants have been the male industrial workers who labored on the city's automobile assembly lines. African American women have largely been absent from traditional narratives of the Great Migration because they were excluded from industrial work. By placing these women at the center of her study, Victoria Wolcott reveals their vital role in shaping life in interwar Detroit.

Wolcott takes us into the speakeasies, settlement houses, blues clubs, storefront churches, employment bureaus, and training centers of Prohibition- and depression-era Detroit. There, she explores the wide range of black women's experiences, focusing particularly on the interactions between working- and middle-class women. As Detroit's black population grew exponentially, women not only served as models of bourgeois respectability, but also began to reshape traditional standards of deportment in response to the new realities of their lives. In so doing, Wolcott says, they helped transform black politics and culture. Eventually, as the depression arrived, female respectability as a central symbol of reform was supplanted by a more strident working-class activism.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Burdens of History by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Illusions of Emancipation by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book The AIDS Pandemic in Latin America by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book The South in the Shadow of Nazism by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book The Heart of Confederate Appalachia by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Faithful Magistrates and Republican Lawyers by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book In Quest of Identity by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Self-Taught by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Talking Gender by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Unnatural Selections by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Prescription for Heterosexuality by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Immigrants on the Land by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book Little Zion by Victoria W. Wolcott
Cover of the book North Carolina and the Problem of AIDS by Victoria W. Wolcott
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy