Paper Two Rough Draft

With the rise in consumer culture in America came a Democracy of Consumption in which everyone was able to buy consumer products and had access to similar things. However, this process of expressing individuality, in turn generalized the individual to fit into class, racial and ethnic distinctions geared towards becoming the ideal New Woman. This motivation to represent the ideal woman and in effect, become what one is ‘supposed’ to look like is seen in various instances through out Anna Yeizerska’s Breadgivers through the transformation of a Jewish immigrant identity into that of an American. Through advertisement and commercialization, women were shown images of how they were supposed to look and therefore bought cosmetics and other consumer goods to become the ideal woman, in effect losing their own identities.
The process of Americanization in Breadgivers is symbolized greatly by the new consumption culture. This is shown most overtly in the character of Mashah
- “I looked in the glass at the new self I had made. Now I was exactly like the others! Red lips, red cheecks, even red roses under the brim of my hat” (182)
- “Like a lady from Fifth Avenue I look, and for only ten cents, from a pushcart on Hester Street” (2)- democracy of consumption, can buy same types of things at lower costs, but all to fit into a mold of the New Woman.
- “Mashah came home with stories that in rich people’s homes…She told us that by those Americans, everybody in the family had a toothbrush and a separate towel for himself”
- → Mashah is in a constant craze to become like the Fifth Avenue women, who she sees as living luxuriously and the epitome of Americans. She loses her Jewish immigrant identity which is seen through the rest of her family members. While Bessie and Faniah are out finding work and saving money, Mashah spends her money buying laced collars and new clothes.
- Sarah- (pg 182)- buys makeup and tries to be like other girls
- → attempt at being part of consumer culture and aspiring to be like the ‘ideal’ woman who is advertised and commercialized- process allows individuals to lose their identities (as Jewish immigrants, etc)

Peiss notes in her work that at one point in the shift to consumerism, the cosmetics industry projected contradictory cultural messages linking whiteness with social success and refinement. The consumption of bleach cream and light-colored face powders became an issue of controversy within in Black community as white and Black-owned companies manufactured products aimed at lightening skin tones. This projected the image that light-skinned African Americans were more successful and were more desirable as marriage partners. In this process of commercializing European aesthetic standards, advertisements in the late-nineteenth century advertisement for Hagan’s Magnolia Balm, used images of transformed women from the stereotyped rural Black woman to a genteel lady (Peiss, 388). Certain products such as hair straightening were also highly controversial and were seen as Black emulation of dominant white aesthetics. In this way, the identity of Blacks is threatened by the new consumer culture in America, complicating not only the issues of femininity, but also issues of race.