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Material Culture
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Consumerism and the New Economy
The diverse assemblage of artifacts collected from the Monroe Street neighborhood, including several types of foodstuff wares, household items, medicines, and decorated ceramic wares, demonstrates that a significant part of life in this working class neighborhood was the purchase of commercially available consumer goods and the increasing role that mass consumerism was beginning to play in peoples lives at that time.

During the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, many people who were disenfranchised by the economic and political systems of the time turned to a new economy built on mass consumerism as a way to voice their preferences, opinions, develop identities, and to exert some force on the controlling factions of society. By using acquisition of commercial goods as part of their collective voice, African-Americans were able to form a national identity and influence the development of consumerism, one of the dominant forces in modern society.

Fifty-four manufacturers and retailers have been identified from the artifacts collected at BRVB. These businesses represent four countries, fifteen states, and thirty-two cities. Although not the tightly woven global economy we know today, the material culture from the 19th- and early-20th-century Monroe Street neighborhood demonstrates a strong connection to the eastern United States and to Europe.

European countries were especially prevalent in the manufacture of non-essential luxury goods such as decorated ceramics and toiletry items. However, the eastern states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and the Midwest states of Ohio and Illinois account for the majority of American manufacturers and retailers that produced a wide range of commercial goods found in the BRVB collection. At the start of the 20th century, these areas represented the dominant commercial industrial base of the country. Because of their location and access to waterways and rail systems these areas were more competitive at national and global levels.

Regional market influence is also evident at BRVB with many goods from regional market centers such as Kansas City, Topeka, St. Louis, and Minneapolis represented in the collection. These market centers were less able to compete at the national market scale and therefore operated primarily within regional areas, where costs to get products from the factory to the consumer were lower.

Similar to many small towns at the turn of the century, Topeka and the Monroe School neighborhood show both connections to the local community and larger, more widespread economic networks throughout the United States and Europe. The materials collected from BRVB are seemingly dominated by national market brands. However, regional and local brands are also present in sufficient numbers representing a significant part of the consumer economy. Based on this information, it is evident that the inhabitants of the Monroe School neighborhood were participating in consumer activities which were part of the market developments and interactions on local, regional, national, and global scales. By participating in these economic arenas, neighborhood inhabitants were beginning to play a more prominent role in American life. This role would continue to increase and began to influence larger social issues such as school segregation and the fight for civil rights. NEXT >>

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