"Golden Era?"

As I read Cohen’s take on the “Consumers’ Republic,” I gained a new perspective on the post-war reconfiguration of American society. Just as her distinctions between citizen-consumer and purchaser-consumer help form a context for understanding consumers’ diverse political roles, her in-depth investigation of the role of women and African Americans demonstrate the cultural and political impact of the consumers’ republic. Cohen’s contention that the consumers’ republic opened new avenues for activism (African American campaigns of “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” and “Spend Your Money Where You Can Work”) is tempered by the vast evidence she provides pointing to increased stratification and fragmentation along class and racial lines. Her investigation of government sponsored discriminatory housing policies is particularly powerful. I also found her examination of market segmentation and how it eventually found its way into political campaigns interesting. In the end, Cohen succeeds in demystifying the “Golden Era of postwar prosperity.”

Cohen’s cultural critique of the consumers’ republic also raises an important question; one that may be unanswerable: To what extent did the consumers’ republic foster further discrimination and to what degree was it simply reinforcing existing discriminatory tendencies?