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Studies in United States Culture
From Goodwill to Grunge: A History of Secondhand Styles and Alternative Economies
In this surprising new look at how clothing, style, and commerce came together to change American culture, Jennifer Le Zotte examines how secondhand goods sold at thrift stores, flea markets, and garage sales came to be both profitable and culturally influential. Initially, selling used goods in the United States was seen as a questionable enterprise focused largely on the poor. But as the twentieth century progressed, multimillion-dollar businesses like Goodwill Industries developed, catering not only to the needy but increasingly to well-off customers looking to make a statement. Le Zotte traces the origins and meanings of “secondhand style” and explores how buying pre-owned goods went from a signifier of poverty to a declaration of rebellion.
Considering buyers and sellers from across the political and economic spectrum, Le Zotte shows how conservative and progressive social activists--from religious and business leaders to anti-Vietnam protesters and drag queens--shrewdly used the exchange of secondhand goods for economic and political ends. At the same time, artists and performers, from Marcel Duchamp and Fanny Brice to Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, all helped make secondhand style a visual marker for youth in revolt.
Considering buyers and sellers from across the political and economic spectrum, Le Zotte shows how conservative and progressive social activists--from religious and business leaders to anti-Vietnam protesters and drag queens--shrewdly used the exchange of secondhand goods for economic and political ends. At the same time, artists and performers, from Marcel Duchamp and Fanny Brice to Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, all helped make secondhand style a visual marker for youth in revolt.
338 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 2, 2017
11 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Le Zotte
3 books2 followersJennifer Le Zotte is assistant professor of history and material culture at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, with a focus on how dress and fashion intersect with capitalism, race, gender, and sexuality in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her work has appeared at smithsonianmag.com, Racked.com, theconversation.com, as well as in Winterthur Portfolio and The New England Quarterly.
https://uncw.edu/hst/facstaff/lezotte...
https://uncw.edu/hst/facstaff/lezotte...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 25, 2018
This was a well-researched book, but unfortunately the writing style was terribly academic. The author never uses a five-cent word when a dime would suffice (e.g. using the phrase "novitiate designers" instead of "novice designers"), and there are numerous adjectives littering the sentences that come off as superfluous.
That being said, I did learn quite a bit from reading it.
The first chapter deals with the history of secondhand items and the creation of the secondhand economy. Basically, people weren't into secondhand items because of the belief that "physical objects are imprinted with previous owners' attributes, giving secondhand objects an eerie agency." At the same time, however, "the large-scale commercial production of items previously made at home changed people's relationship with material goods; the easier it was to purchase something, the more people thought of it as a temporary acquisition". Residential living quarters also shrank at the same time, meaning that people had less space to store their goods. As such, there was an increasing supply of secondhand goods.
Into that gap stepped the Salvation Army and Goodwill. While both started off as charitable enterprises, they grew increasingly corporatised. For the wealthier consumers, giving was a virtuous act. It allowed the remaking of the poor of society - when Goodwill/Salvation Army hired the poor, it remade them by giving them a purpose. By dressing them appropriately, it also "remade" them to appear pass as "American".
The second chapter deals with the continued growth of secondhand clothes and the rise of secondhand clothes as a fashion statement - i.e. "the people I know don't wear clothes - that is - not what you would call clothes.... They wear ideas." We start with pushcart and flea markets selling secondhand clothes - the uniqueness of each store and the negotiability of price (as opposed to a department store: mass produced and no room for negotiation) "fueled a... nostalgia for preindustrial life". In short, these are people modern day parlance calls "hipsters".
There was some pushback against these secondhand exchanges - usually due to xenophobia and racism (i.e. the main consumers of the secondhand markets were immigrants, Jews, or blacks). At the same time, these exchanges spurred trade: "In 1925, over one hundred retailers and landlords in Brooklyn sought an order to compel pushcart vendors to sell in front of their shops. The businesses across the street, where merchants were permitted to park, were doing much better as the result of a general stimulation of trade."
The third chapter deals with the middle class folks getting in on the secondhand economy, primarily through garage sales. A garage sale allowed shoppers to view the personal items of near-strangers (human curiosity), and the purchase of these items could be a shorthand for personalised style and creativity - distinct from the modish mass manufactured goods. This "collective rebellion" allowed "growing numbers of Americans [to express] their discontent with presumably middle-class conformity through the adoption of various modes of secondhand style."
Chapter four and five deal with vintage clothing and secondhand clothes as a fashion statement, primarily in the 1950s. Some used secondhand clothing as a political statement - rejecting the 9-to-5 and a commitment to antiestablishment lifestyles. At the same time, the wealthy donned secondhand attire as, variously, a form of elective poverty and class indifference. Tom Wolf
Chapter six and seven focus on secondhand clothing in music and other art. Six deals with genderfuck especially - i.e. those who dressed across gender lines (not necessarily because they were trans). However, it deals a lot with the LGBT community. Men crossing the gender line was seen as a greater transgression; in contrast, women crossing genderlines were co-opted into the boyfriend look.
We also deal with musicians crossing gender line - Kurt Cobain and his dress, for example. Patti Smith's androgynous look is mentioned. I enjoyed her quote from 'dream of rimbaud': "he who hesitates is mine. we're on the bed. I have a knife to his throat."
Then we end on with a quick epilogue on the twenty-first century.
This book limited itself to clothes and fashion - I felt that it would have been fascinating if it could have touched on e.g. secondhand cars, antiques (most paintings are secondhand, for example, or even statues), or other furniture. More focus could also have been put to the modern day secondhand economy; I wonder how things like Craigslist (peer to peer selling) would have changed the calculus, for example.
I vacillated between three stars and four stars for this book - it is well-researched, but I can't say it's well-written, and due to its writing style, its audience would be probably limited to the academic community. And, to be fair, I'm not interested in American fashion during the second half of the twentieth century.
That being said, I did learn quite a bit from reading it.
The first chapter deals with the history of secondhand items and the creation of the secondhand economy. Basically, people weren't into secondhand items because of the belief that "physical objects are imprinted with previous owners' attributes, giving secondhand objects an eerie agency." At the same time, however, "the large-scale commercial production of items previously made at home changed people's relationship with material goods; the easier it was to purchase something, the more people thought of it as a temporary acquisition". Residential living quarters also shrank at the same time, meaning that people had less space to store their goods. As such, there was an increasing supply of secondhand goods.
Into that gap stepped the Salvation Army and Goodwill. While both started off as charitable enterprises, they grew increasingly corporatised. For the wealthier consumers, giving was a virtuous act. It allowed the remaking of the poor of society - when Goodwill/Salvation Army hired the poor, it remade them by giving them a purpose. By dressing them appropriately, it also "remade" them to appear pass as "American".
The second chapter deals with the continued growth of secondhand clothes and the rise of secondhand clothes as a fashion statement - i.e. "the people I know don't wear clothes - that is - not what you would call clothes.... They wear ideas." We start with pushcart and flea markets selling secondhand clothes - the uniqueness of each store and the negotiability of price (as opposed to a department store: mass produced and no room for negotiation) "fueled a... nostalgia for preindustrial life". In short, these are people modern day parlance calls "hipsters".
There was some pushback against these secondhand exchanges - usually due to xenophobia and racism (i.e. the main consumers of the secondhand markets were immigrants, Jews, or blacks). At the same time, these exchanges spurred trade: "In 1925, over one hundred retailers and landlords in Brooklyn sought an order to compel pushcart vendors to sell in front of their shops. The businesses across the street, where merchants were permitted to park, were doing much better as the result of a general stimulation of trade."
The third chapter deals with the middle class folks getting in on the secondhand economy, primarily through garage sales. A garage sale allowed shoppers to view the personal items of near-strangers (human curiosity), and the purchase of these items could be a shorthand for personalised style and creativity - distinct from the modish mass manufactured goods. This "collective rebellion" allowed "growing numbers of Americans [to express] their discontent with presumably middle-class conformity through the adoption of various modes of secondhand style."
Chapter four and five deal with vintage clothing and secondhand clothes as a fashion statement, primarily in the 1950s. Some used secondhand clothing as a political statement - rejecting the 9-to-5 and a commitment to antiestablishment lifestyles. At the same time, the wealthy donned secondhand attire as, variously, a form of elective poverty and class indifference. Tom Wolf
describes two ways, often used in tandem, newcomers to high society had of "certifying their superiority over the hated 'middle class' ": they might take the high road and mimic aristocracy with lofty architecture, numerous servants, and extreme formality - or, "they can indulge in the gauche thrill of taking on certain styles of the lower orders." The French long ago dubbed the latter impulse nostalgie de la boue, literally translated as nostalgia for the mud.
Chapter six and seven focus on secondhand clothing in music and other art. Six deals with genderfuck especially - i.e. those who dressed across gender lines (not necessarily because they were trans). However, it deals a lot with the LGBT community. Men crossing the gender line was seen as a greater transgression; in contrast, women crossing genderlines were co-opted into the boyfriend look.
We also deal with musicians crossing gender line - Kurt Cobain and his dress, for example. Patti Smith's androgynous look is mentioned. I enjoyed her quote from 'dream of rimbaud': "he who hesitates is mine. we're on the bed. I have a knife to his throat."
Then we end on with a quick epilogue on the twenty-first century.
This book limited itself to clothes and fashion - I felt that it would have been fascinating if it could have touched on e.g. secondhand cars, antiques (most paintings are secondhand, for example, or even statues), or other furniture. More focus could also have been put to the modern day secondhand economy; I wonder how things like Craigslist (peer to peer selling) would have changed the calculus, for example.
I vacillated between three stars and four stars for this book - it is well-researched, but I can't say it's well-written, and due to its writing style, its audience would be probably limited to the academic community. And, to be fair, I'm not interested in American fashion during the second half of the twentieth century.
June 3, 2021
I started reading this book for my dissertation, and at the time I felt it the most appealing, with so many interesting anecdotes I wanted to shove into my own work. Now I have finished it and read the whole thing, I found the language used a bit unnecessarily academic and many themes seemed to be repeated or at least brought up at a point that made little sense. I enjoyed it and will remember many of the points made, but wouldn't recommend this to anyone with a casual interest in the subject.
June 9, 2024
I started reading this book for my dissertation, and at the time I felt it the most appealing, with so many interesting anecdotes I wanted to shove into my own work. Now I have finished it and read the whole thing, I found the language used a bit unnecessarily academic and many themes seemed to be repeated or at least brought up at a point that made little sense. I enjoyed it and will remember many of the points made, but wouldn't recommend this to anyone with a casual interest in the subject.
July 11, 2017
boring academic style. skipped beginning and moved on to vintage in the 60's and 70s and enjoyed that through grunge
July 26, 2022
All-in-all the book is good, it is written so you would be able to pick and choose chapters to read instead of reading it cover to cover by reexplaining certain things like the great Atlantic and Pacific tea company (A&P) which is nice for the jump around reader but can be tedious to others.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews