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Permanent Waves: The Making of the American Beauty Shop

2001; Oxford University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2700506

1945-2314

Nan Enstad, Julie Willett, Jane R. Plitt,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

These two books focus on the rise of the beauty shop through dramatically different lenses. Julie A. Willett writes a business and labor history of beauty shops that includes the regulation efforts of highprofile, mostly male, industry leaders and the grassroots efforts that formed the backbone of the beauty industry: black and white femaleowned small shops held in kitchens, parlors, or storefronts. Jane R. Plitt presents a biography of Martha Matilda Harper that credits this early beauty entrepreneur with promoting economic independence for many women by establishing them as owners in her innovative franchise system, thereby helping them achieve the American dream. The two vantage points lead to divergent narratives about the rise of the beauty shop and conflicting impressions about the role of race and class in the industry. Willett demonstrates that the beauty shop was integral to homosocial women's cultures through the twentieth century, but that these cultures—and the beauty industry—were quite starkly divided by race. The 1920s saw a rapid expansion of the industry for both black and white hairdressers in response to style changes and technological developments. Prior to that time, Willett argues, shops were few and served a wealthy clientele. While black and white female hairdressers similarly found themselves in pinkcollar ghettos and responded by creating workplace cultures that met their personal and professional needs, their experiences otherwise were quite different. By the 1930s, white male business owners formed the National Hairdressers and Cosmetologists Association and attempted (unsuccessfully) to drive out the small, whiteowned, neighborhood shops, which carried the stigma of female service work. Seeing white women as their main competitors, they endeavored to increase regulation of hours and wages across the industry and criticized the cultural practices of small shops, insisting that standards of cleanliness and respectability were being violated. White female shop owners resisted such efforts until after World War II, when the neighborhood shop became the standard in the business. White industry leaders initially ignored black shops, which allowed black women to develop shops on their own terms. Black hairdressers escaped lowpaid domestic service or factory employment and gained economic independence from whites. Their shops became community centers, and owners often played significant political roles in their communities. By the 1960s, expanding markets and the rise of chain salons restructured the industry and broke the gender and race segregation that had defined the beauty shop for over fifty years.