Prose Styles and Du Bois’ Argument for a Better World

In his book The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois employed a revolutionary style of writing. He did not follow the usual conventions of turn-of-the-century scholarly argument, but innovatively merged forms together, using this new form as a literary representation of his over arching argument. Du Bois used different prose styles that characterized the different facets of his argument. According to Du Bois African Americans needed a rounded, multifaceted experience through first, formal higher education—represented by abstract prose; second, vocational training and basic education—represented by factual history; and third the liberty to experience life—represented by personal accounts. All of these pieces of Du Bois argument pointed toward facilitating a change in black leadership and black communities.

            Du Bois began by demonstrating his remarkable ability for abstraction. These famous words set up the purpose and tone of his book: “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.”[1] Blacks in America were born into this life with a symbolic veil over their eyes. They were forced to see themselves and the world not only through their own point of view, but through the point of view of white men. At no other time in history, Du Bois claimed, was an entire race forced into this “double-consciousness,” “this twoness.” Two men inhabited the body of every black man, and they struggled since Emancipation to synthesize these two into one, more perfect man, a “coworker in the kingdom of culture.”[2]

            Black communities’ struggled to gain the equality they were promised following Emancipation. During the years of Reconstruction, former slaves found themselves in an extension of the bondage they had just come from. They pleaded for liberty, and as Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing them the right to vote, they thought they had found the means by which they may finally find it. For years they tried to no avail. Alas they settled on the idea that “book-learning” in higher institutions of learning would free them from their perpetual bonds of serfdom. Book learning by itself, however, did not accomplish this goal.[3] Du Bois then stated his claim that none of the above paths to liberty could accomplish its goal alone or in succession with another. Black Americans needed political action, vocational training, and higher institutional learning together to bring the entire race up onto an equal plane with the rest of society.[4]

            This portion of Du Bois’ book portrayed a number of abstract ideas. He formed these ideas after much contemplation on the subject, apparent in the form of his argument. He was able to think outside the box and form an original argument grounded in evidence, both real and ideological. Du Bois used abstract ideas again and again throughout Souls, not only to argue his point in text, but in form. His ability to create arguments based on conceptual ideas resulted from his education. After finishing a bachelor’s degree from Fisk, Du Bois studied at Harvard, where he earned another bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and became the first African American man to earn a Ph.D. from the acclaimed institution.[5] He himself, Du Bois argued subliminally, exemplified why black Americans needed higher education. Similar theoretical portions pervade the entirety of the text.

            Du Bois followed his abstract ideas with segments of factual history. His second essay titled “Of the Dawn of Freedom” exemplified his broad knowledge on the subject. In this essay Du Bois recounted the history of society’s question “What shall be done with the Negroes?” and how they attempted to answer it.[6] The Freedmen’s Bureau, according to Du Bois’ history, attempted to wrestle with this issue during and following the Civil War. From “contraband of war,” to “a military resource,” African Americans during the war were still seen as property or livestock. Following the war Congress struggled to designate what agency would deal with the problem of freed slaves, and how that agency would be allowed to do so. They hastily put them under the War Department in the new Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Slowly the Freedmen’s Bureau melted away. Both the public and private attempts to handle the issues of freed slaves failed. These failures placed freedmen, and all free blacks, in a state of permanent lower class status.[7]

            This second essay attempted to present facts and history of the Freedmen’s Bureau as they existed, along with the long-term effects of those events. Du Bois related these facts to show the need for basic education. Basic schooling teaches individuals how to make sense of history and patterns while fostering reading and writing skills that will help him/her function as a productive member of society. It is very difficult to vote or enter into meaningful dialogue without a basic understanding of the English language and basic histories. Du Bois argued that the African American people want to be more than just workers, and their inability to perform basic tasks within society would guarantee permanent worker status. This example of the many fact-based essays in Souls exemplifies Du Bois argument for basic education.

            To make his abstract and fact-oriented arguments more real and human, Du Bois followed them with his own personal experiences and observations of black life in America. His two essays, “Of the Meaning of Progress” and “Of the Black Belt” are powerful examples of Du Bois’ ability to relate his own experiences to others. The first of the two told the story of Du Bois’ years as a school teacher in Tennessee. He soon felt the effects of “the veil” as his inequality within the society became apparent.[8] His students had to meet in an old drafty corn shed. Often the students could not attend school due to their work responsibilities. Families were forced by their economic conditions to live in single room cabins. The people worked so hard, in so many forms of labor, and were never able to break even. When he returned a few years later his former students were either in the same condition as their parents, or dead.[9] Similarly, the families he saw when he visited Georgia in the second essay were dreadfully trapped in their situation. Debt constantly loomed over the heads of the tenant farmers no matter their efforts, and the once great economy was shriveling.[10] Both of these communities were stalled in their progression and riddled with despair.

            Du Bois’ personal memoirs effectively expressed his belief in the importance of liberty to experience life for oneself. Much of Du Bois’ understanding and conviction of the issues he argued came from his observations of the system. His basic education, in connection with his higher education, opened his eyes to the issues when he saw them. He had the freedom to gain his education and the freedom to personally see the effect society’s bigotry had on black Americans. This is where, had he chosen, Du Bois could have made his call for political action.

When an educated black populace could personally see or experience the degradation caused by the “veil,” they could combine for political action to begin to change the system. Only together could education and experience bring American blacks up as equal members of society, and Du Bois used his three prose styles to exemplify that. True employment of these three pieces together would have a lasting effect on the black community. Souls not only made an argument for the improvement of the black situation, it literally was that argument.

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[1] W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1902 (Simon and Schuster: NY, 2009) 3.

[2] Ibid, 7-8.

[3] Ibid, 10-11.

[4] Ibid, 13-16.

[5] Ibid, IX.

[6] Ibid, 18.

[7] Ibid, 19-40.

[8] Ibid, 65.

[9] Ibid, 62-75.

[10] Ibid, 109-131.

The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence

Reviewed by Stephen Horrocks

The American Revolution burned with ideological fervor.  Political rhetoric was filled with cries for freedom, liberty and equality.  Why did these ideas stick?  What turned these ideas into action?  In The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, T.H. Breen attempts to assess popular mobilization, and what was so radical about the politics of the American Revolution, from a new perspective.  This perspective, he admits, may not fit very well with some of the analyses previously presented of the period. 

Marketplace attempts to answer two main questions.  First, how did such a diverse group of colonists build the trust necessary for a sustained rebellion?  Second, how did such a massive number of ordinary Americans decide it was better to risk their lives and well-being against British forces than continue to be politically oppressed?[1]  Breen concludes that the colonists’ “shared experience as consumers provided them with the cultural resources needed to develop a bold new form of political protest.”[2]  Their common role as consumers in a commercial empire would provide the link for an otherwise heterogeneous group of colonies. 

            Breen begins by presenting the context in which the consumer revolution will take place.  In what he refers to as the “Tale of the Hospitable Consumer,” Breen paints a picture of unprecedented colonial consumption.[3]  When the British military officers were stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years War, they saw evidence of high consumption and “that the colonies [were] wallowing in wealth and luxury,” which they equated to a thriving economy.[4] In fact, the colonial economy was artificially inflated by the heavy British military presence.  As a result of these erroneous observations, Parliament decided to raise taxes in the American colonies in an effort to pay off war debt.  Colonists were outraged and began to respond ideologically and politically.[5]

To establish the foundation of his argument, Breen lays out the various forms of primary sources important to understanding patterns of consumer behavior.  First, Breen looks at written descriptions by travelers and government officials.  These are very helpful, because they are very widespread.  The downside is that they are very impressionistic.[6]  Second, he turns to artifacts, primarily those found in museums.  These show the importance of British manufactures, though museums tend to have items owned by the upper-classmen of society.[7]  Third, Breen archaeologically studied the family trash pits of the common people.  These pits, while showing the consumption of hard goods by those in the lower end of society, tend to show an imbalance.  Items such as cloth and pewter would be long gone by now.[8]  Fourth, probate records of deceased individuals show an increase in ownership.  They do, however, tend to skew toward the upper-classmen.[9]  Fifth, and most important, are the customs records.  These official documents measure the quantity and monetary value of articles imported from Britain.[10]  Last, Breen studied the increased number of newspapers during the decades preceding the revolution.  An increase in ad space and a diversity of goods are widely displayed therein.[11]

These sources collaborate in Breen’s attempt to recreate the world in which the colonists lived.  In an address to Parliament in March 1775, Edmund Burke described British policies in the American colonies as “salutary neglect.”  He felt that commerce brought Americans closer to the mother country.  It placed the colonies in a state of political and economic laissez-faire.[12]  Commerce is definitely what connected the empire, but the “mutual benefit [and] mutual dependence” that Americans had relied on became nothing more than myth.[13]  An articulate and powerful middle class emerged, which saw consumption as a seal of imperial patriotism.  Colonists thought they were indispensible to the empire, and that disruption of consumption would discomfort the mother country.[14] 

Consumption of British goods could only be used as a tool for political mobilization if consumer products were widely available at all levels of society.  Breen answers this concern by thoroughly outlining the means by which consumer products reached the colonies.  He discussed the large merchant ships that sold to shop owners in port cities.  Local shop owners sold to small rural country stores, which were of particular importance because of the agrarian nature of the colonies.[15]  This shows that ordinary people were involved in the marketplace.  Consumer choice became synonymous with human rights; individuals felt entitled.  Fashion played a large role in driving consumption and blurred the lines between classes.  Tea was an especially fashionable and powerful example of the link between identity and market experience.  Breen quotes one New Yorker as saying that tea costs the province 10,000 pounds sterling, and that he knows some people who would forgo their bread to partake of this superfluity.[16]  Such imported goods became a source of political tension.

Next, Breen describes how economic dependence could become a source of political strength.  Ideology is not enough to build the widespread trust necessary for a sustained political resistance or produce the feelings of a common purpose.  According to Breen, “colonists could not have imagined national independence until they had first experienced the psychological burden of dependence.”[17]  In the minds of colonist, consumer excess led not only to dependence, but also to slavery.  Colonists did not want to be Britain’s “negroes,” as a young John Adams stated.[18]  Individual luxury must be sacrificed for the good of the whole.  New regulatory acts by Parliament incited anger, confusion, and disappointment.  Up to this point colonists had not built many bonds of mutual trust, so regulatory acts by Parliament led to many individual acts of non-importation throughout the colonies.  Newspapers connected the colonies and attempted to build trust while putting political pressure on Parliament.  Though these non-importation acts did not force any policy changes, they did help the colonists find means of popular mobilization that were more broad and inclusive.[19]

Colonists, as consumers, became more and more tense as the Townshend Act was passed in Parliament, tightening up commercial regulation in the colonies.  Non-importation became non-consumption, and communities began to make lists of items that were prohibited.  Anyone who betrayed these agreements were publicly shamed and added to lists of offenders published in the newspapers.  This revealed a lot about political solidarity on the eve of the Revolution.  Colonists communicated with each other through newspapers to see how others were responding to the common threat.  They assumed that these distant strangers depended on British goods as much as they did.  They could also see the link between consumption and liberty.[20]  The Townshend Act reminded Colonists of the yoke of dependence.  They were faced with the major difficulties of coordinating local protests and persuading all sorts of people to participate in the boycott.  Colonists were required to look at themselves in much broader terms than they had before: as Americans.[21] 

Ordinary people signed petition rolls and subscription lists, both highly innovative political instruments, in support of the boycott, which gave them the feeling that they had the power to make a difference in society.  When the Townshend Act was repealed, excepting the regulation on tea, much of the political trust between colonies dissolved.  It is, however, very important to note the way in which Americans used a language of unity to refer to a country that was not yet a country.[22]

According to Breen, Americans drew upon their experience as consumers to use their dependence upon British products as a political weapon to fight the Tea Act of 1773.[23]  Following the protests against tea (which included the Boston Tea Party and burning of the tea colonists possessed) Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts, which effectively shut down the Massachusetts Bay colony.  Other colonies stood behind Boston and implemented bans on all British imports.  This took place because the colonies began to think continentally.  They had experienced effective consumer protests and began to define themselves not as British, but as American. [24]

Breen analyzes the evidence very thoroughly.  He uses a broad view of colonial consumerism to conceptualize the major workings of the system, while acknowledging the smaller, individual pieces that fill in the blanks.  His analysis of how colonists built trust one with another is very logical and historically sound.  Breen uses a variety of sources, so that they fill the voids that are left by each other.  He utilizes the evidence well to support his claim that colonists were all separately, as well as collectively, invested in consumerism.

The Marketplace of Revolution takes an original perspective at the events leading up to the American Revolution.  It does not downplay the importance of ideology to the revolution, but it puts ideology into a socio-economic context.  Bernard Bailyn, a two-time Pulitzer winning historian, touches upon this context to a smaller degree.  He claims that ideology was reinforced once the invisible authority across the Atlantic began tightening the reins on the Colonial economy.[25]  Bailyn claims that ideas were the central force for revolution, and the economy was but a secondary influence.  Gary Nash, distinguished professor at UCLA, agrees with Breen’s economic-centered argument.  Nash noted that Per capita spending among the poor more than doubled in the 1740s and 1750s.[26]  He saw that economic frustrations of lower- and middle-classmen developed a political consciousness and political sophistication that led to public protests, and eventually played an important role in the beginnings of the American Revolution.[27]  Nash focused on consumption only as much as it led to economic distress, not as a driving force of revolution.  Breen pulls in parts of both Nash’s and Bailyn’s arguments to strengthen the notion that consumerism played a major role in American Independence.

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[1] T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford, 2004) xiii.

[2] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, xv.

[3] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 10-11.

[4] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 11.

[5] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 1-29.

[6] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 36-44.

[7] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 44-48.

[8] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 48-51.

[9] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 51-53.

[10]T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 59-64.

[11] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 53-59.

[12] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 75.

[13] T. H Breen, Marketplace, 89.

[14] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 72-101.

[15] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 102-147.

[16] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 171.

[17] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 201.

[18] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 202.

[19] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 203-234.

[20] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 237-38.

[21] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 243.

[22] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 290-91.

[23] T. H. Breen, Marketplace, 298.

[24] T.H. Breen, Marketplace, 303.

[25] Bernard Bailyn, “The Central Themes of the American Revolution,” in Faces of Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1990) 204-05.

[26] Gary Nash, “Social Change and the Growth of Prerevolutionary Urban Radicalism,” in The American Revolution, ed. Alfred Young (Northern Illinois University, 1976) 8-10.

[27] Nash, “Social Change,” 10-11, 18.