To Live and Dine in Dixie: The Evolution of Urban Food Culture in the Jim Crow South (Southern Foodways Alliance Studies in Culture, People, and Place Ser.)

This book explores the changing food culture of the urban American South during the Jim Crow era by examining how race, ethnicity, class, and gender contributed to the development and maintenance of racial segregation in public eating places. Focusing primarily on the 1900s to the 1960s, Angela Jill Cooley identifies the cultural differences between activists who saw public eating places like urban lunch counters as sites of political participation and believed access to such spaces a right of citizenship, and white supremacists who interpreted desegregation as a challenge to property rights and advocated local control over racial issues. Significant legal changes occurred across this period as the federal government sided at first with the white supremacists but later supported the unprecedented progress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which―among other things―required desegregation of the nation’s restaurants. Because the culture of white supremacy that contributed to racial segregation in public accommodations began in the white southern home, Cooley also explores domestic eating practices in nascent southern cities and reveals how the most private of activities―cooking and dining― became a cause for public concern from the meeting rooms of local women’s clubs to the halls of the U.S. Congress. This book explores the changing food culture of the urban American South during the Jim Crow era by examining how race, ethnicity, class, and gender contributed to the development and maintenance of racial segregation in public eating places. Focusing primarily on the 1900s to the 1960s, Angela Jilly Cooley identifies the cultural differences between activists who saw public eating places such as urban lunch counters as sites of political participation and believed access to such spaces a right of citizenship, and white supremacists who interpreted desegregation as a challenge to property rights and advocated local control over racial issues. Significant legal changes occurred across this period as the federal government sided at first with the white supremacists but later supported the unprecedented progress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which - among other things - required desegregation of the nation's restaurants. Because the culture of white supremacy that contributed to racial segregation in public accommodations began in the white southern home, Cooley also explores domestic eating practices in nascent southern cities and reveals how the most private of activities - cooking and dining - became a cause for public concern from the meeting rooms of local women's clubs to the halls of the U.S. Congress. -- from back cover MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Cover 1 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 INTRODUCTION: The Ollie’s Barbecue Case and the Foodscape of the Urban South 14 PART 1 SOUTHERN FOOD CULTURE IN TRANSITION, 1876–1935 30 CHAPTER ONE: Scientific Cooking and Southern Whiteness 32 CHAPTER TWO: Southern Cafés as Contested Urban Space 56 PART 2 DEMOCRATIZING SOUTHERN FOODWAYS, 1936–1959 84 CHAPTER THREE: Southern Norms and National Culture 86 CHAPTER FOUR: Restaurant Chains and Fast Food 100 PART 3 THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION, 1960–1975 116 CHAPTER FIVE: The Politics of the Lunch Counter 118 CHAPTER SIX: White Resistance in Segregated Restaurants 141 Conclusion: Cracker Barrel and the Southern Strategy 161 Notes 168 Selected Bibliography 200 Index 214 A 214 B 214 C 215 D 215 E 216 F 216 G 216 H 216 I 217 J 217 K 217 L 217 M 217 N 218 O 218 P 218 Q 218 R 218 S 218 T 219 U 219 V 219 W 219