"A cut above most workplace histories. Looking at the separate but
sometimes overlapping development of European and African-American
hairdressing from the early twentieth century to the present,
Willett shows how race shaped different trajectories for black and
white salons."
--"Lingua Franca"
"Offers an unusually comprehensive look at a significant
twentieth-century industry and female preoccupation"
--"American Historical Review"
"Refreshing to read a history so firmly historicized and
grounded in working-class and Afro-American history"
-- "Journal of Social History"
"Carefully nuanced and [a] compelling history."
-- Nan Enstad, "The Journal of American History"
Throughout the twentieth century, beauty shops have been places
where women could enjoy the company of other women, exchange
information, and share secrets. The female equivalent of
barbershops, they have been institutions vital to community
formation and social change.
But while the beauty shop created community, it also reflected
the racial segregation that has so profoundly shaped American
society. Links between style, race, and identity were so
intertwined that for much of the beauty shop's history, black and
white hairdressing industries were largely separate entities with
separate concerns. While African American hair-care workers
embraced the chance to be independent from white control,
negotiated the meanings of hair straightening, and joined in larger
political struggles that challenged Jim Crow, white female
hairdressers were embroiled in struggles over self-definition and
opposition to their industry's emphasis on male achievement. Yet
despite their differences, black and whitehairdressers shared
common stakes as battles were waged over issues of work, skill, and
professionalism unique to women's service work.
Permanent Waves traces the development of the American beauty
shop, from its largely separate racial origins, through white
recognition of the "ethnic market," to the present day.
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