Analysis Of Tiffany M. Gill's Beauty Shop Politics

Tiffany M. Gill’s Beauty Shop Politics takes place during the Jim Crow era. Gill’s argument is that the role of African-American women is significant, but greatly overlooked in their tradition. These women were entrepreneurs and served their community, but their hard work and contributions went without recognition. On the first page of the Introduction, Gill mentions, “the black beauty industry since its inception has served as an incubator for black women’s political activism and a platform from which to agitate for social and political change. In so doing, I restore economics and entrepreneurship as important variables in black women’s activism and community building and argue that the beauty industry played a crucial role in the creation

Walker, and Booker T. Washington. She mentions how Madam C.J. Walker made alliances with Booker T. Washington and Mary McLeod Bethune to make female entrepreneurship respectable through Colored Women’s Business Clubs and the inclusion of beauty culture curriculum at black colleges. “Annie Malone and Madam C.J. Walker diversified the black beauty industry to include not only the selling of products but also the selling of beauty, independence, and financial success. In many ways, their lives more than their products or beauty education systems reflected the challenges and opportunities that black women faced at the turn of the century and became the basis of their success” (pg. 19). Not only did these pioneers try to uplift themselves in the industry, but they also tried to spread knowledge and give an opportunity for financial growth to the people in their communities. Gill also mentions Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and the unique role that black female beauticians and beauty entrepreneurs played in connecting the racial uplift ideals of the black female club movement, the labor movement, and the race first politics of the UNIA (pg.