Paper 2. Question 2

Mike Tramontelli 2/11/09
AMST 072W Prof. Palmer

“You can select ten ordinary girls from a factory and by the skillful use of such preparations as Kijja and proper toilet articles…you can in a short time make them as attractive and good-looking as most any ten wealthy society girls…it is not as much a matter of beauty with different classes of girls as it is how they are fixed up.” (Piess 385). Apparently, the manufacturer who created the pamphlet in which this quote was printed thought that it doesn’t matter how poor and ugly one might be; if cosmetics were applied anyone could look beautiful and regal. In Piess’s essay she discussed the emerging consumer markets that were prevalent in American society during the era surrounding the early twentieth century. The “class, mass, and consumer” markets were emerging because America as a whole shifted from being a producer society to a consumer society. People used to make their own food, clothes and even cosmetics but in the advent of advertising and “niche” markets provided a whole array of products at an affordable price. Previous connotations that followed cosmetics were that makeup was used either by the rich or prostitutes, but now anyone and everyone bought them contributing to the consumption rather than production of products. The influx of new immigrants, especially in New York City, at the turn of the twentieth century created a rift between the rich, uptown, snobby, native white born Americans and the poor, ragged, ugly, downtown immigrants. The rich attributed the foulness and filth of the cities to new immigrants and left them to their own devices while assuming they would just stay downtown surrounded by their own refuse. However, not all immigrants fit the mold of a foreign hoodlum. Sara Smolinsky, the main character of the novel Bread Givers, breaks away from her family’s (mainly her father’s) traditional polish immigrant ideology and becomes a teacher. “I don’t want to sell herring for the rest of my days. I want to learn something. I want to do something. I want some day to make myself for a person and come among people.” (Bread Givers 66).
Immigrants generally left their county because they were below the poverty line there and wanted to start a better life in a county where there was opportunity. This was no easy task for a Sara Smolinsky, a poor uneducated immigrant with no formal training. Sara broke away from her oppressive father to live, work, and go to night school all on her own. The tradional ideals of the old country, according to her father Reb, were: to get a job at a very young age and give one’s wages back to the family, get married, start a family, and die. Women were known as child-bearers and that’s it. “The ideal of the “New Woman” represented a departure from concepts of female identity constituted solely in domestic pursuits, sexual purity, and morality.” (Piess 381). Sara fit the mold of the new woman and thus she had an extra obstacle to surmount. She had to overcome the fact that she was a woman and was supposed to be married and with kids at a young age and the stereotype that immigrants just perpetuated the unpleasantness of urban environments. Sara valued education rather than having her father marry her off to an eligible suitor as he did with her other three sisters. Reb Smolinsky was an extremly holy man and lived his life according to the Torah. “It says in the Torah, only through a man has a woman an existence. Only through a man can a woman enter Heaven.” (Bread Givers 137). These time-honored traditions imposed by her father were meant to oppress her, but Sara had a strong enough will to start her own journey.
“My will is as strong as yours. I’m going to live my own life. Nobody can stop me. I’m not from the old country. I’m American!” (Bread Givers 138). Sara was always an outcast ever since she didn’t succumb to her father’s will. Her father called her “blood and iron” and instead of taking his overt criticism as a term of endearment and thus surrendering to her father’s tyrannical nature, she triumphed over his subjugation in her fight to be American. However, Sara was faced with the harsh reality that she wasn’t a native born American citizen at college. “By all their differences from me, their youth, their shiny freshness, their carefreeness, they pulled me out of my sense to them. And they didn’t even know I was there.” (Bread Givers 213). College in the early twentieth century wasn’t meant for just anyone. There wasn’t as much financial aid as there is now and it was a privilege of the rich to continue education at the university level. “She nodded politely and smiled. But how quickly her eyes sized me up! It was not an unkind glance. And yet, it said more plainly than words, “From where did you come? How did you get in here?”” (Bread Givers 214). Sara had endure the judging eyes of her orthodox father at home and the scornful eyes of the affluent college students who indirectly made her feel like an outcast.
Sara wasn’t only an outcast in the eyes of her father and fellow students. She was ostracized at work too. The other girls who worked at the laundry with her constantly teased Sara for dressing drab and gray everyday. One day Sara mustered up the courage and put on makeup. “I looked in the glass at the new self I had made. Now I was exactly like the others! Red lips, red cheeks, even red roses under the brim of my hat.” (Bread Givers 182). However, she hated applying makeup and hated how she looked. “I felt shamed and confused with my false face. It was as though the rouge had turned into a mask, and I could breathe through the cover.” (Bread Givers 183). The introduction of cosmetics into the consumer society, that also began in the early twentieth century, perpetuated using make up as an everyday product. The rise of the “mass” market made cosmetics abundant and very affordable for everyone. “Mass market manufacturers stressed as a route to upward mobility, arguing that a woman’s personal success relied on her appearance.” (Piess 384) It was thought that women could achieve social acceptance and impress men solely on their complexion. All of the other girls that were Sara’s age wore makeup, as a sign of femininity, but Sara didn’t share their sentiments.


I havent gotten to the conclusion yet.