American consumer activism has a long and colorful history. Lawrence B. Glickman’s Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America traces its lineage back to our nation’s founding, revealing that Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word boycott even entered our lexicon.
Glickman and his book were the subject of an in-depth feature at Rorotoko.com and will be feted soon at the Newberry Library as part of their Newberry Seminars in Labor History. Here are the details:

November 14, 2009—Saturday Symposium: Consumers—The Unknown Social Movement
Debating Lawrence Glickman’s Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Featuring author Lawrence Glickman, University of South Carolina
Commentators: Nan Enstad, University of Wisconsin Madison; Adam Green, University of Chicago; Susan Levine, University of Illinois at Chicago; Nancy MacLean, Northwestern University; and Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland
Please Note: The Saturday Symposium will be held from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

We hope you can join us at the Newberry!