Chatelain, a native of Chicago, Illinois, is just moving from Georgetown University to be Penn Presidential Compact Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Chatelain will guide us through an examination of this mixed legacy. So, how should we understand this most iconic of American brands, and how the wider fast-food industry relates to today’s crucial social, economic, and health challenges? Dr. Most of the jobs they offered were entry-level jobs with no career growth opportunities much of the wealth they generate goes outside the neighborhoods in which they are located. In the wake of mid-century civil rights struggles, they offered welcoming spaces to populations that traditionally had been excluded from “whites only” restaurants The expansion of McDonalds franchises in Black neighborhoods in the 1960s and 1970s represented one of the big successes of initiatives to grow Black capitalism, and local outlets were important nodes for civil rights organizing – but many of these gains only came after tough struggles. They offer reliably standardized and affordable meals. The American Experience lectures will be held the week of July 10-14, with morning lectures in Voorhies Hall (10-11 a.m.), and informal tent conversations on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (July 11 and 13, 4-5 pm).įast-food outlets are ubiquitous in the United States, with McDonald’s the most ubiquitous of all.

Marcia Chatelain for a week of American Experience lectures and tent discussions based on her Pulitzer Prize winning book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America (Liveright Publishers: 2020).

Franchise by marcia chatelain