The World of Chick-Fil-A and the Business of Sunbelt Evangelicalism

Grem,  Darren E

doi:doi:10.18737/M7QW2S

Overview

In this presentation from February 15, 2012 at Emory University, Darren E. Grem examines the connections between evangelicalism and capitalism at the Chick-Fil-A chain of restaurants.

Presentation

Part 2: Grem discusses conservative evangelical organizations and the rise of Christian small business in the twentieth century

Part 3: Grem discusses S. Truett Cathy, evangelical and corporate America, Sunbelt politics, and colorblind ideology

Part 4: Grem discusses the religious space of the Sunbelt, meritocratic rhetoric, Chik-Fil-A and gender

Part 5: Grem discusses corporate branding, blending of meritocratic and evangelical ideologies, and political activism

Part 6: Grem discusses agribusiness, chicken processing, and labor

Part 7: Q&A with Grem. Topics include a cost-benefit analysis of Chick-Fil-A’s Sunday closing policy

About the Author

Darren E. Grem received his PhD in history from the University of Georgia in 2010. He won the 2011 C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize from the Southern Historical Association and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University.

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Cover Image Attribution:

Chick-fil-A water tower, July 14, 2008. Courtesy of Flickr user chipstickaddict. Creative Commons license CC BY NC-ND 2.0.

Recommended Resources

Print

Dochuk, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.

Fink, Leon. The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Grem, Darren E. "The Marketplace Missions of S. Truett Cathy and Chick-fil-A." In Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place and Region, edited by Darren Dochuk and Michelle Nickerson, 293-315. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Harvey, Paul. Freedom's Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

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Lassiter, Matthew D. The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

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Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.

Phillips-Fein, Kim and Julian Zelizer, eds. What's Good For Business: Business and American Politics Since World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Striffler, Steve. Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Williams, Daniel K. God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.