Description
Book SynopsisThis startlingly original and highly readable volume adds a new richness and depth to an element of U.S. history that is all too often taken for granted. In American Consumer Society, Regina Lee Blaszczyk examines the emergence of consumerism in the Victorian era, and, in tracing its evolution over the next 140 years, shows how the emergence of a mass market was followed by its fragmentation. Niche marketing focused on successive waves of new consumers as each made its presence known: Irish immigrants, urban African Americans, teenagers, computer geeks, and soccer moms, to name but a few.
Blaszczyk demonstrates that middle-class consumerism is an intrinsic part of American identity, but exactly how consumerism reflected that identity changed over time. Initially driven to imitate those who had already achieved success, Americans eventually began to use their purchases to express themselves. This led to a fundamental change in American cultureone in which the American reverenc
Trade Review
"[American Consumer Society] is a clearly written, well-illustrated exploration of American consumerism, attentive to the need to define terms and make cultural references appropriate for college students today. This book draws on essential and revealing statistics and offers memorable stories to drive home themes. ...Blaszczyk does more than survey her topic. She offers original research from her scholarship on the history of design, advertising, and fashion...whatever your view, you will find this book a gold mine of information and analysis, and an example of just good writing." (Harvard Business School Business History Review, Winter 2009)
Table of Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction 1
Shopping for a Perfect Self 1
The Passion for Possessions 2
Dissonant Voices 3
Treasures and Throwaways 4
From KnickKnacks to Kickin’ Back 5
Part One 7
Victorian America, 1865-1900 8
Victorians, Hierarchy, and Progress 8
Early European Antecedents 10
Opportunities for Display 11
1876 Centennial Exposition, the Industrial Cornucopia 14
The Allure of Cities 16
The Rise of the New Middle Class 18
Labor’s Consumerist Turn 20
Buying American or Pursuing Empire? 22
Advertising Abundance 23
Chapter One Home, Sweet Home 28
Separate Spheres 29
Dreams of Home Ownership 31
Womanly Creativity and the Art Craze 35
The Victorian Parlor 38
“Making Do” 40
Toward Modern Simplicity: The Bungalow and the Living Room 43
Martha Stewart Revisited 49
Chapter Two: Dress Codes 51
Fashion and Social Identity 53
Ready-to-Wear and the Democratization of Clothing 54
The Clothes Make the Man: Dark Suits and White Collars 56
Corsets and the Hourglass Shape 60
The Art of Dressmaking 61
The Easter Parade 64
Stepping Out with the Gibson Girl and Arrow Man 67
Why Fashion Mattered 70
Chapter Three New Ways to Shop 73
Dry-Goods Emporiums 74
Department Stores as “Palaces of Consumption” 76
John Wanamaker’s Luxury Department Store 77
Five-and-Tens 79
Window Shopping 82
Mail-Order Catalogs 84
Old-Fashioned Retailers 90
Tiffany Tastes and a Woolworth’s Pocketbook 91
Part Two: Modern America, 1900-1945 94
The New Tempo 95
From the Standard of Living to the American Dream 99
Middletown, U.S.A.: Average America 101
The Modern Identity Kit 102
Resetting the Stage, Hollywood Style 104
Down and Out 107
Purchasing Power and the New Deal 110
Patriotic Consumers at War 112
Chapter Four Mr. Advertiser Meets Mrs. Consumer 116
National Magazines, National Brands 116
Ladies’ Home Journal, the Bible of the American Home 118
Selling Soap, or Selling Sex? 120
The Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’ Grady 123
Images of the Good Life 125
Discovering Boys and Girls 128
The Power of Marketing 130
Advertising Overload 132
Forging the American Way 133
Chapter Five Sensing a Wider World 137
Bicycles, Cameras, and the Great Outdoors 137
Giving a Human Face to Electricity 139
The Phonograph in the Parlor 140
Radio, the Electronic Hearth 145
The Jazz Age Radio Craze 148
The Electric Twenties 152
The Golden Age of Radio 154
Creating Unity amid Diversity 156
Chapter Six Designing the Auto Age 159
Automobility and the Pursuit of Pleasure 160
“The Proper Thing for a Man of Wealth”: Motor Racing and Car Collecting 162
Ford’s Model T, The Car for the Common Man 164
GM and the “Car for Every Purse and Purpose” 168
Design Wars 170
Buy Now, Pay Later 172
The Paradox of the Auto Boom 174
Streamlining the Great Depression 175
Imaging the Future 176
Part Three 179
Boomer America, 1945-2005 180
Populuxe Push-Button Technology 182
Keeping Away from the Joneses 185
Plastics Triumphant 187
Fallout of Affluence 188
Rediscovering Diversity 190
The Global Village of Goods 192
Brands as Experience 194
The New Mainstream 195
Chapter Seven Destination Suburbia 198
America Moves from City to Suburb 199
“We Got a Piece of the American Dream”: Levittown, New York 201
Blue-Collar Aesthetics, Appliances, and Automobiles 204
Mall Culture 206
Making Ends Meet 210
Edge Cities and Big-Box Retailers 211
Chapter Eight Casual Style 215
The Mamie Look 215
Rebels, Teens, and Beatniks 217
Youth Quake 219
The Me Generation 223
Celebrity Style, Yuppie Tastes 226
Polo Meets Hip-Hop 228
Chapter Nine Electronics “R” Us 232
Information Snacking 232
The Year of Consumer Electronics: 1948 233
TV in the Fifties 234
Radio, Records, and High-Fidelity 238
Tape It! 244
Video Games: New Devices and Desires 247
Personal Computers before the Internet 249
Connecting to the Internet 251
Cable Television 255
Everything is Digital 258
Hardware to Software, Hearth to HDTV 262
Conclusion264
Who We Are 264
Seven Big Themes 265
Bibliographical Essay 276
Acknowledgements 305
Index 309
Photographs follow pages 92, 178, and 275
