Description

The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change required more than rising incomes and greater impulses to buy; it involved the creation of new concepts.

Buying Happiness explores the ways public thinkers represented, conceptualized, and institutionalized new ideas about consumption and consumer behaviours. Topics include the state’s creation of the first cost-of-living index in 1914–15, the development of consumer consciousness during the Depression, and the ways in which popular magazines encouraged an ethic of cautious consumerism in the postwar period.

Bettina Liverant’s fresh approach connects changes in consumer consciousness with changes in the economy and behaviour. As the figure of “the consumer” moved from the margins to the centre of social, cultural, and political analysis, the values and concepts associated with consumerism were woven into the Canadian social imagination.

Buying Happiness: The Emergence of Consumer Consciousness in English Canada

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Paperback / softback by Bettina Liverant

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The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change... Read more

    Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
    Publication Date: 01/11/2018
    ISBN13: 9780774835145, 978-0774835145
    ISBN10: 0774835141

    Number of Pages: 304

    Description

    The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change required more than rising incomes and greater impulses to buy; it involved the creation of new concepts.

    Buying Happiness explores the ways public thinkers represented, conceptualized, and institutionalized new ideas about consumption and consumer behaviours. Topics include the state’s creation of the first cost-of-living index in 1914–15, the development of consumer consciousness during the Depression, and the ways in which popular magazines encouraged an ethic of cautious consumerism in the postwar period.

    Bettina Liverant’s fresh approach connects changes in consumer consciousness with changes in the economy and behaviour. As the figure of “the consumer” moved from the margins to the centre of social, cultural, and political analysis, the values and concepts associated with consumerism were woven into the Canadian social imagination.

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