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Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
This 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 culture—one in which the American reverence for things was replaced by a passion for experiences. New Millennium families no longer treasured exquisite china or dress in fine clothes, but they’ll spare no expense on being able to make phone calls, retrieve emails, watch ESPN, or visit web sites at any place, any time. Victorian mothers just wouldn’t understand. Using materials and techniques from business history, art history, anthropology, sociology, material culture, and good story-telling, this lavishly illustrated and highly thoughtful narrative offers a compelling re-interpretation of American culture through the lens of consumerism, making it perfect for use not only as supplementary reading in the U.S. survey, but also for a variety of courses in Business, Culture, Economics, Marketing, and Fashion and Design history.
Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
This 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 culture—one in which the American reverence for things was replaced by a passion for experiences. New Millennium families no longer treasured exquisite china or dress in fine clothes, but they’ll spare no expense on being able to make phone calls, retrieve emails, watch ESPN, or visit web sites at any place, any time. Victorian mothers just wouldn’t understand. Using materials and techniques from business history, art history, anthropology, sociology, material culture, and good story-telling, this lavishly illustrated and highly thoughtful narrative offers a compelling re-interpretation of American culture through the lens of consumerism, making it perfect for use not only as supplementary reading in the U.S. survey, but also for a variety of courses in Business, Culture, Economics, Marketing, and Fashion and Design history.
Author: Lawrence B. Glickman Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 9780801484865 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 436
Book Description
This volume offers the most comprehensive and incisive exploration of American consumer history to date, spanning the four centuries from the colonial era to the present.
Author: Gary S. Cross Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 9780231113120 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
The victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been home to the most aggressive and thoughtful critics of consumption such as Puritanism and Prohibition. This work offers a history of how market forces came to dominate American life.
Author: Bob Sullivan Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 1476685886 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
The current literature on consumerism is diverse, scattered, and unsystematic. This book remedies this by identifying the beginning of mass consumer society in the United States, starting with the New Deal. The New Deal framework of guaranteeing new home purchases by means of low down-payment, fixed-rate home mortgages lasted until the 1970s, at which time the legal framework unraveled due to a sustained attack on New Deal racism. Despite this, American consumerism continued and even flourished without a regulatory structure. This book analyzes seven key pieces of federal legislation which undergird American consumer society to this day.
Author: Neva R. Goodwin Publisher: Island Press ISBN: 1597267902 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
The developed countries, particularly the United States, consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, yet high and rising levels of consumption do not necessarily lead to greater satisfaction, security, or well-being, even for affluent consumers.The Consumer Society provides brief summaries of the most important and influential writings on the environmental, moral, and social implications of a consumer society and consumer lifestyles. Each section consists of ten to twelve summaries of critical writings in a specific area, with an introductory essay that outlines the state of knowledge in that area and indicates where further research is needed. Sections cover: Scope and Definition Consumption in the Affluent Society Family, Gender, and Socialization The History of Consumerism Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption Critiques and Alternatives in Economic Theory Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, and Wants Creation Consumption and the Environment Globalization and Consumer Culture Visions of an Alternative This book is the second volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series, which provides surveys of the most significant writings in emergent areas of economics -- an invaluable aid in fast-growing fields where genuine new ground is being broken. The series brings together economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to develop analyses that challenge and enrich the dominant neoclassical paradigm.The Consumer Society is an essential guide to and summary of the literature of consumption and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the deeper economic, social, and ethical implications of consumerism.
Author: David Blanke Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0739172190 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
In the twentieth century, Americans thought of the United States as a land of opportunity and equality. To what extent and for whom this was true was, of course, a matter of debate, however especially during the Cold War, many Americans clung to the patriotic conviction that America was the land of the free. At the same time, another national ideal emerged that was far less contentious, that arguably came to subsume the ideals of freedom, opportunity, and equality, and that eventually embodied an unspoken consensus about what constitutes the good society in a postmodern setting. This was the ideal of choice, broadly understood as the proposition that the good society provides individuals with the power to shape the contours of their lives in ways that suit their personal interests, idiosyncrasies, and tastes. By the closing decades of the century, Americans were widely agreed that theirs was--or at least should be--the land of choice. In A Destiny of Choice?, David Blanke and David Steigerwald bring together important scholarship on the tension between two leading interpretations of modern American consumer culture. That modern consumerism reflects the social, cultural, economic, and political changes that accompanied the country's transition from a local, producer economy dominated by limited choices and restricted credit to a national consumer marketplace based on the individual selection of mass-produced, mass-advertised, and mass-distributed goods. This debate is central to the economic difficulties seen in the United States today.
Author: Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy Publisher: SAGE Publications ISBN: 1483358143 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
Consumer Culture and Society offers an introduction to the study of consumerism and consumption from a sociological perspective. Author Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy examines what we buy, how and where we consume, the meanings attached to the things we purchase, and the social forces that enable and constrain consumer behavior. Opening chapters provide a theoretical overview and history of consumer society and featured case studies look at mass consumption in familiar contexts, such as tourism, food, and higher education. The book explores ethical and political concerns, including consumer activism, indebtedness, alternative forms of consumption, and dilemmas surrounding the globalization of consumer culture.
Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262017776 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 397
Book Description
A history of color and commerce from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design. When the fashion industry declares that lime green is the new black, or instructs us to “think pink!,” it is not the result of a backroom deal forged by a secretive cabal of fashion journalists, designers, manufacturers, and the editor of Vogue. It is the latest development of a color revolution that has been unfolding for more than a century. In this book, the award-winning historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk traces the relationship of color and commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture. Blaszczyk examines the evolution of the color profession from 1850 to 1970, telling the stories of innovators who managed the color cornucopia that modern artificial dyes and pigments made possible. These “color stylists,” “color forecasters,” and “color engineers” helped corporations understand the art of illusion and the psychology of color. Blaszczyk describes the strategic burst of color that took place in the 1920s, when General Motors introduced a bright blue sedan to compete with Ford's all-black Model T and when housewares became available in a range of brilliant hues. She explains the process of color forecasting—not a conspiracy to manipulate hapless consumers but a careful reading of cultural trends and consumer taste. And she shows how color information flowed from the fashion houses of Paris to textile mills in New Jersey. Today professional colorists are part of design management teams at such global corporations as Hilton, Disney, and Toyota. The Color Revolution tells the history of how colorists help industry capture the hearts and dollars of consumers.
Author: Terrence H. Witkowski Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131738542X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
The United States has been near the forefront of global consumption trends since the 1700s, and for the past century and more, Americans have been the world’s foremost consuming people. Informed and inspired by the literature from consumer culture theory, as well as drawing from numerous studies in social and cultural history, A History of American Consumption tells the story of the American consumer experience from the colonial era to the present, in three cultural threads. These threads recount the assignment of meaning to possessions and consumption, the gendered ideology and allocation of consumption roles, and resistance through anti-consumption thought and action. Brief but scholarly, this book provides a thought provoking, introduction to the topic of American consumption history informed by research in consumer culture theory. By examining and explaining the core phenomenon of product consumption and its meaning in the changing lives of Americans over time, it provides a valuable contribution to the literature on the subjects of consumption and its causes and consequences. Readable and insightful, it will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in consumer behaviour, advertising, and marketing and business history.
Author: Susan J. Matt Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812236866 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
A century ago many Americans condemned envy as a destructive emotion and a sin. Today few Americans expect criticism when they express envy, and some commentators maintain that the emotion drives the economy. This shift in attitude is Susan Matt's central concern. Keeping up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 1890-1930 examines a key transition in the meaning of envy for the American middle class. Although people certainly have experienced envy throughout history, the expansion of the consumer economy at the turn of the twentieth century dramatically reshaped the social role of the emotion. Matt looks at how different groups within the middle class—men in white-collar jobs, bourgeois women, farm families, and children—responded to the transformation in social and cultural life. Keeping Up with the Joneses traces how attitudes about envy changed as department stores, mail-order catalogs, magazines, movies, and advertising became more prevalent, and the mass production of imitation luxury goods offered middle- and working-class individuals the opportunity to emulate upper-class life. Between 1890 and 1910 moralists sought to tame envy and emulation in order to uphold a moral economy and preserve social order. They criticized the liberal-capitalist preoccupation with personal striving and advancement and praised the virtue of contentment. They admonished the bourgeoisie to be satisfied with their circumstances and cease yearning for their neighbors' possessions. After 1910 more secular commentators gained ground, repudiating the doctrine of contentment and rejecting the notion that there were divinely ordained limits on what each class should possess. They encouraged everyone to pursue the objects of desire. Envy was no longer a sin, but a valuable economic stimulant. The expansion of consumer economy fostered such institutions as department stores and advertising firms, but it also depended on a transformation in attitudes and emotional codes. Matt explores the ways gender, geography, and age shaped this transformation. Bridging the history of emotions and the history of consumerism, she uncovers the connection between changing social norms and the growth of the consumer economy.
Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Author: Lawrence B. Glickman
Author: Gary S. Cross
Author: Bob Sullivan
Author: Neva R. Goodwin
Author: David Blanke
Author: Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy
Author: Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Author: Terrence H. Witkowski
Author: Susan J. Matt