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Woloson, Consumer Culture
Shopping, Buying, Owning: The Consumer Experience in America
History 512: 382
11:00-12:20 Tuesday/Thursday
Prof. Wendy Woloson
This course places American consumption into a larger historical context, discussing what Americans consumed, how they thought about what they bought, and what various acts of consumption meant – socially, culturally, and economically.
Readings and discussions will track change over time as well as highlight recurrent themes. Some of the overarching questions we will ask include, What is a consumer and what does it mean to "consume"? How is shopping both a limiting and liberating experience? What are the politics of consumption, and are we expressing individuality or conformity when we buy things? How have things changed and remained the same over time?
Requirements:
• Class participation: Each class will begin with a brief lecture, followed by class discussion based on the readings, seminar style. It is imperative that you do the readings for each class. In addition to actively engaging in the discussion, each student is required to bring no less than 3 discussion points to each class (they will be collected). These are meant to be informal, and can consist of simple bullet-pointed statements or questions in response to the readings. For example, if you take issue with a certain author, say why. If you think an idea is particularly provocative or confusing or contradictory, note that as a discussion point. Or, if a reading or class topic has relevance to something happening today, write it down: that counts as well. (15% total)
• Short essays: Students will write four thought pieces based on the main questions posed each week. You are at liberty to choose which four essays you will write, but each essay is due in class the Tuesday following the week it appears, so that you can incorporate class discussion, notes, and the lectures. Successful essays will range from 4-6 pages long, set out a clear and coherent thesis, incorporate secondary sources from class, and at least 2 primary sources to serve as evidence for your argument. (15% each = 40% total)
• Final exam: Yes, you will have a final exam. It will be open-note and open book. I'll give you a choice of questions – drawing on subject matter introduced in the short essays and taken from discussion points and lectures – that you will answer in an essay incorporating as much of the course material (both readings and primary sources) as possible. It will be fair and as pain-free as possible. (25%)
General Policies:
• Turn off all electronic devices: this includes computers and cell phones.
• Attendance: required at every class. Absences will affect your class participation grade and more than two absences will automatically result in a drop in your overall letter grade.
• Food: You are free to eat and drink if it is permitted in our classroom and not disruptive to the rest of the class.
A History of Consumer Culture in America
This course places consumption into a larger historical context, discussing what Americans consumed, how they thought about what they bought, and what various acts of consumption meant – socially, culturally, and economically. Readings and discussions will track change over time as well as highlight recurrent themes.
Requirements:
Students will write four thought pieces (shorter essays) throughout the semester based on questions posed by the readings. In addition, you will write a longer research paper focused on a particular historical aspect of consumer culture, arguing a thesis and incorporating primary and secondary source material.
Week 1: Introduction
Tuesday
- What do we mean by consumer culture and why might it be important to study?
- What are some useful theories and frameworks to understand consumption as both a personal activity and a cultural act?
Thursday
Readings:
- Russell W. Belk, "Possessions and the Extended Self," Journal of Consumer Research 15.2 (Sept. 1988).
- Raymond Williams, "Consumer," in Lawrence Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999).
- Colin Campbell, "Consuming Goods and the Good of Consuming," in Lawrence Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999).
Discussion:
- What do we mean by "consumers" and "consumer culture"? What are some of the theories scholars have proposed about the meaning of consumption, and why might they be a useful (or narrow) lens through which to see and understand the American past?
Week 2: The First American Consumers?
Tuesday
Readings:
- James Axtell, "The First Consumer Revolution," in Lawrence Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999).
- Patrick Malone, "The Arrival of the White Man," in The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians (1991).
Thursday
Readings:
- Ann Smart Martin, "William Mead's Scottish Clock" and "Getting the Goods," in Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia (2008).
- Carole Shammas, "America, the Atlantic, and Global Consumer Demand, 1500-1800," OAH Magazine (January 2005).
- Joyce Appleby, "Consumption in Early Modern Social Thought," in John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (1993).
Week 2 Writing Assignment (due 9/17):
- How did early consumers incorporate new goods into their societies. Did these new goods change them? If so, in what ways? If not, why not?
Week 3: Revolutionary Consumers
Tuesday
Readings:
- T.H. Breen, "Narrative of Commercial Life: Consumption, Ideology, and Community on the Eve of the American Revolution," William and Mary Quarterly 50.3 (July, 1993).
- Kate Haulman, "Fashion and the Culture Wars of Revolutionary Philadelphia," William and Mary Quarterly 62.4 (October, 2005).
- Paul G.E. Clemens, "The Consumer Culture of the Middle Atlantic, 1760-1820," The William and Mary Quarterly 62.4 (Oct. 2005).
Thursday
Readings:
- Mary Beth Sievens, "Female Consumerism and Household Authority in Early National New England," Early American Studies 4 (2006).
- Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor, "'She Said She Did Not Know Money': Urban Women and and Atlantic Markets in the Revolutionary Era," Early American Studies 4.2 (Fall, 2006).
Week 3 Writing Assignment (due 9/24):
- Was consumption an effective means to debate political and social issues in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Why or why not?
Week 4: The Rise of the Modern Consumer
Tuesday
Readings:
- Richard Bushman, "The Comforts of Home," in The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (1993).
- Selections from Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835, 1840): Chapter 10: "Of the Taste for Physical Well-Being in America"; and Chapter 11: "Peculiar Effects of the Love of Physical Gratification in Democratic Times."
Thursday
Readings:
- David Jaffee, “Peddlers of Progress and the Transformation of the Rural North, 1760–1860,” Journal of American History 78 (1991).
Week 4 Writing Assignment (due 10/1):
- Discuss the concept of "refinement" in antebellum America. What was it, why was it such an important concept (and for whom), and in what specific ways did people change their material surroundings to convince others they were refined?
Week 5: The Consumer Revolution
Tuesday
Readings:
- Michael Zakim, "Sartorial Ideologies: From Homespun to Ready-Made," The American Historical Review 106.5 (December, 2001).
- Karen Halttunen, "Hypocrisy and Sincerity in the World of Strangers," in Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture, 1830-1870 (1982).
- "Gold Watches," Lowell Offering (1841).
Thursday
Readings:
- Wendy Woloson, "The Economies of Everyday Life," in In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression (2010).
- Rebecca Yamin, "Lurid Tales and Homely Stories of New York's Notorious Five Points," Historical Archaeology 32.1 (1998).
Week 5 Writing Assignment (due 10/8):
- Why was clothing and outward appearance such a big deal to people during the early and mid nineteenth century? Did it mean more to the rich than the poor?
Week 6: The Rise of Advertising, Print Culture, and Persuasion
Tuesday
Readings:
- Jackson Lears, "The Modernization of Magic," in Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (1994).
- David Henkin, "Street Signs and Store Signs," and "Hand Bills and Trade Cards," in City Reading: Written Words and Public Spaces in Antebellum New York (1999).
- Jay Last, "Lithography in America," in The Color Explosion: 19th-Century American Lithography (2006).
Thursday
Readings
- Skim through James Harvey Young, "Vials and Vermifuges: The Expansion of American Nostrums During the Early 19th Century," and "The Pattern of Patent Medicine Appeals," in The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation (1961).
- Browse the online exhibition, "Balm of America: Patent Medicine Collection": http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/balm-of-america-patent-medicine-collection.
Plus:
- Thursday: a field trip to the Library Company of Philadelphia to view primary sources including lithographs, pamphlets, posters and to see their exhibition, "Remnants of Everyday Life: Historical Ephemera in the Workplace, Street, and Home" MEET AT THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA, 1314 LOCUST ST., PHILADELPHIA (there is a PatCo stop right at 13th St.)
Week 6 Writing Assignment (due 10/15):
- What was the new media of the nineteenth century and what, if any, were the immediate and long-lasting effects on Americans (either individually or collectively)? Are there parallels to today?
Week 7: Spectacles and Entertainments
Tuesday
Readings:
- James Cook, "The Feejee Mermaid and the Market Revolution," in The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Harvard, 2001).
- Selections from: The Life of P.T. Barnum (1855): pp. 196-207, 211-228.
- David Nasaw, "Dollar Theaters, Concert Saloons, and Dime Museums," in Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (1993).
Thursday
Readings:
- Ellen Gruber Garvey, "Readers Read Advertising into Their Lives: The Trade Card Scrapbook," in The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer Culture, 1880s-1910s (1996).
- Robert Rydell, "The Culture of Imperial Abundance: World's Fairs in the Making of American Culture," in Simon Bronner, ed., Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920 (1989).
Week 7 Writing Assignment (due 10/22):
- What gave rise to the entertainment industries at the end of the nineteenth century? Was entertainment and leisure a source of liberation or conformity?
Week 8: Consuming Institutions: Department Stores and Dimestores
Tuesday
Readings:
- William Leach, "Interiors," in Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (1994).
- Elaine S. Abelson, "The World of the Store," in When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (1989).
Thursday
Readings:
- Elaine S. Abelson, "Shoplifting Ladies," in When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (1989).
- David Nasaw, "All that Money Could Buy," in Children of the City: At Work and At Play (1986).
Week 8 Writing Assignment (due 10/29):
- Imagine yourself as a person of the city at the turn of the century and identify yourself by race, class, age, and gender. Describe in detail the kind of shopping experience you might have, and what it means to you.
Week 9: Consumption and Identity
Tuesday
Readings:
- Andrew Heinze, "From Scarcity to Abundance: The Immigrant as Consumer," in Lawrence Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999).
- Mark A. Swiencicki, "Consuming Brotherhood: Men's Culture, Style, and Recreation as Consumer Culture, 1880-1930," Journal of Social History 31 (Summer, 1998).
Thursday
Readings:
- Karen Halttunen, "From Parlor to Living Room: Domestic Space, Interior Decoration, and the Culture of Personality," in Simon J. Bronner, ed., Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920 (1989).
- Selections from Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890): Introduction; skim other chapters, such as: Chapter 3: "The Mixed Crowd"; Chapter 10: "Jewtown"; Chapter 17: "The Street Arab"; or Chapter 21: "Pauperism in the Tenements," or any others of your choice.
- Selections from Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899): Chapter 4: "Conspicuous Consumption"; Chapter 7: "Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture"; skim some of the other chapters.
Week 9 Writing Assignment (due 11/5):
- Define "conspicuous consumption," and describe how Americans used it as a way to identify themselves in terms of class, ethnicity, or gender? Were they successful? Give specific examples.
Week 10: Consumption, Mass Media, and Mass Markets
Tuesday
Readings:
- Susan Strasser, "The Name on the Label," in Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (1989).
- Roland Marchand, "Apostles of Modernity," in Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (1985).
Thursday
Readings:
- Kathy Peiss, "Shades of Difference," in Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture (2011).
- Maurice M. Manring, "Cracking Jokes in the Confederate Supermarket," in Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (1998).
Week 10 Writing Assignment (due 11/12):
- In what ways did producers and advertisers forge ideas about national and individual identity through mass markets? Who was the "mass" in mass markets and who was left out?
Week 11: Depression Era Buying and New Kinds of Borrowing
Tuesday
Readings:
- Lendol Calder, Selections from: "Hard Payments: The Rise of Installment Selling," and "From Consumptive Credit to Consumer Credit," in Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton UP, 2001).
Thursday
Readings:
- Roland Marchand, "Advertising in Overalls: Parables and Visual Cliches of the Depression," Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (1985).
- James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1936): selections.
Week 11 Writing Assignment (due 11/19):
- Some say that consumer credit was liberating, because it enabled people to purchase goods they normally could not afford. Others argue that consumer credit enmeshed consumers in endless cycles of emulation and debt. Who is right, and why?
Week 12: Post-War Consumption
Tuesday
Readings:
- Elaine Tyler May, "The Commodity Gap: Consumerism and the Modern Home," in Lawrence Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999).
- Lizabeth Cohen, "From Town Center to Shopping Center: The Reconfiguration of Community Marketplaces in Postwar America," American Historical Review 101.4 (October, 1996).