Consumption: From Wedgewood to Walmart (10 Weeks)
W 2021

Whether buying at a general store or shopping at a mall, consumption has always formed an essential part of the American experience.  More than just commodities bought and sold, consumption is also about the institutions, social practices, cultural meanings and economic functions that surround the merchandise.  Bringing together business, labor and cultural history, this SDG will look at the changing meanings consumption has had for life, politics and the economy in the US.  And what better time to consider the effects on consumption of the recent tariffs and the shift in consumption patterns during the Covid-10 pandemic!

1. Why study consumption?

        Glickman, "Born to Shop?"  16 pages CS

        Fallows, "What is an Economy For?" 21 pages CS

        Campbell, "Consuming Goods and The Goods of Consuming"  14 pages CS

2. Retail Distribution evolution: Sears and Montgomery Ward Catalogues, Department Stores, and Retail Premiums

       Leach, "The Dawn of a Commercial Empire" and "Interiors", 44 pages LD

       Resseguie, "A. T. Stewart and the Development of the Department Store", Business History Journal, 22 pages

       Leach, "Transformations in a Culture of Consumption: Women and Department Stores", 22 pages LD

3.  The Stupid Experiment: Temperance, Saloons and NIckelodeons

       Peiss, " The Homosocial World of Working-Class Amusements" and "Leisure and Labor" 45 pages CA

     Race and Consumption

        Peiss, "Dance Madness". 27 pages CA

        Greenberg, "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work", 36 pages CS

4.  A & P and Piggly Wiggly: Progressive Era Models of Retail

       Leach, Managing A Dream Culture, Mergermania, "Sell Their Dreams", 80 pages LD

       Cohen, "Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots", 23 pages CS

5.  Premiums and Spectacles

      Wilson, "Wishful Thinking: Retail Premiums", Enterprise & Society, 42 pages

      Leach, "The Spectacles", 26 pages. LD

      Peiss, "Coney Island Excursions", 18 pages CA

6.  Installment Credit

      Hyman, Borrow: The American Way of Debt, chapters 1, 2 and 5,  110 pages

7.  Television; The Mall

       Bergman, " American Television: Manufacturing Consumerism", University of Westminster Press, 14 pages.

       Kellner, " Network Television and American Society", Theory and Society, 32 pages.

       Heinze,  "From Scarcity to Abundance", 19 pages CS

       Hanchett, "US Tax Policy and the Shopping Mall", American Historical Review, 29 pages

       May, "The Commodity Gap", 18 pages CS

  8.  Afro-American Consumption

        Weems, "The Revolution will be Marketed", 20 pages. CS

        Hyman, Borrow, chapters 6 and 7, 69 pages.

9.  The Discount Retailer Revolution

       Courtemanche, "Competing with Costco and Sam's Club, Southern Economic Journal, 21 pages

       Emek, "The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart's Growth", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21, pages

       Newman, "Backlash against the Big-Box",Public Opinion Quarterly, 19 pages.

      Rigby, "The Future of Shopping", Harvard Business Review, 20 pages

10. Tariff's and Plagues.  Where does consumerism go from here?

      A moving target dependent on what happens between now and Winter 2021

    

    

Core books:

Borrow, The American Way of Debt, Louis Hyman, Vintage Books 2012

Consumer Society in American History,  edited by Lawrence Glickman, Cornell University 1999 (Articles noted as CS in list above)

Land of Desire, Merchants, Power and the Rise of A New American Culture, William Leach, Vintage Books 1993 (Articles noted as LD in list above - if you do not wish to purchase/borrow this book, I will be happy to scan the pages for you)

Cheap Amusements, Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York, Kathy Peiss, Temple University 1986 (Articles noted as CA in list above - if you do not wish to purchase/borrow this book, I will be happy to scan the pages for you)

Other listed articles will be emailed to you as PDF files