HIUS 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Cracker Jack, Bargaining, Disposable And Discretionary Income
HIUS 131 – Lecture 8 – ‘Palaces of Consumption’: The Emerge of Mass Consumer
Culture, 1880s-1910s
Introduction: Woolworths
• Woolorths Utia, NY
• F. W. Woolorth hesitatig to u Christas deoratios to sell i stores eause he ast
sure people would buy things that they usually made
o Plus, Christas ast a ig osuer holida
o All of the decorations sold, and became a huge seller in his stores
• Christas seaso is our harest tie. Make it pa
• 1860s and 1870s big businesses were still concentrated in heavy industry, most American women
made their own stuff from materials they purchased, processed food was rare
• Even in 1880, most Americans still lived in farms and in towns with fewer than 2,500 people, had
no bathrooms, stockings/fruit/cigarettes epesie ad eret ass osued
• Most people bought goods in local country store
o Not organized to get you to buy
• People went to store to buy something and knew what they needed
o Most storekeepers 1870s carried similar products to similar store 20 years before
o Haggling over price
o Returning/exchanging goods unknown
• Only wealthy people went shopping for fun
• 1920 richest 5% had 3/4 of all income generated in US
Consumer Products
• Industrialization meant that more Americans had some disposable income, goods cheaper/low
prices due to more goods, expansion of MC (people working in white collar jobs)
• Brand names came into being late 19th century
o Del Mote, Lipto, Craker Jaks, Tootsie ‘olls, Hershe, Capells, Pepsi, Coke, Gillette,
Kodak
• People buying their own cameras instead of having to go to photographer
• Hamburger 1899
• Ready-made clothing 1890s becoming the norm, especially for urban people
• Businesses began pushing products in magazine advertisements, advertising cards
The Department Store
• First department store late 1850s NY
• Wast util s ad s that departet stores eae ore idespread
• Late 19th century replacing small retail shops
• Paralleled expansion and consolidation of industry
o Businesses getting bigger, integrated different aspects of business into single entity
• Clothing and furniture sold in different departments of same store
o Previously, going to different stores and not ready-made
• Greater selection of merchandise
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• Late th etur Mas 3, eploees, oe Bosto store was 4th largest employer in New
England
• Huge buildings with millions of acres of square footage
• 20th century thousands of employees seeing millions of customers
• Size of stores and clientele meant they needed to standardize prices
o Eliminated haggling over price that had been central feature of shopping before CW
• Stores organized to tempt/attract customers
o Trying to get them to buy things that they might not have needed/wanted before entering
store
o Focused attention on MC and UC women
• Time due to having servants
• Disposable income
• Products were focused on adornment of women
• Trig to get MC oe to sped oe o ites that the didt eed
▪ White women raised in religious culture of self-denial, sacrifice, saving, self-
restraint
o Designed buildings and displays to impress and attract customers
• Just entering store should excite customer
▪ …that tired feelig drops aa ad a fresh iterest aakes
▪ Enter store should wake up customer, make them excited, make them cheerful
▪ Store making customer forget about drabness of life
• Exteriors of stores increasingly spectacular
▪ Early 20th century outlining frames of buildings with lights
▪ 1913 Gimble Brothers in Milwaukee put up biggest electric sign in the world on
top of department store
• Could be seen from 30 miles away
▪ Cheap manufactured glass allowed store windows to be central feature
o Created environment that enhanced appeal/luxury of goods being sold
• Goods displayed in mahogany cases in order to give sense of entering world of luxury
• Waaakers pipe orga
▪ Elegant, almost church-like environment
• Tiffany Dome at Marshall Field organized around rotunda early 20th century Chicago
• Palaes of osuptio iteded to reate sese of iredile luur
• Using rich colors
▪ Color themes
• Lighting techniques
• Trying to create sense of fantasy
▪ Store a fantasy world of luxury in itself
▪ 1903 store had 6-week long carnival of nations where Turkish dancers
performed
▪ Sought to evoke mystery and exoticism of the east and tempt buyers
• East fantastic, sexualized, exciting place
▪ …ast repositor of ideas to the osuer
• Tempted by environment and enticed to bring home a little bit of it in a product
▪ Buying good but also buying a bit of the fantasy that enticed yo in first place
▪ Beautiful wrapping in order to increase fantasy
▪ Starts to lose fantasy when you bring it home, so you have to buy something
else in order to feel that way again
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
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