6. Early Consumerism (how women went from objects to consumers)

The rise of consumer culture in the early decades of the 20th century corresponded with major adjustments of the woman’s position in society. As the evolving workforce opened doors for women to enter, the consumer culture also had to expand. But how could we possibly know? In what ways can we see the consumer culture shift and adjust to make way for women rising in a world before multimedia advertising? Well, what if, between 100-1950s, advertisements still held the mirror up to consumerism and exposed the root of societal wants?

 

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SOURCES

--Primary--

 

BNA, The Sketch, 30 March 1910.

 

BNA, The Ottawa Free Press, 16 September 1916.

 

BNA, The Sphere, 8 December 1928.

 

BNA, The Express, 6 April 1935.

 

BNA, Britannia & Eve, March 1950.

 

--Secondary--

 

Baudrillard, Jean. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. California: Sage, 1998.

 

Hilton, Matthew. “The Female Consumer and the Politics of Consumption in Twentieth-Century Britain.” The Historical Journal 45, no. 1 (March 2002): 103-128.

 

Lopate, Carol. “Selling to Ms. Consumer.” College English 38, no. 8 (April 1977): 824-834.

 

Ostrander, Paula. “The Disruption of Victorian Class and Gender Norms: British Anxieties Regarding Shopping.” The General Brock University Undergraduate Journal of History, 4 (May 2019): 58-73.

 

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-brief-history-of-consumer-culture/ 

 

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/ 

 

https://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exhibition/consumer-era 

 

https://wams.nyhistory.org/modernizing-america/