An Early Modern Consumer Revolution?

Consumption and Identity

1) Variety of items on offer 2) Liberal Society and Institutions 3) Affordability 4) Fashion codes 5) Urbanity / Anonymity

Global Consumption

Traditional Consumption ?

Global Consumption Nature seems to have taken a particular Care to disseminate her Blessings among the different Regions of the World, with an Eye to this mutual Intercourse and Traffick among Mankind, that the Natives of the several Parts of the Globe might have a kind of Dependance upon one another, and be united together by their common Interest. Almost every Degree produces something peculiar to it. The Food often grows in one Country, and the Sauce in another. The Fruits of Portugal are corrected by the Products of Barbadoes: The Infusion of a China Plant sweetned with the Pith of an Indian Cane: The Philippick Islands give a Flavour to our European Bowls. The Single Dress of a Woman of Quality is often the Product of an hundred Climates. The Muff and the Fan come together from the different Ends of the Earth. The Scarf is sent from the Torrid Zone, and the Tippet from beneath the Pole. The Brocade Petticoat rises out of the Mines of Peru, and the Diamond Necklace out of the Bowels of Indostan. Joseph Addison, in The Spectator, 69 (19 May 1711)

Consumption and Identity But whatever Reflexions may be made on this head, the World has long since decided the Matter; handsome Apparel is a main Point, fine Feathers make fine Birds, and People, where they are not known, are generally honour’d according to their Clothes and other Accoutrements they have about them; from the richness of them we judge of their Wealth, and by their ordering of them we guess at their Understanding. It is this which encourages every Body, who is conscious of his little Merit, if he is any ways able, to wear Clothes above his Rank, especially in large and populous Cities, where obscure Men may hourly meet with fifty Strangers to one Acquaintance, and consequently have the [ Pleasure of being esteem’d by a vast Majority, not as what they are, but what they appear to be: which is a greater Temptation than most People want to be vain. Bernard Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, 1723

Something happened... Significant increase over the period in:  Global trade and consumption,  Retailing and marketing,  Availability of ‘luxury’ goods to wide range of social strata,  Ownership of manufactured goods in wide social range,  New forms of consumption and social interaction,  Intellectual output on the topic (new: defence of ‘luxury’).

 ‘Consumer Revolution’ ?  ‘Birth of the Consumer Society’?

‘Consumer Revolution’  Problem of location  Neil McKendrick vs case studies  Problem of timeframe  the term ‘Revolution’ and its implications

‘Birth of Consumer Society’  Problem of term ‘Birth’  date and site of birth  Continuum vs specificity  Problem of term ‘Consumer Society’  Lack of ‘consumer consciousness’ (Trentmann)  Anachronism and politicisation.

 What happened?  How?  Why?  What where the effects?  How far reaching was it? HI 272

New Goods and New practices of sociability

Gender and Consumption

Poor Consumers

Nabob Cultures

Contemporary Reactions and Debates

Brewer and Porter (eds.), Consumption and the World of Goods (1997)

Berg and Eger (eds.), Luxury in the Eighteenth Century (2003)

Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution (2008)

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, Edited by Frank Trentmann (2012)