American Consumer Society 1865 2005

Download or read book American Consumer Society, 1865 - 2005 written by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2009 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This startlingly original and highly readable volume adds a new richness and depth to an element of U.S. history that is all too often taken for granted. In American Consumer Society, Regina Lee Blaszczyk examines the emergence of consumerism in the Victorian era, and, in tracing its evolution over the next 140 years, shows how the emergence of a mass market was followed by its fragmentation. Niche marketing focused on successive waves of new consumers as each made its presence known: Irish immigrants, urban African Americans, teenagers, computer geeks, and soccer moms, to name but a few. Blaszczyk demonstrates that middle-class consumerism is an intrinsic part of American identity, but exactly how consumerism reflected that identity changed over time. Initially driven to imitate those who had already achieved success, Americans eventually began to use their purchases to express themselves. This led to a fundamental change in American culture—one in which the American reverence for things was replaced by a passion for experiences. New Millennium families no longer treasured exquisite china or dress in fine clothes, but they’ll spare no expense on being able to make phone calls, retrieve emails, watch ESPN, or visit web sites at any place, any time. Victorian mothers just wouldn’t understand. Using materials and techniques from business history, art history, anthropology, sociology, material culture, and good story-telling, this lavishly illustrated and highly thoughtful narrative offers a compelling re-interpretation of American culture through the lens of consumerism, making it perfect for use not only as supplementary reading in the U.S. survey, but also for a variety of courses in Business, Culture, Economics, Marketing, and Fashion and Design history.

Download or read book A History of American Consumption written by Terrence H. Witkowski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has been near the forefront of global consumption trends since the 1700s, and for the past century and more, Americans have been the world’s foremost consuming people. Informed and inspired by the literature from consumer culture theory, as well as drawing from numerous studies in social and cultural history, A History of American Consumption tells the story of the American consumer experience from the colonial era to the present, in three cultural threads. These threads recount the assignment of meaning to possessions and consumption, the gendered ideology and allocation of consumption roles, and resistance through anti-consumption thought and action. Brief but scholarly, this book provides a thought provoking, introduction to the topic of American consumption history informed by research in consumer culture theory. By examining and explaining the core phenomenon of product consumption and its meaning in the changing lives of Americans over time, it provides a valuable contribution to the literature on the subjects of consumption and its causes and consequences. Readable and insightful, it will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in consumer behaviour, advertising, and marketing and business history.

Download or read book Decoding Modern Consumer Societies written by H. Berghoff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide range of studies of Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa, the contributions gathered here consider how political history, business history, the history of science, cultural history, gender history, intellectual history, anthropology, and even environmental history can help us decode modern consumer societies.

Download or read book The Color Revolution written by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-08-31 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of color and commerce from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design. When the fashion industry declares that lime green is the new black, or instructs us to “think pink!,” it is not the result of a backroom deal forged by a secretive cabal of fashion journalists, designers, manufacturers, and the editor of Vogue. It is the latest development of a color revolution that has been unfolding for more than a century. In this book, the award-winning historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk traces the relationship of color and commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture. Blaszczyk examines the evolution of the color profession from 1850 to 1970, telling the stories of innovators who managed the color cornucopia that modern artificial dyes and pigments made possible. These “color stylists,” “color forecasters,” and “color engineers” helped corporations understand the art of illusion and the psychology of color. Blaszczyk describes the strategic burst of color that took place in the 1920s, when General Motors introduced a bright blue sedan to compete with Ford's all-black Model T and when housewares became available in a range of brilliant hues. She explains the process of color forecasting—not a conspiracy to manipulate hapless consumers but a careful reading of cultural trends and consumer taste. And she shows how color information flowed from the fashion houses of Paris to textile mills in New Jersey. Today professional colorists are part of design management teams at such global corporations as Hilton, Disney, and Toyota. The Color Revolution tells the history of how colorists help industry capture the hearts and dollars of consumers.

Download or read book American Business Since 1920 written by Thomas K. McCraw and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of how America’s biggest companies began, operated, and prospered post-World War I This book takes the vantage point of people working within companies as they responded to constant change created by consumers and technology. It focuses on the entrepreneur, the firm, and the industry, by showing—from the inside—how businesses operated after 1920, while offering a good deal of Modern American social and cultural history. The case studies and contextual chapters provide an in-depth understanding of the evolution of American management over nearly 100 years. American Business Since 1920: How It Worked presents historical struggles with decision making and the trend towards relative decentralization through stories of extraordinarily capable entrepreneurs and the organizations they led. It covers: Henry Ford and his competitor Alfred Sloan at General Motors during the 1920s; Neil McElroy at Procter & Gamble in the 1930s; Ferdinand Eberstadt at the government’s Controlled Materials Plan during World War II; David Sarnoff at RCA in the 1950s and 1960s; and Ray Kroc and his McDonald’s franchises in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first; and more. It also delves into such modern success stories as Amazon.com, eBay, and Google. Provides deep analysis of some of the most successful companies of the 20th century Contains topical chapters covering titans of the 2000s Part of Wiley-Blackwell’s highly praised American History Series American Business Since 1920: How It Worked is designed for use in both basic and advanced courses in American history, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Download or read book Teaching Labor History in Art and Design written by Kyunghee Pyun and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from American history, fashion design, history of luxury, visual culture, museum studies, and women’s history, among others, this book explores the challenges, rewards and benefits of teaching business and the labor history of art and design professions to those in higher education. Recognizing that artists and designers are no longer just creatives, but bosses, employees, members of professional associations, and citizens of nations that encourage and restrain their creative work in various ways, the book identifies a crucial need for art and design students to be taught the intricacies of these other roles, as well as how to navigate or challenge them. This empirically driven study features case studies in various pedagogical contexts, including museum exhibitions, group projects, lesson plans, discussion topics, and long-term assignments. The chapters also explore how the roles of designing and making became separated, how new technologies and the rise of mass production affected creative careers, the shifts back and forth between direct employment and freelancing, and the evolution of government interventions in creative fields. With a diverse and experienced range of contributors, and providing a unique set of conceptual tools to interpret, cope with, and react to the ever-changing conditions of capitalism, this volume will appeal to educators and researchers across education, history, art history, and sociology, with interests in experiential learning, capitalism, equity, social justice and neoliberalism.

Download or read book Deadlock and Disillusionment written by Gary W. Reichard and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deadlock and Disillusionment: American Politics Since 1968 is an insightful consideration of the events people, and policy debates that have shaped and continue to influence, even control, the current political era. Rejects conventional wisdom that the dominant force shaping recent American politics in the last half century has been the "rise of the Right" Considers the achievements and frustrations of each administration, from Nixon to Obama, in its assessment of contemporary U.S. politics Features authorship by an expert scholar in the field who takes a thematic rather than a partisan approach to recent American politics Offers a concise, comprehensive, and thoroughly up-to-date synthesis of the literature in the field and concludes with a comprehensive bibliographical essay, an aid to student research