Abstract
The history of American consumption is by no means a new topic. It is one that has been tackled by numerous authors from many disciplines over time, whether by focus on a single topic or as a complete work. For America, with its comparatively short history of a post-European pioneer settlement and its attendant increasing independence from European origins, documenting its consumption would appear a relatively easy task. This would be especially true if a simple chronological course were to be taken in writing such a narrative. However, if one is interested in how consumption becomes intertwined with the wider macro-environment, including a unique emerging national culture, value system, and the challenges that arise from both abrupt and slow burning change, the task of writing about consumption appears more daunting. For the author, retelling the consumption story requires a novel approach if it is not to be the ‘same old’ story. If written as a scholarly contribution, it also needs to pass the acid test of progressing extant knowledge forward through theoretical contribution. Terrence Witkowski has risen to that challenge with his 2017 book, A History of American Consumption: Threads of Meaning, Gender, and Resistance (Witkowski 2018), (henceforth here, A History of American Consumption).
This book covers an ambitious time span, from early white colonial settlement (around 1607) to post-1980 consumption. The work is positioned within the research tradition of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), which has become increasingly popular since the 1980s, although Witkowski notes the early beginning of CCT apparent in the 1920s. Periodization in the book is chronological but broken up into different eras by the author’s determination of identifiable consumption ‘turning points’.
A History of American Consumption is written around three key threads: meaning, gender and resistance. The first; meaning, relates to intention indicated or conveyed through possession and use of goods, rituals, communication and endorsement. Through meaning, consumers build their identities. The second thread, gender, pertains to biological sex and the cultural traits, behaviors and roles that accompany male and female designation relative to consumption. Witkowski believes gender has mattered during consumption history with gender holding influence over product preference, purchase and consumption roles and that understanding how these play out from a CCT perspective is valuable. The final thread, resistance, comprises the multi-layered and multi-faceted consumer movements that influence the market. These include the production of products (including ideas) as well as how these products are perceived and consumed.
These three threads are presented via an examination of the different chronological eras each ascribed to its time but drawn together to form the fabric of American consumption. Chapters Three through Nine focus on a separate era in each chapter and each begins with a short overview. These overviews summarize important macro-environmental, political and social factors, and marketing developments of the day before discussing more detailed consumption activity.
The early part of this book is well worth the attention of prospective readers. The preface and acknowledgment pages should not be passed over, as they deliver a quick history of Witkowski’s own collecting life and academic career. He credits his parents for his curiosity and fascination with historical artefacts, starting early with Americana. This collecting spirit seems to have followed Witkowski throughout life. Here too the author’s passion for history and how it has pervaded his choice of research to become a pre-eminent marketing historian is disclosed. A view of analyzing history within the marketing discipline along with some of the barriers that can be identified is also included. Here the author’s wit and somewhat self-depreciating humor is already evident, and this also offers great promise for things to come. By the end of the preface, the reviewer’s expectations that the book would be much more than a mundane parade of successful and not so successful brands and lifecycles was growing. Readers will not to be disappointed. Witkowski’s scholarly expertise, eye for detail and totally engaging writing style come together beautifully in A History of American Consumption.
Chapters One and Two provide a major part of the book’s theoretical and methodological positioning, both from a marketing history and a CCT perspective. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the study of history through the CCT lens, discussing consumption historiography and the evolution of consumer research. This chapter provides a very useful guide for understanding how the author has approached the study of American consumption. Valuable information is given on data sources and how artefacts may be analyzed. Periodization is addressed through elaboration on the various ways it may be approached.
Witkowski reveals that Chapter 2: Writing American Consumption History, is longer than was his original intent. In this chapter, CCT is placed in its historical framework. The chapter begins with discussion of how consumption in a historical context can be regarded. Here the author explains how this work advances theory, whereby the threads of meaning, gender and resistance are drawn together to higher level discourses, often becoming entangled in the process.
This chapter also highlights CCT disciplinary development, referencing major works and key authors across time. A sizable part of the chapter discusses the connection between the historical field of women in home economics and consumer research. This then flows into a detailed historiography of the rise of consumer research, taking the reader through various contemporaneous and seminal works. It is a most interesting and informative read. The section ‘threading the narrative loom’ contains an explanation of what the author nominates as an ‘irresistible metaphor’ to bring the bundles of threads together to form the longitudinal bands as cultural warps in the fabric of American consumption and the transverse, as people and events that evoke the themes at different episodes of history. To iterate, the author provides a photographic image of himself perched a little perilously at a large traditional loom in a California State University classroom (see Figure 1) - encapsulated “The Author Threading His Narrative Loom” (p. 45). Describing this as his ‘visual pun’, it provides a powerful visual imagination of how complex the work of a CCT historian can be. Whether such a polished marketing academic can suddenly turn his hand to the production of traditional crafts remains to be seen, but whatever the outcome, the imagery serves as an excellent reminder of exactly what the book is about. This chapter is methodically written, with detailed recounting of the work of previous contributors. If no other chapter is read in the book, it is an essential for those interested in the development of consumer research and the emergence of a CCT perspective in the writing of consumption history.
Author Terry Witkowski threading the narrative loom, February 16, 2017. Taken at California State University, long beach by Professor Diedrick Brackens, fiber program head.
The following seven chapters discuss each era in turn, using the overarching thread theme approach, although each chapter is given its own variable treatment. The beginning of most chapters discusses material life and the market as an opener, whereby the political, social and cultural life as well as marketing developments of the day are described. Below are some highlights of chapter content. It would be impossible to convey here the richness and depth that each chapter contains.
Chapter 3: Colonial Consumption from 1607 to 1790, provides insight into what the first settlers encountered in the way of provisioning and resources available for establishing a marketing system. The tensions arising from values that drove life at that time and temptations from the possibility of goods from Europe are highlighted. Consumption began as subsistence, but by the end of this era, had reached comparative comfort for many consumers.
Chapter 4: Consumption in a New Nation 1790 – 1865 provides a rich account of the antebellum years through to the Civil War. While material conditions and lifestyles improved significantly for much of the growing populace, issues raised by groups such as abolitionists and the Temperance Movement provided a resistant counter-culture.
I particularly enjoyed Chapter 5: The Gilded Age, 1865 to 1900, due to a recent trip to the Newport Mansions myself, where exhibits of historic extreme family wealth preserved in summer house museums was revealing of the lifestyle enjoyed by the relatively few wealthy inhabitants. The increase in mail order, printing and increasing literacy amongst American consumers indicated expanding markets. Although resistance threads were more muted in this era than others, the release of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen 1899/1953) is a still today an ever-cited scholarly critique, marking the origins of conspicuous consumption. This chapter’s gender thread coverage of tonics, department stores and the riding of bicycles by women were thoroughly engaging. Watch out here for the story of Annie Oakley; ‘Little Sure Shot’ as a gender challenger to male dominance of outdoor sports. I very much also enjoyed the treatment given to a dark behavior phenomenon enabled by the rise of department stores - shoplifting.
Chapter 6: Consumption Progress, 1900 to 1930, covers a period of expanding marketing communications systems (advertising), colonial revival fashions, and lifestyle products brought to market to address consumer desires arising from an increasing rise in standards of living. During this era, many of the brands easily recognized today (e.g., Coca-Cola, Hallmark) became household names for a mass market. In this chapter, the meaning thread carries an excellent discussion on the increasing sophistication of advertising as a medium to transfer meaning from product to consumer.
Chapter 7: The Great Depression and World War II, spans an era of significantly diminished prosperity through the Depression years and then emergent frugality of a different kind. The discussion of the frugality movement that adopted slogans such as ‘produce, conserve and share, play square’ energized the American population at home to hold back consumption to fuel the war machine. The environmental conditions that gave rise to the Dustbowl era with its suffering and hardship for rural families around Oklahoma, immortalized in the photographic work of photographers such as Dorothea Lange, serves as a timely reminder. The juxtaposition of consumption and lifestyle messages emblazoned on advertising billboards that confronted consumers experiencing starvation and misery is given a thoughtful analysis.
Chapter 8: Consumption from 1945 to 1980, spans post-war recovery, and a renewed fervor for all things material. This chapter references many events and consumer trends that will be familiar to many readers: Tupperware parties, the increasingly ubiquitous medium of television and popular drama series that ‘snatched audiences’ away from other mediums, and, of course, TV dinners. Consumers as activists and formers of movements for civil rights and feminism gave increased leverage to national attention on issues that would impact the threads of meaning, gender and resistance.
Chapter 9: American Consumption since 1980, is the final era chapter and brings the reader up to date with currently observed consumption trends. Consumption of goods such as automobiles and firearms engender meanings related to political polarization. Male gender interpretation under threat has seen the emergence of retreat to man caves, and SUV purchase as compensation for such emasculation.
Chapter 10: Conclusion wraps up the book with three concluding historical timelines where each of the three threads is given its own consumption table. These provide a very useful summary overview of the main points discussed in previous chapters. Other possible threads that could have been pursued are also discussed. Witkowski then finally reflects on the value of theoretically driven scholarly works and how these are becoming relegated to consumption history. Witkowski tells CCT writers to take heart, that even as the literature moves on to greener pastures, the value of their hard work will be safe as honorable historical studies!
When asked to review A History of American Consumption: Threads of Meaning, Gender, and Resistance, I was initially a little reluctant from the perspective of not being American. Of some concern was that some of the nuances and brand meanings might be missed by not having the same experience with American iconic brands as those for whom the story was focused. However, the explanatory depth of this book maintains that the meanings are relatable cross-culturally. I was immensely impressed by this book. It is a high quality, scholarly, theoretically driven work. It impressively references contributions to both CCT and the history of marketing literature. The author shows his depth of understanding and eye for detail with fascinating accounts of contexts, products and the American people who made consumption happen. The book is richly illustrated with images.
As a comprehensive chronological work, it breaks new ground from the standpoint of identification of themes that pervade consumption history. It very eloquently integrates them together in a CCT fashion. Each chapter can serve as a stand-alone for anyone with a particular interest in a period of time. Witkowski is a skilled academic writer and a great story teller. While it is the rigorous application of a conceptual thread framework that holds it together (and admittedly at times forms a dense underlay to negotiate), it is the narratives and stories about people, brands and movements that make it quite the page turner. The author’s humor that punctuates some serious discussion, greatly increases its enjoyment and readability. The key audience for this book is academic historians along with CCT researchers and theorists. This book will also have a widespread general readership appeal for those interested in brands through the eras of American consumption.