Raising Consumers

Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book Raising Consumers by Lisa Jacobson, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Lisa Jacobson ISBN: 9780231509244
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: November 17, 2004
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: Lisa Jacobson
ISBN: 9780231509244
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: November 17, 2004
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

In the present electronic torrent of MTV and teen flicks, Nintendo and Air Jordan advertisements, consumer culture is an unmistakably important—and controversial—dimension of modern childhood. Historians and social commentators have typically assumed that the child consumer became significant during the postwar television age. But the child consumer was already an important phenomenon in the early twentieth century. The family, traditionally the primary institution of child socialization, began to face an array of new competitors who sought to put their own imprint on children's acculturation to consumer capitalism. Advertisers, children's magazine publishers, public schools, child experts, and children's peer groups alternately collaborated with, and competed against, the family in their quest to define children's identities.

At stake in these conflicts and collaborations was no less than the direction of American consumer society—would children's consumer training rein in hedonistic excesses or contribute to the spread of hollow, commercial values? Not simply a new player in the economy, the child consumer became a lightning rod for broader concerns about the sanctity of the family and the authority of the market in modern capitalist culture. Lisa Jacobson reveals how changing conceptions of masculinity and femininity shaped the ways Americans understood the virtues and vices of boy and girl consumers—and why boys in particular emerged as the heroes of the new consumer age. She also analyzes how children's own behavior, peer culture, and emotional investment in goods influenced the dynamics of the new consumer culture.

Raising Consumers is a provocative examination of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produced and ultimately legitimized a distinctive children's consumer culture in the early twentieth century.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the present electronic torrent of MTV and teen flicks, Nintendo and Air Jordan advertisements, consumer culture is an unmistakably important—and controversial—dimension of modern childhood. Historians and social commentators have typically assumed that the child consumer became significant during the postwar television age. But the child consumer was already an important phenomenon in the early twentieth century. The family, traditionally the primary institution of child socialization, began to face an array of new competitors who sought to put their own imprint on children's acculturation to consumer capitalism. Advertisers, children's magazine publishers, public schools, child experts, and children's peer groups alternately collaborated with, and competed against, the family in their quest to define children's identities.

At stake in these conflicts and collaborations was no less than the direction of American consumer society—would children's consumer training rein in hedonistic excesses or contribute to the spread of hollow, commercial values? Not simply a new player in the economy, the child consumer became a lightning rod for broader concerns about the sanctity of the family and the authority of the market in modern capitalist culture. Lisa Jacobson reveals how changing conceptions of masculinity and femininity shaped the ways Americans understood the virtues and vices of boy and girl consumers—and why boys in particular emerged as the heroes of the new consumer age. She also analyzes how children's own behavior, peer culture, and emotional investment in goods influenced the dynamics of the new consumer culture.

Raising Consumers is a provocative examination of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produced and ultimately legitimized a distinctive children's consumer culture in the early twentieth century.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book Excellent Beauty by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Late Age of Print by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Art of War by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Religion and International Relations Theory by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Creating Judaism by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Transforming Palliative Care in Nursing Homes by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Rey Chow Reader by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Velvet Lounge by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Epistolary Korea by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Queer Beauty by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Seventh Sense by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book Proposing Prosperity? by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Shape of the World to Come by Lisa Jacobson
Cover of the book The Incident at Antioch / L’Incident d’Antioche by Lisa Jacobson
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy