Day 3 -- Paris Enters the World of Consumerism
Presentation for Today:
I, myself, find today's material particularly interesting and useful, since I have spent my entire life within a consumer culture, and it is sometimes difficult for to see the ways that the focus on consumption in our society shapes our consciousness. By looking at the experience of people who were just entering this world, we can get a better sense of the way that we ourselves are affected by the way the world around us is organized.
To get the most out of these readings and images you need to ask yourself questions such as:
- How the consumption of goods in the city changed in the period we are studying?
- How did the coming of a consumer society affect life in Paris?
- How were phenomena such as the development of the department store experienced by different groups in the population?
Emile Zola, Au Bonheur des Dames (Ladies Paradise)
Michael B. Miller, The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920.
Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late 19th Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp 279-283.
- The Advent of Mass Consumption
- The Consumer Revolution
- The Changing Nature of Consumption in Paris
- The Experience of Consuming
- Dreams of Wealth
T.J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Age of Manet and His Followers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), pp. 55-57.
H. Hazel Hahn, Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century
An 1869 Guide to Shopping in Paris
"Romance in Great Shops," New York Times, January 14, 1883 (An article about two new books that appeared about Parisian department stores.)
Bon Marché Department Store, 1887