New Culture Of Mass Consumption example essay topic

As the United States begins its transformation from an agricultural to a capitalist society, a new culture emerges: the new culture of mass consumption. As American media expands and progresses, creating mass-produced magazines and mail order catalogs, these culture industries begin to shape their audiences and consumers. Mass culture penetrates across social spaces, through the home and the workplace of all socioeconomic groups, acting as a form of self-training, primarily for women. This self-training is largely responsible for the development of the female writer, both as an artistic writer, and as a secretary. Most importantly, this new female role is fueled by the democratization of desire, where all Americans obtain the right to yearn the purchase of commodities produced by strangers in locations outside of the private sphere of the home, but not necessarily given equal access or resources to obtain these goods. In order to understand how the culture of mass consumption promotes the desire of new commodities, it is helpful to first address the characteristics of mass culture, as well as how it becomes incorporated into the lives of Americans.

Richard Ohmann, author of Selling Culture, explains: "Mass culture in societies like this one includes voluntary experiences, produced by a relatively small number of specialists, for millions across the nation to share, in similar or identical form, either simultaneously or nearly so; with dependable frequency; mass culture shapes habitual audiences, around common needs or interests, and it is made for profit". (Ohmann, pg. 14) His explanation implies each American is allowed self-definition through the commodities we buy. There is a voluntary choice in consumption. Mass culture is exposed to us from a distance, and more importantly it is "created by strangers".

(Ohmann, pg. 14) What is stressed in the media of one region of America is simultaneously focused on in another location. The consumers rely on purchasing on a schedule the same way producers rely on repetitively reaching the same audience. Mass culture creates a relationship between the consumer public, and the producers they will never meet. The old culture of America, consisting of agrarian, republican, and religious individuals who control their own land, does not depend on strangers to provide goods because members of this time period are able to create goods for themselves.

(Leach, pg. 264) William Leach and Ohmann describe the contrasting modern Americans by their dependence on goods made by the unknown. Producers of these commodities are not only strangers, but also professionals of their trade. As secularization takes place, the public transfers its attention from the church to the market. The modern capitalist society redirects old religious and agrarian values towards the characteristics of mass culture. The key feature of this new culture is "acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the democratization of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society". (Leach, pg. 261) This democratization of desire gives all Americans the right to covet the same commodities.

It is implied that access to these goods provides the comfort the modern public desires. This democratic right embedded in American culture, given to men and women of all races and ages, is what leads Leach to refer to the nation as the Land of Desire. This cultural transition is not without opposition. Individual desire is all that is democratized, not wealth, capital, or political power.

The old republican and agricultural America has no reason to prefer money to land ownership as the staple of all value. The coveting of marketed goods creates competition, not only across social spaces and groups, but also within the private sphere of the home. This current capitalistic culture is present in all social spaces of America. The desire to consume not only fuels the business world, it enters the domestic realm through magazines and mail order catalogs. Leach explains how mail order catalogs, as well as chain stores, hotels and restaurants, and department stores, as opposed past researcher's focus on agriculture and industrial production, are the institutions that shape the Land of Desire. The relationship between producers and consumers is obvious in the business arena of large-scale agriculture and industrial production.

The invasion of the capitalist attitude into the home is how mass culture is allowed to penetrate through every social space in America. Since the domestic sphere is the main realm of female life, mass culture immensely alters and influences life for women. Mass culture, outside the home in the form of department stores, and inside the home in the form of magazines and catalogs, depicted shopping as a new form of entertainment. Women, especially the working class "woman adrift", generally do not have the financial means to access this new world of consumer entertainment.

Because coveting material goods is the right of both genders as they are both Americans, "a woman's desire to dress well is seen as legitimate, as long as money is not spent on it". (Garvey, pg. 141) The female housekeeper is promoted to desire, yet expected not to spend. In response to this dilemma women need to train themselves to find innovative ways to earn without disrupting the home or her femininity. The path these women need to take is paved by many editorials in ten-cent monthly magazines. The stories published in these magazines portray women who manage to earn the necessary capitol without entering the male business world or draining her husband's finances.

Examples from the inexpensive Ladies' World suggest women should start a business in which they alter existing tasks in a way that results in earning cash. It is important to note that these stories do not suggest earning through wages in the external business world. Ellen Gruber Garvey explains that these methods not only enable women to purchase their desired product, but this self-training also legitimizes consumption. These stories contain common motifs. Earning money is done so at the home.

Money is the only way to obtain the desired commodities. The woman's spending must not disrupt the home. Garvey states, "Each story points out that there are legitimate ways to seem to live beyond one's husband's income, legitimate ways to acquire more goods or more fashionable goods - and that many others have found such means". (Garvey, pg. 141) One of the reoccurring examples of women creating their own finances is the female writer. The magazines in the home encourage women to write, not as a form of artistic expression, but rather to engage in a more productive form of labor. This labor gives financial access to the products that magazine advertisements are encouraging them to buy.

Garvey explains: "Women's authorship here is strictly a money-making proposition - very much in line with the cash-raising schemes presented in other stories. Not only is [women's] writing said not to be artistic, but [its] moral effect doesn't come through her writing. Instead, it is channeled through her power as a consumer". (Garvey. pg 139) Women are not appreciated for their artistic value. Rather, they are reduced from artists and entrepreneurs to merely consumers.

This opposition to women as writers is partially due to the fact writing is thought to threaten personal happiness because it breaches a boundary between the social sphere of the home and the marketplace. (Garvey, pg. 147) The resistance to accept women within the business world is also evident when observing women as secretaries. When women do venture into the dominantly male business world, it is often to occupy the position of secretary. Like the piano and the sewing machine, the typewriter is a feminized product. The position of secretary demands the same cheerfulness that the Ladies' Home Journal explains is "as inseparable in the business of being a wife as yeast is in bread". (Garvey, pg. 144) This particular magazine, along with most instruction manuals on secretary etiquette, provides the expected social conduct of women.

The Journal speaks in a pleasant and familiar voice, much the same way a wife should act in the home and the secretary is expected to act in the workplace. In Women as Typewriters, Joli Jensen explains the mandatory seamless ness between self and machine. Any unnecessary motion is wasted motion. Both the machine and self are efficient, fast, and durable. Not only must the secretary's social conduct reflect the typewriter, her dress and appearance should also mirror the machine. The typist is a servant that provides convenience for her employer.

This occupation, which is considered to first open the doors of the business world to women and "assume advancement into other business roles, [only opens doors] onto newly created, enclosed rooms". (Jensen. CP. pg 307) This common female occupation does not reflect the modern creation of the "New Woman". The secretary, commonly the rural working class woman entering the urban realm, is more an example of the "woman adrift". The "woman adrift" is feminine in the workplace, just as she is in the home. Ohmann states that a woman is "new" if she disrupts old understandings of the feminine.

He further explains "ten-cent monthlies hailed their female readers as people actively engaged in the class project of modernity; as people knowledgeable about the public sphere; not as homebound angels guarding a haven from the heartless marketplace". (Ohmann, pg. 271) The "New Woman" is truly modern. Mass culture, along with the "New Woman", is inseparable from modernity. The introduction of a capitalist society promotes individuals of all social classes and demographics to engage in consumerism.

This encouragement to consume defines social norms. It is acceptable, as well as our right, to desire marketed commodities produced by unfamiliar professionals.

Bibliography

1. Garvey, Ellen Gruber. The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gender ing of Consumer Culture, 1880's to 1910's.
New York, Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1996 2.
Ohmann, Richard. Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century. London, New York. Verso, 1996 3.
Jensen, Jolie. "Women as Typewriters", Turn-of-the-Century Women 3 (Summer 1986) 4.
Leach, William. The Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York. Pantheon Books, 1993.