consumer culture

Museum Celebrates Sweet Smell of... Failure

The Museum of Failure is a global traveling exhibition that celebrates the signal marketplace flops of capitalism, from the infamous Edsel and New Coke to the obscure, highlighting the vagaries of consumer taste and historical contingency. 

From Hot Yoga to Tae Bo: How American Fitness Trends Went Global

by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

The cultural disaffections of the affluent and emergent globalization made a host of exotic exercise trends big business in the 1970s and afterward. 

Clover Lawns Replacing Grass in Reversal of Suburban Historical Pattern

Clover lawns are trendy on social media. Historian Ted Steinberg says this is a reversal of a half century of industrial marketing and cultural values that have made the grass lawn a suburban goal. Environmentalists hope it continues. 

Primary Source: Winning World War 1 By Fighting Waste at the Grocery Counter

A trade catalog for a grocery counter that could store bulk goods like beans and eliminate superfluous packaging was pitched as a patriotic way to save materials for the war effort, and speaks to contemporary desires to cut down on packaging waste.

The Architecture of the Shopping Mall Shaped by Racism, Surveillance

The architects who envisioned early shopping malls as common spaces were overwhelmed by the imperatives of exclusion and surveillance in spaces made safe for mass consumption, argues architecture critic Alexandra Lange. 

Selling Hope

by Wendy A. Woloson

After a cancer diagnosis, the author still couldn't escape a world of consumerism that relentlessly commodifies even the worst experiences.

Jeans: The History of the People's Pants Coming to American Experience

Denim touches the history of American slavery, immigration, industrialization and counterculture. An upcoming "American Experience" feature tells the story. 

I'm Taking an Eco-Holiday From It All (and So Are My Kids)

by Frida Berrigan

Is there still value in stepping back from the wasteful cycle of individual consumerism when major corporations and the US military are putting astronomical levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? 

The Magnificent History of the Much-Maligned Fruitcake

by Jeffrey Miller

A quip attributed to former “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson has it that “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.”

He Bombed the Nazis, Outwitted the Soviets and Modernized Christmas

Si Spiegel's survival as a bomber pilot was a tough act to follow, but pioneering the artificial Christmas tree may have topped his martial exploits. 

Lizabeth Cohen: Why Americans Buy So Much Stuff

As holiday shopping overlaps with historic supply chain disruptions, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Lizabeth Cohen on the economy's reliance on spending and the culture of consumerism in the U.S.

Betty Crocker Turns 100: How Generations of Women Identified with the Fictional Cook

by Elizabeth A. Blake

Betty Crocker has always been a symbol of a feminine ideal; the ways that women interacted with the character are illustrative of changing social values and norms. 

The Customer is Always... Insufferable? The History of Today's Beleaguered Service Worker

Writer Amanda Mull checks with historians Susan Strasser and William Leach to explain why American diners, shoppers and passengers seem to be driven to torment servers, clerks and flight attendants. 

Ron Popeil, Inventor and Ubiquitous Infomercial Pitchman, Dies at 86

"Mr. Popeil’s mastery of television marketing, dating to the 1950s but spanning several decades, made him nearly as recognizable onscreen as the TV and movie stars of his era."

Neoliberalism with a Stick of Gum: The Meaning of the 1980s Baseball Card Boom

by Jason Tebbe

The baseball card craze of the late 1980s promised Gen X kids a repeat of the collectible windfall like the Boomers enjoyed with their surviving 1950s Topps cards. The reality proved quite different, giving a lens onto economic transformation. 

Christmas Dies Hard

The urban bourgeoisie of the 19th century pushed Christmas away from a drunken celebration of leisure and toward a holiday merging piety and consumerism. 

America’s Most Hated Garment

Atlantic writer Amanda Mull turns to fashion historians Marley Healy and Valerie Steele to place the growing social acceptance of sweatpants in a pattern of clothing standards changing in response to cultural influences and social conditions. 

The Long Golden Age of Useless, American Crap

by Wendy A. Woloson

Consuming habits encouraged by business and embraced by average Americans make crappy stuff part of the American way of life. While decrying waste, the author argues it's important to recognize that cheap goods allow Americans of modest means to participate in the national lifestyle. 

Looking Out For Each Other

by Leah Valtin-Erwin

The wrenching transitions that East Germans faced in adapting to western commercial culture after reunification offer lessons for the COVID crisis, and a warning that the burdens of managing social change and stress often fall on retail workers. 

Does it Really Matter if Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben get Retired?

Historian Rita Roberts explains how the iconography of black service workers reinforced white supremacist ideology on consumer packaging, while Jason Chambers and Gregory Smithers discuss the relationship of the business community to changing norms about racism.