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HIST 360: Gender and Consumer Culture Since 1700 Report a Broken Link

Welcome to Women’s and Gender Studies 360: Gender and Consumer Culture Since 1700. In this course we investigate the emergence of modern consumer society in western Europe and North America. Gender is central to our explorations. Have men and women experienced consumer society differently? What are the relationships among femininity, masculinity, sexuality, and shopping? What have been the experiences of women in the beauty and fashion industries? How have consumers challenged the limits of capitalist commodity distribution? Why do many people living in western Europe, Canada, the United States, and several other countries now view consumption and citizenship as inextricably linked? Through this course’s readings, assignments, and final examination, we develop deep understandings of consumption’s gendered histories. We also develop advanced skills in critical thinking, scholarly writing, and historical research.

Required Readings

Unit 1

Introduction to This Course

Unit 2

Gendering Consumption in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Smith, Chloe. “‘Callico Madams’: Servants, Consumption, and the Calico Crisis.” Eighteenth-Century Life 31, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 29-55.
Higgins, Padhraig. “Consumption, Gender, and the Politics of ‘Free Trade’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 41, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 87-105.
Sussman, Charlotte. “Women and the Politics of Sugar, 1792.” Representations 48 (Fall 1994): 48-69.
Noel, Jan. “Defrocking Dad: Masculinity and Dress in Montreal, 1700-1867.” In Fashion: A Canadian Perspective, edited by Alexandra Palmer, 68-89. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Unit 3

The Rise of Mass Distribution, 1850s to 1930s
Belisle, Donica. “Rise of Mass Retail.” In Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada, 13-44. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

Scroll down to page 13 to start the reading.
Bates, Christina. “Shop and Factory: The Ontario Millinery Trade in Transition, 1870-1930.” In Fashion: A Canadian Perspective, edited by Alexandra Palmer, 113-138. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
Belisle, Donica. “Crazy for Bargains: Inventing the Irrational Female Shopper in Modernizing English Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 92, no. 4 (December 2011): 581-606.
McClintock, Anne. “Soft-Soaping Empire: Commodity Racism and Imperial Advertising.” In Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, 207-231. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Unit 4

Performing Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Class, 1870 to 1939
Enstad, Nan. “Cheap Dresses and Dime Novels: The First Commodities for Working Women.” In Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, 17-47. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Frank, Dana. “Girl Strikers Occupy Chain Store, Win Big: The Detroit Woolworth’s Strike of 1937.” In Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century, edited by Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin D. G. Kelley, 57-118. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.
Breazeale, Kenon. “In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer." Signs 20, no. 1 (Autumn 1994): 1-22.
Bengry, Justin. “Courting the Pink Pound: Men Only and the Queer Consumer, 1935-39." History Workshop Journal 68 (2009): 123-148.

Unit 5

Rise of the Gendered Consumer Citizenry, 1870 to 1945
Glickman, Lawrence. “Workers of the World, Consume: Ira Steward and the Origins of Labor Consumerism.” International Labor and Working-Class History 52 (Fall 1997): 72-86.
Glickman, Lawrence. “'Make Lisle the Style': The Politics of Fashion in the Japanese Silk Boycott, 1937-1940.” Journal of Social History 38, no. 3 (2005): 573-608.

Unit 6

Postwar Consumer Politics, 1946 to 1960s
Iacovetta, Franca. "Recipes for Democracy? Gender, Family, and Making Female Citizens in Cold War Canada." Canadian Woman Studies 20, no. 2 (2000): 12-21.
Pulju, Rebecca. “Consumers for the Nation: Women, Politics and Consumer Organization in France, 1944-1965.” Journal of Women’s History 18, no. 3 (2006): 68-90.
Kornbluh, Felicia. "To Fulfill Their ‘Rightly Needs’: Consumerism and the National Welfare Rights Movement." Radical History Review 69 (Fall 1997): 76-113.
Lair, Meredith H. “The Things They Bought: G.I. Consumerism in Vietnam.” In Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War, 145-181. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 2011.

Unit 7

Gender and Consumption Since the 1970s
Barry, Kathleen M. “‘Fly Me? Go Fly Yourself!’ Stewardess Liberation in the 1970s.” In Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants, 174-210. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Lan, Pei-Chia. “Working in a Neon Cage: Bodily Labor of Cosmetics Saleswomen in Taiwan.” Feminist Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 21-45.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners.” Gender & Society 22, no. 3 (June 2008): 281-302.
King, Samantha. “Pink Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer Activism and the Politics of Philanthropy.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 17, no. 4 (2004): 473-492.