Visit The Founders of Sears, Roebuck And Company.This is a student project produced at the American Culture Studies program at Bowling Green States University. Follow the links and get some sense of the importance of this merchandising giant in the 1890s. Imagine your alter ego's encounter with Sears. The pages is archived, so the links may not all work.
This class period we'll look at changes in American patterns of consumption, which include the creation of a new shopping environment, the Department Store, and a perfected merchandising tool made possible by improvements in mail delivery and in the railroads, the mail order catalog.
The new emphasis on spend, spend, spend, and have, have, have was not without its critics, both then and now. How much good that criticism did--we're still consuming.
A consuming culture is also an advertising culture. We have to be told what we "can't live without". The new advertising agencies were happy to tell us. You can peruse the materials hidden behind the pictures above, You might also enjoy perusing other advertising materials from the time. Duke Universityhas kindly provided you with many primary sources. Construct a wish list from them and add that to your journal. Be ready for "show and tell". Make a folder in your resources for convenience's sake.
Read, in Schlereth,
5. Communicating, pp. 177 - 207
6. Playing, pp. 208 - 241
We’ve mentioned the revolution in communications almost from the first class. Today we’ll zero in on it. We’ve talked about the telephone before, so I expect I will not spend much time on it now, though I’m still wavering about whether to show you a video about it. (I’ll probably make up my mind at the last minute.) Other forms of communication have been mentioned as well, like the post card. Greeting cards extend this idea and relate it to specific seasons of the year, chiefly Christmas and Valentine’s Day, but also to personal anniversaries, as well. We’ll think about those, and about changes in the way mail was delivered which bring the post office into modern ways, chiefly the RFD system (1896). We’ve already mentioned this a bit in conjunction with the salesmanship of Mr. Sears.
The earliest extant phonograph recordings date to 1888. That year, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Composer of the team of Gilbert and Sullivan who produced the ever popular operettas like Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, recorded his reactions to this new invention. " For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiment -- astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same, I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery." Both the recording and playback process were entirely mechanical, which accounts for the quality of the recordings. Click on the 1898 advertisement at the left and prowl around listening to some of the early recordings available through the National Park Service's Thomas Edison Site.
Stereoscope views were not new in the 1890s, but they became ever more popular as prices came down. Mr. Sears had something to do with this. The subjects were often slices of everyday life. Click on the image to the left to learn what they were and how they worked, and then browse a few of them in the small town life collection which is brought to us through the New York Public Library Collection series.
As is usually the case, early technologies are pretty crude affairs. Above, a baseball game is recorded in an experimental film in 1898. Click on the image to look at it. To see how much improved things became very quickly, watch the Providence Police strut their stuff for the cameras in 1903. How well it will show will depend partly on the speed of the connection I wonder if they were practicing for the Bristol Fourth of July Parade
It begins to sound like a broken record, but many of our popular recreational activities take their form in the 1890s, give or take a few years. Professional Baseball, for example, takes its modern form then, and the first World Series took place in 1903.
Leisure time is a function of efficient economic activity. If one has to spend every waking hour earning his/her daily bread, leisure is only an abstraction. We’ve seen it begin as a perquisite of the rich. (The Leisure Class, as Thorsten Veblen called them). But, through some of the processes we’ve investigated in the last couple of weeks (remember the combine thresher machines pulled by dozens of horses) humans didn’t have to work 24/7 to earn their daily bread.
'"American Vaudeville, more so than any other mass entertainment, grew out of the culture of incorporation that defined American life after the Civil War. The development of vaudeville marked the beginning of popular entertainment as big business, dependent on the organizational efforts of a growing number of white-collar workers and the increased leisure time, spending power, and changing tastes of an urban middle class audience." Click on the picture to enjoy some Vaudeville
Saloons were for "gentlemen only" The little boy at the back is ready to take someone a message. Click on the picture to reach a book for Saloonkeepers, find a poem or joke or story you like and add the URL to your resource folder. To read the Horatio Alger storyh about the messenger boy, similar to the one in the back at the picture above, click the image below
