Marianne in the market : envisioning consumer society in fin-de-siecle France / Lisa Tiersten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tiersten, Lisa, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women consumers--France--History--19th century.

Women consumers.

Consumption (Economics)--France--History--19th century.

Consumption (Economics).

Middle class--France--History--19th century.

Middle class.

Aesthetics, Modern--19th century.

Aesthetics, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (337 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the late nineteenth century, controversy over the social ramifications of the emerging consumer marketplace beset the industrialized nations of the West. In France, various commentators expressed concern that rampant commercialization threatened the republican ideal of civic-mindedness as well as the French reputation for good taste. The female bourgeois consumer was a particularly charged figure because she represented consumption run amok. Critics feared that the marketplace compromised her morality and aesthetic discernment, with dire repercussions for domestic life and public order. Marianne in the Market traces debates about the woman consumer to examine the complex encounter between the market and the republic in nineteenth-century France. It explores how agents of capitalism-advertisers, department store managers, fashion journalists, self-styled taste experts-addressed fears of consumerism through the forging of an aesthetics of the marketplace: a "marketplace modernism." In so doing, they constructed an image of the bourgeois woman as the solution to the problem of unrestrained, individualized, and irrational consumption. Commercial professionals used taste to civilize the market and to produce consumers who would preserve the French aesthetic patrimony. Tasteful consumption legitimized women's presence in the urban public and reconciled their roles as consumers with their domestic and civic responsibilities. A fascinating case study, Marianne in the Market builds on a wide range of sources such as the feminine press, decorating handbooks, exposition reports, advertising materials, novels, and etiquette books. Lisa Tiersten draws on these materials to make the compelling argument that market professionals used the allure of aesthetically informed consumerism to promote new models of the female consumer and the market in keeping with Republican ideals.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Marianne in the Department Store: Commercial Paris and the Civic Vision of the Republic

2. "The Mercantile Spirit of Our Epoch": The Aesthetic Crisis of the Republic

3. Being Bourgeois: The Rise of Aesthetic Individuality

4. Marketplace Modernism: Reinventing the Chic Parisienne

5. The Chic Interior: Marketplace Modernism in the Bourgeois Home

6. Consumer Citizenship and the Republicanization of the Market

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-310) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612356353

9781282356351

1282356356

9780520925656

0520925653

9781597347358

1597347353

OCLC:

475930484