******
Without the following changes taking place in England, Scotland and Wales, ; the "Consumer Society" would have had a still birth:
1) Paper - An inexpensive, durable, widely available paper from flax (linen), cotton and in some areas, the vine of the hop plant. A complete listing of period fibers is to be found in "Chamber's Encyclopedia" - some really weird stuff. (By the way, "stuff" was the term used to designate pulp as it was reduced to size.) Rags to make paper were in great demand as the printed word increased. Paper made in the United States was markedly inferior to that made in England. As testimony to the quality of the paper, many books now two hundred years old are of equal or better quality to that made from wood pulp of the last fifty years. No longer was it necessary to print or letter on parchment and vellum (animal skins). The first British patent for papermaking was issued to Charles Hildeyerd in 1665. During the period, paper making was still one sheet at a time.
2) Paying readership - The practice of the "gentry" expecting tradesmen to carry their debts would have greatly inhibited the spread of the printed word. As example, Pepys, collected books but they were for his on private library, apparently not even open to his family and most intimate friends and like others he was slow to pay. Presentation (binding) was as much a consideration of value as the contents during Pepys' time.
3) Talented writers - No country had such a wealth of writers as England, Scotland and Wales. Their prose and poetry would have survived and spread at any rate, but was hastened by the advent of Consumer Society.
4) The entrpreneurial spirit of small shop owners dealing in their own right as the result of a mass migration of the people to the cities.
5) Good agricultural conditions that made food plentiful and cheap. This freed farmers from the field and as food was cheap, money otherwise spent on food was now available for other consumer goods, not the least of which was the printed word.
6) Relaxation of social customs - Coffee shops and pubs became a place to meet and exchange pleasantries and ideas.
7) End of the Reformation - Religion became more personal and bigotry and religious persecution were squelched.
8) The alphabet - As pointed out by J. H. Plumb, in Birth of a Consumer Society, the simple alphabet of 26 letters made it possible to print an understandable page. While the Chinese invention of the printing press, predated the invention in England, there was no way that the general population of China could come to understand that which required knowledge of over 3000 characters. Additionally, countries of Europe and the southern nations were hindered by their many dialects and languages. Hebrew and Arabic suffered from much the same problem as the Chinese.
9) Simple words and meanings - Thoughts and feelings could be expressed easily, though often the words having multiple meanings and spellings complicated matters. Use of the letter f for s is a good example.
10) The printing press - No longer were scribes to laboriously salve over an individual page. On the other hand, books printed for which there was no market were savaged to yield the paper which was used to wrap merchandise or were recycled into pulp.
11) Plagiarism - Copying others work and giving no credit became widespread. Copyright laws were unknown.
12) Publishing spurious editions - Cervantes suffered from this in 1507 (although an argument can be made that he actually was the author of Avellenada's Don Quixote.) Several spurious editions of Samuel Butler's, Hudibras appeared.
13) Translations - No longer was it necessary to know Latin or Greek. Translations became widely available, as example, L'Estrange's Aesop's Fables.
14) Peacetime - England passed through a period of time when warring was not the passion of the Generals.
15) Health - Pestilence and disease were abated as the population ate better, had better clothing and housing and sanitation improved. Without this, the Coffee houses and Pubs could not have flourished.
16) Self publishing - Many of the books that have particular interest today were published at the authors expense or by soliciting funds from friends and family. A popular method was by subscription - ensuring there would be money to pay the printer when the book was printed. In many cases the printer destroyed the work when it was not paid for!
17) Advertising - Perhaps the most important, introduction of advertised products opens the eyes of the public to a variety of goods unknown in a short time before.
Two more items should be added to the list:
18) Active competition between producers and products. While some products gained a major market share, the free wheeling competition prevented the development of mega-marketers like the oil and railroad monopolies of the early 1900's and the Microsoft and Walmart dominance of today's markets. Microsoft controls 95% of much of the market in which they compete(?) And Walmart is as large as all the rest of its competitors combined.
19) Freedom from Government control. Interesting that with the dominance of government in everyday life, Microsoft and Walmart have been permitted to destroy their competition by unfair business practices. Now they have gained the status of being too big to be permitted to fail. ***
Advertising products and references:
Note: Dates shown are when the references were published, not when the individuals practiced their art.
Packwood's Strop and salve, Packwood's Whims, George Packwood,
Warren's Blacking (Warreniana, W. F. Deacon, Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston. 1851.
Huggins (American), Huggins' Fantasy, John Richard Desborus Huggins, 1808.
Fessenden (American) Terrible Tractoration, Thomas Green Fessenden, 1707
Strachen (English) Parodies of the Romantic Age, John Strachen,
McKendrick, et.al., (English) The Birth of a Consumer Society
***** *The Birth of a Consumer Society, Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, J. H. Plumb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN 1985. ****
Joe Wortham's Home Page , About Joe Wortham , Directory
Questions? Comments? [email protected]