Menu
Idea

consumer culture

319
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 151–180 of 319 results. Go to first page

If You Think Quarantine Life Is Weird Today, Try Living It in 1918

From atomizer crazes to stranded actor troupes to school by phone, daily life during the flu pandemic was a trip.
by Michael Waters via Slate on April 17, 2020

The History of the Hawaiian Shirt

From kitsch to cool, ride the waves of undulating popularity of a tropical fashion statement.
by Teddy Brokaw via Smithsonian Magazine on April 16, 2020

“Victory Gardens” Are Back in Vogue. But What Are We Fighting This Time?

“Growing your own vegetables is great; beating Nazis is great. I think we’re all nostalgic for a time when anything was that simple.”
by Anastasia Day, Rebecca Onion via Slate on April 11, 2020

When Restaurants Close, Americans Lose Much More Than a Meal

Restaurants have always been about more than feeding city residents. During the 1918 flu pandemic, they were kept open as sites of social solidarity.
by Rebecca L. Spang via The Conversation on March 20, 2020
partner

How Training Bras Constructed American Girlhood

In the twentieth century, advertisements for a new type of garment for preteen girls sought to define the femininity they sold.
by Christine Ro via JSTOR Daily on March 18, 2020

An Oral History of the Members Only Jacket

On the fixture of white yuppiedom and icon of post-ironic millennial hipsterdom.
by Andrew Fiouzi via MEL on March 7, 2020
Picket line march of auto workers.

Detroit Autoworkers’ Elusive Postwar Boom

The men who made the cars could not afford to buy them.
by Daniel Clark via The Metropole on January 30, 2020

‘Impeachment Polka’: How a Composer in 1868 Sought to Capitalize on America’s Political Obsession

A pianist performs a piece of music forgotten for 150 years.
by Philip Bump via Washington Post on January 16, 2020

When the Government Decided the Spread on Your Toast Should Be Pink

The ‘margarine wars’ explain the 19th-century struggle to regulate food.
by Ai Hisano via Zócalo Public Square on January 15, 2020
Cartoon of people at a crossroad, with one direction pointing to "prosperity" and the other to "depression"

Selling Keynesianism

Today, we can learn a lot from the popularizing efforts that led to that consensus that Keynesianism leads to and long-lasting economic success.
by Robert Manduca via Boston Review on December 6, 2019
Red calamanco wedding buckle shoes, circa 1765.

The Woolen Shoes That Made Revolutionary-Era Women Feel Patriotic

Calamanco footwear was sturdy, egalitarian, and made in the U.S.A.
by Kimberly S. Alexander via What It Means to Be American on November 7, 2019
partner

Thanksgiving Has Been Reinvented Many Times

From colonial times to the nineteenth century, Thanksgiving was very different from the holiday we know now.
by Elizabeth Pleck, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on November 1, 2019

Pornotopia

In the mid-20th century, Playboy wasn't just an erotic magazine. It was an architectural movement as well.
by Paul B. Preciado via Public Books on October 11, 2019

How War Made the Cigarette

A new book explores the tangled politics behind a global addiction.
by Scott W. Stern via The New Republic on September 25, 2019

The Misconception About Baby Boomers and the Sixties

Other than being alive during the 1960s, the baby boomers had almost nothing to do with the era's social and political upheaval.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 18, 2019

The Boycott’s Abolitionist Roots

How a group of 19th-century Quakers cut their economic ties to slavery.
by Willy Blackmore via The Nation on August 14, 2019

A Brief History of Seltzer Booms in America

For over 100 years, the bubbly beverage has gone in and out of vogue as a wellness tonic.
by Maya Kroth via Medium on August 12, 2019

The Price of Meat

America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.
by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on May 7, 2019

How 'Good Design' Failed Us

What's the role of functionality in design?
by Nikil Saval via The New Yorker on April 3, 2019

Uniforming the Nation

Standard clothing sizes don’t exist.
by Jordana Rosenfeld via Popula on April 3, 2019
Cigar ad from ca. 1879, in which exhaled smoke spells out "try one."

Shaman's Revenge?

The birth, death and afterlife of our romance with tobacco.
by Mike Jay via mikejay.net on January 1, 2019

Did the Golden Age of Department Stores Bring Us Together?

What is now an object of nostalgia was once a symbol of soulless corporate creep.
by Stephen Eide via The American Conservative on December 21, 2018
Finely decorated women's restroom lounge

The Glamorous, Sexist History of the Women’s Restroom Lounge

Separate areas with sofas, vanities, and even writing tables used to put the “rest” in women’s restrooms. Why were these spaces built, and why did they vanish?
by Elizabeth Yuko via CityLab on December 3, 2018

How A Corporation Convinced American Jews To Reach For Crisco

A Proctor & Gamble ad-man on the Lower East Side recognized a big marketing opportunity when he saw one.
by Deena Prichep via NPR on December 2, 2018
Trix cereal logo with bunny mascot

The White Rabbit and His Colorful Tricks

Breakfast cereal, dietary purity, and race.
by Catherine Keyser via Cabinet on November 16, 2018

The Most Dangerous Job: The Murder of America's First Bird Warden

His job was to protect the birds. But nobody was there to protect him.
by Lucas Reilly via Mental Floss on October 30, 2018
Poster for Barnum and Bailey circus.

The American Circus in All Its Glory

A new documentary tells the history of the big top.
by Joseph Bottum, Justin L. Blessinger via Humanities on October 19, 2018

The Archivists of Extinction

Architectural history in an era of capitalist ruin.
by Kate Wagner via The Baffler on October 19, 2018

Sears’s ‘Radical’ Past

How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.
by Antonia Noori Farzan via Washington Post on October 16, 2018

How Tea Helped Women Sell Suffrage

Private-labeled teas helped fund success during the suffragist movement. Today’s activists might learn from their model.
by Janelle Peters via The Atlantic on September 30, 2018
View More
30 of
319

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History