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Time, Money, and Labor History's Encounter with Consumer Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Gary Cross
Gary Cross
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
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Type
Scholarly Controversy
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 43 , Spring 1993 , pp. 2 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1993

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References

Notes

1. Denning, Michael, “The End of Mass Culture,” International Labor and Working-Class History 37 (Spring 1990):5–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar and responses: Le Mouvement social 152 (1990)Google Scholar, devoted to popular culture: and History and Culture 7 (Summer 1990)Google Scholar. focusing on approaches to the history of consumerism. See also Brantlinger, Patrick. Crusoe's Footprint: Culture Studies in Britain and America (London, 1990)Google Scholar.

2. See, for example, Mouffe, Chantal, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence (Urbana, 1988), 91–93Google Scholar; and Harvey, David, The Condition of Postmodernity (London, 1989).Google Scholar chaps. 8 and 9.

3. Of course, labor historians and sociologists have long pointed out that the deskilling process did not always produce a simple trade-off of skill and autonomy at work for time and money off the job: and sociologists of workers' culture do not discover a simple process of “embourgeoisement” with the emergence of a Fordist economy. Mass production and the high wages available to a section of the industrial working class have not effaced social, ethnic, or regional difference or produced a homogeneous middle-class (or mass) culture. See, for example, Burawoy, Michael, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago, 1979)Google Scholar; Zeitlin, Jonathan and Tolliday, Steven, The Automobile Industry and Its Workers: Between Fordism and Flexibility (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Lewchuk, Wayne, American Technology and the British Vehicle Industry (Cambridge, U.K., 1987)Google Scholar; Gans, Herbert. Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; and Goldthorpe, J. et al. The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (Cambridge. Mass., 1969), chap. 4Google Scholar.

4. Good brief critical histories of this literature are in John Clarke, “Pessimism versus Populism: The Problematic Politics of Popular Culture.” and Butsch, Richard, “Leisure and Hegemony in America,” both in For Fun and Profit: The Transformation of Leisure into Consumption, ed. Butsch, Richard (Philadelphia, 1990), 28–46, 3–27Google Scholar; Critcher, Chas and Clarke, John, The Devil Makes Work: Leisure in Capitalist Britain (Urbana, 1985), esp. chap. 6Google Scholar; Bennett, Tony, “The Politics of ‘the Popular’ and Popular Culture,” in Popular Culture and Social Relations, ed. Bennett, Tony, Martin, G., Mercer, Colin, and Woollacott, Janet (Milton Keynes. 1986), 6–20Google Scholar; Denning, , “End of Mass Culture”; and Debouzy, M., “De la production à la réception de la culture,” Le Mouvement social 152 (1990):33–45Google Scholar.

5. Examples are Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Cunningham, Hugh. Leisure and the Industrial Revolution (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Rosenzweig, Roy, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City 1870–1920 (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; and Stuart Hall, “Popular Culture and the State,” in Bennett et al., Popular Culture.

6. Jones, G. Stedman, Languages of Class (London, 1983), 86–87Google Scholar; Johnson, Richard, “Culture and the Historians,” in Working-Class Culture; Studies in History and Theory, ed. Clarke, John, Critcher, Chas, and Johnson, Richard (New York, 1979), 75–102Google Scholar.

7. Edwards, Richard, Contested Terrain (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Bennett, “Politics of ‘the Popular,’” 19: and Denning, “End of Mass Culture.” 14. See LeMahieu, D. L., A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain Between the Wars (London, 1988). 14–16 nn. 24–27Google Scholar. for a good bibliography and critical assessment of the concept of hegemony in Britain.

8. Douglas, Mary and Isherwood, Baron, The World of Goods (New York, 1979), 59–84Google Scholar.

9. Campbell, Colin, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (London, 1989), chap. 1Google Scholar; Mukerji, Chandra, From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern Materialism (New York, 1983), 2–27Google Scholar; and Sahlins, Marshall, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago, 1978), chap. 5Google Scholar. See also, Appadurai, Arjun. ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, U.K., 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Poujol, G. and Labourie, R., eds., Les Cultures populaires (Toulouse, 1979)Google Scholar; and Yonnet, P., Jeux, modes et masses (Paris, 1985)Google Scholar.

10. Miller, Daniel, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (Oxford, 1987), 10–11Google Scholar.

11. See, for example, Leavis, F. R. and Denys, Thompson, Culture and Environment: The Training of Critical Awareness (London, 1933)Google Scholar; and Lynd, Robert, Knowledge for What? (Princeton, 1939)Google Scholar. A fascinating account of Lynd's ideology is Fox, Richard W.. “Epitaph for Middletown: Robert S. Lynd and the Analysis of Consumer Culture,” in The Culture of Consumption, ed. Fox, R. W. and Lears, T. J. Jackson (New York, 1983). 103–41Google Scholar.

12. Johnson, “Culture and the Historians;” Harrison, Royden, “Popular Culture as a Third Culture: The Debate in England Since 1945,” in Working Class and Popular Culture, ed. Heerma, LexVoss, van and van Holthoon, Frits (Amsterdam, 1988), 33–42Google Scholar. Good Anglo-American interpretations include Horowitz, Daniel, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward Consumer Society in America, 1875–1940 (Baltimore, 1985)Google Scholar; LeMahieu, , Culture for Democracy: Andrew Ross, No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture (London, 1989)Google Scholar; and Fox, and Lears, . Culture of Consumption Consider also my Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture (London, 1993), chaps. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

13. Richards, Thomas, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914 (Stanford, 1990), 58–70, 168–204Google Scholar; Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Williams, Raymond, “Advertising the Magic System.” Problems in Materialism and Culture (London, 1980)Google Scholar; and Baudrillard, Jean, Pour un critique de l'économie politique du signe (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar or Mirror of Production (St. Louis, 1975)Google Scholar.

14. These alternatives appeared in the debate on the character of the French unions before the war. See Stearns, Peter, Revolutionart Syndicalism and French Labor (New Brunswick, 1971)Google Scholar; and Moss, Bernard, The Origins of the French Labor Movement, 1830–1914 (Berkeley, 1976)Google Scholar. A solid exception is Chapman, Herrick. State Capitalism and Working-Class Radicalism in the French Aircraft Industry (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar. Similar issues underlie Kimeldorf's, Howard “Bring Unions Back (Or Why We Need a New Old Labor History).” and responses to it in Labor History 32 (Winter 1991 ):9–27Google Scholar, and the debates around Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Davis, Mike, Prisoniers of the American Dream (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

15. Lizabeth Cohen's study of workers in Chicago explains changing patterns of work and relates them to the transformation of leisure and consumption. She also effectively links rank-and-file and community life to national economic and political issues Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, chaps. 3.8. Furlough, Ellen, Consumer Cooperation in France: The Politics of Consumption, 1834–1930 (Ithaca, 1991)Google Scholar is a good example of how working-class movements were linked to consumer interests.

16. Hobsbawm, Eric, Laboring Men (New York, 1964), 371–86Google Scholar; and Thompson, Edward P.. “Time. Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism.” Past and Present 38 (1967):56–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Samuel, Nicole. Le Temps libré Un Temps social (Paris, 1984), 9–10Google Scholar; and Cross, Gary, ed., Worktime and Industrialization: An International History (Philadelphia, 1988)Google Scholar, chaps. 1–5.

17. Basic sources include Cott, Nancy, The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, 1977), 57–64Google Scholar; Tilly, Louise and Scott, Joan, Women, Work, and Family (New York, 1977)Google Scholar. chaps. 2–3: and Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” 56–59Google Scholar.

18. Marx, Karl, The Grundrisse (London, 1973), 706Google Scholar; and Thompson. “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” 86.

19. The classic expression of this idea is in Lafargue, Paul. The Right to Be Lazy (New York, 1910: originally 1880)Google Scholar. Hantrais, L., Clark, P. A., and Samuel, N., “Time Space Dimensions of Work. Family and Leisure in France and Great Britain.” Leisure Studies 3 (1984):301–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. For American sources, see Roediger, David and Foner, Philip, Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (Westport, 1987)Google Scholar. For Britain and France, see Cross, Gary, A Quest, for Time: The Reduction of Work in Britain and France, 1840–1940 (Berkeley, 1989)Google Scholar, chap. 6.

21. For the difficulties of realizing this transformation, see, for example, Strasser, Susan, Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Cohen, Ruth Schwartz, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; and Martin, Martine, “Ménagère: une profession? Les dilemmes de l'entre-deux-geurres,” Le Mouvement social 140 (July–September 1987):89–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Reddy, William, Money and Liberty in Modern Europe:A Critique of Historical Understanding (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. chap. 3.

23. See especially Owen, John, The Price of Leisure: An Economic Analysis of the Demand for Leisure Time (Rotterdam, 1969)Google Scholar. chaps. 1 and 2; and Cross, Time and Money, chap. 2.

24. See, for example, Berman, Marshall, All That Is Solid Melts into Air (London, 1982)Google Scholar.

25. Lenoir, R., Information ouvrière, 1 September, 1918Google Scholar; and Dubreuil, H., Nouveaux Standards (Paris, 1931). 213Google Scholar.

26. Reddy, Money and Liberty, chap. 3, 200.

27. Jean-Christophe Agnew, “The Consuming Vision of Henry James,” in Fox and Lears, Culture of Consumption, 73.

28. Recent studies on the history of working-class hobbies in McKibbin, Ross. The Ideologies of Class: Social Relations in Britain, 1880–1950 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar, and the work in progress of Steven Gelber are particularly intriguing regarding individualist uses of goods in free time

29. Hunnicutt, Benjamin, Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (Philadelphia, 1988)Google Scholar, chaps. 2–4; and Cross, Time and Money, chaps. 2 and 4.

30. Springborg, Patricia, The Problem of Human Needs and the Critique of Civilization (London, 1981). 37Google Scholar, 38. 46–50, chap. 5; Xenos, Nicholas, Scarcity and Modernity (London, 1989). 3–22Google Scholar; and Ignatieff, Michael, The Need of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity, and the Politics of Being Human (New York. 1985)Google Scholar, chaps. 3 and 4.

31. For a full discussion for Britain and France, see Cross, Quest for Time, chap. 8. A similar analysis on the United States in the same period is in Roediger and Foner, Our Own Time, 213–31; and Perlman, Selig and Taft, Philip, History of Labor in the United States, vol. 4, ed. Commons, John R. (New York, 1935), 435–88Google Scholar.

32. For impressive surveys of the intellectual complexity of these movements, see Rabinbach, Anson, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; and Nyland, Chris, Reduced Worktime and the Management of Production (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. For a full analysis of the American 30-hour movement, see Hunnicutt, Work Without End, chaps. 3 and 5. I analyze the European 40-hour movements in Time and Money, chap. 4.

34. Cohen, Making a New Deal, 101–4, shows the limits of working-class consumerism even in Chicago in the 1920Google Scholar.

35. Bums, C. Delise, Leisure in the Modern World (London, 1932), 3, 17–21Google Scholar, 63, 72, 77, 83, 91, 234, 235; Russell, Bertrand, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (London, 1935), 28–29Google Scholar; and Walker, Louis, Distributed Leisure (New York, 1932), 34, 222Google Scholar, 227, 240–41. See also, Hammond, John, The Growth of the Common Enjoyment (London, 1933)Google Scholar.

36. De Grazia, Victoria, “La politique sociale du loiser: 1900–1940,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale 15–17 (1985):24–35Google Scholar.

37. See, for example, Jones, Steven, Workers at Play: A Social and Economic History of Leisure, 1919–1939 (London, 1986)Google Scholar, chaps. 4–6: Jackson, Julian, Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934–38 (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 4; Richez, Claude and Strauss, Léon, “Génealogie des vacances ouvrières,” Le Mouvement social 150 (January–March 1990):3–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cross, Time and Money, chap. 5Google Scholar.

38. Important sources include Robbins, Lionel, “On the Elasticity of Incomes in Terms of Effort.” Economicia 10 (June 1930):123–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foster, William and Catchings, Waddell, The Road to Plenty (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; and Austin, Bertram and Lloyd, W. R., The Secret of High Wages (London, 1926)Google Scholar.

39. Bernstein, Irving, The Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker and the Great Depression (Boston, 1985), 126–31, 142Google Scholar.

40. See Jones, Stephen, “Trade Unions Movement and Work-Sharing Policies in Interwar Britain,” Industrial Relations Journal 16 (Winter 1985):57–69Google Scholar.

41. Leven, Maurice, Moulton, Harold, and Warburton, Clark. America's Capacity to Consume (Washington, D.C., 1934), 127–33Google Scholar; and Moulton, Harold and Leven, Maurice, The Thirty-Hour Week (Washington, D.C., 1935)Google Scholar. See also Clark, Colin, Conditions of Economic Progress (London, 1940), 6–7, 438, 446Google Scholar.

42. Some sources include Brantlinger, Patrick, Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay (New York, 1983)Google Scholar, chaps. 1–2 and 15; Pells, Richard, Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years (New York, 1973), chap. 5Google Scholar; LeMahieu, Daniel, Culture of Democracy (Oxford, 1989), 304–17Google Scholar; and Cross, Time and Money, chap. 3Google Scholar.

43. Some of the relevant sociological literature includes Jahoda, Maria, Lazersfeld, Paul, and Zeisel, Hans, Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community (1931: reprint. Chicago, 1971)Google Scholar; Beales, Hugh and Lambert, R. S., Memoirs of the Unemployed (London, 1934)Google Scholar; Bakke, E. Wight, The Unemployed Man (London, 1933)Google Scholar; idem.Citizens Without Work: A Study of the Effects of Unemployment upon the Workers' Social Relations and Practices (New Haven, 1940)Google Scholar; Trust, Carnegie U. K., Disinherited Youth: A Survey, 1936–1939 (Edinburgh, 1943)Google Scholar; and Komarowski, Mirra, The Unemployed Man and His Family (New York, 1940)Google Scholar. For a critical analysis of this perspective, see McKibbin. Ideologies of Class.

44. The English novel by Greenwood, Walter. Love on the Dole (1933; reprint. Harmondsworth, 1987)Google Scholar is brilliant on this theme. See also an American analysis, Wandersee, Winifred, Women's Work and Family Values, 1920–1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Douglas and Isherwood, World of Goods, 90–91Google Scholar.

45. The (English) Mass Observers capture this in my edition of Worktowners at Blackpool: Mass-Observation and Popular Leisure in the 1930s (London, 1990)Google Scholar, chaps. 2–4.

46. Duboin, Jacques, La Grande relève des hommes par la machine (Paris, 1933), 341–54Google Scholar; Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (New York, 1934)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 8; and Halbwachs, Maurice, L'Evolution des besoins dans les classes ouvrières (Paris, 1933), 107–110Google Scholar, 136–39, 145–46.