Consuming Behaviours Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Britain

In twentieth-century Britain, consumerism increasingly defined and redefined individual and social identities. New types of consumers emerged: the idealized working-class consumer, the African consumer and the teenager challenged the prominent position of the middle and upper-class female shopper. Linking politics and pleasure, Consuming Behaviours explores how individual consumers and groups reacted to changes in marketing, government control, popular leisure and the availability of consumer goods.

From football to male fashion, tea to savings banks, leading scholars consider a wide range of products, ideas and services and how these were marketed to the British public through periods of imperial decline, economic instability, war, austerity and prosperity. The development of mass consumer society in Britain is examined in relation to the growing cultural hegemony and economic power of the United States, offering comparisons between British consumption patterns and those of other nations.

Bridging the divide between historical and cultural studies approaches, Consuming Behaviours discusses what makes British consumer culture distinctive, while acknowledging how these consumer identities are inextricably a product of both Britain's domestic history and its relationship with its Empire, with Europe and with the United States.

Erika D. Rappaport is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

Sandra Trudgen Dawson is an Instructor of History and Women's Studies at Northern Illinois University,USA.

Mark J. Crowley is an Associate Professor in the School of History, Wuhan University, China.

1. Introduction: Consuming Behaviours: Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Britain
Erika D. Rappaport, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; Sandra Trudgen Dawson, Northern Illinois University, USA; Mark J. Crowley, Wuhan University, China

Part I: Gender, Sexuality and Youth: Cultivating and Managing New Consumers

2. Who is the Queer Consumer? Historical Perspectives on Capitalism and Homosexuality
Justin Bengry, McGill University, Canada
3. 'Healthier and Better Clothes for Men': Men's Dress Reform in Interwar Britain
Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, University of Illinois, USA
4. Selling, Consuming and Becoming the Beautiful Man in Britain: The 1930s and 1940s
Paul Deslandes, University of Vermont, USA
5. Rational Recreation in the Age of Affluence: The Café and Working-Class Youth in London, c.1939-1965
Kate Bradley, University of Kent, UK
6. Teenagers, Photography and Self-fashioning: 1956-1965
Penny Tinkler, University of Manchester, UK
7. Unwanted Consumers: Violence and Consumption in British Football in the 1970s
Brett Bebber, Old Dominion University, USA

Part II: In and Beyond the Nation: The Local and the Global in the Production of Consumer Cultures

8. Consumer Communication as Commodity: British Advertising Agencies and the Global Market for Advertising 1780-1980
Stefan Schwarzkopf, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
9. Drink Empire Tea: Conservative Politics and Imperial Consumerism in Interwar Britain
Erika D. Rappaport, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
10. Female Credit Customers, the United Africa Company, and Consumer Markets in Colonial Ghana, Bianca Murillo, Willamette University, USA
11. Designing Consumer Society: Citizens and Housing Plans during the Second World War, Sandra Trudgen Dawson, Northern Illinois University, USA
12. 'Saving for the Nation:' The Post Office and National Consumerism: c.1860-1945
Mark J. Crowley, Wuhan University, China
13. Prosperity for All? Britain and Mass Consumption in Western Europe after the Second World War
Kenneth Mouré, University of Alberta, Canada
14. A House Divided: The Organized Consumer and the British Labour Party, 1945-60
Peter Gurney, University of Essex, UK
15. Early British Television: The Allure and Threat of America
Kelly Boyd, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK

Bibliography
Index