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Consumer Culture in the Rural Midwest, 1865-1900

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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1996 Sowing the American Dream: Consumer Culture in the Rural Midwest, 1865-1900 David Blanke Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Blanke, David, "Sowing the American Dream: Consumer Culture in the Rural Midwest, 1865-1900" (1996). Dissertations. 3642. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3642 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1996 David Blanke LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO SOWING THE AMERICAN DREAM: CONSUMER CULTURE IN THE RURAL MIDDLE WEST, 1865-1900 VOLUME I (CHAPTERS 1 TO 6) A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY DAVID BLANKE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 1996 Copyright © by David Blanke, 1996 All rights reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge my gratitude for the guidance, support, and friendship provided by Harold Platt, Timothy Gilfoyle, and Susan Hirsch. Each afforded me a substantial amount of their time and expertise, and challenged me to expand an indistinct graduate research paper on mail-order catalogs into a more expansive and inclusive study of early consumer culture. I thank each of them for a debt that can never be fully repaid. I thank the Arthur J. Schmidt Foundation and the American Heritage Center, in Laramie, Wyoming for providing the funding needed to complete key sections of the dissertation. I am grateful for the assistance provided by the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Public Library, the John Crerar Library, the Illinois State Historical Library, the Indiana State Library, the Indianapolis Historical Society, Loyola university Chicago, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and the University of Illinois Library. I thank Gregory DeBenedictis for reading and commenting on several chapters, and his willingness to discuss consumerism at any time of the day or night. Finally, to my wife Janet for her constant encouragement, love, and support. This was not possible without you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES . vi DISSERTATION ABSTRACT . vii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION : SEEKING THE "LINE OF MAXIMUM HAPPINESS," MIDWESTERN FARMERS AND CONSUMER CULTURE IN THE GILDED AGE. 1 2. INDEPENDENT AGENTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DEMAND-DRIVEN CONSUMER ECONOMY, 1840 - 1861 . 48 3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MASS CONSUMER PATTERNS, 1840 - 1873 . 93 4. AN ALL CONSUMING VISION THE EXPRESSION OF RURAL CONSUMER IDEOLOGY, 1865 - 1875 151 5. URBAN CONSUMER AND ADVERTISING PATTERNS IN THE MIDWEST, 1865 - 1880 ... 201 6 . THE RENUNCIATION OF THE RURAL CONSUMER ETHOS BY THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY, 1875 - 1882 . 266 VOLUME II 7. THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE RURAL CONSUMER ETHOS, MONTGOMERY WARD AND SEARS ROEBUCK, 1873 - 1906 . 309 8. CONCLUSION 367 Appendix 1. QUANTITATIVE METHOD . 376 REFERENCE LIST . 384 VITA 428 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Schneider & Naas, Loans Extended, 1866-1872 137 2. Location of Advertiser Stated in Regional Newspapers, 1863-1878 ..... 223 3. Type of Advertiser Stated in Regional Newspapers, 1863-1878 ..... 224 4. Type of Consumer Targeted in Regional Newspapers, 1863-1878 ..... 225 5. Comparison of Advertiser Location and Consumer Targeted, Regional Newspapers, 1863-1878 227 6. Type of Advertisers in the Tribune, 1866-1874 231 7. Products Advertised in the Tribune, 1866-1874 232 8. Consumers Identified by Tribune Advertisers, 1866 - 1874 . 234 9. Type of Advertiser and Products Offered, 1866 - 1874 . 250 10. Type of Advertiser and Products Offered, 1866 - 1874 . 251 11. Products Offered and Targeted Consumer, 1866 - 1874 . 252 12. Products Offered and Targeted Consumer, 1866-1874 . .. 253 13. Comparative Sales Copy, ward's and Sears's Bicycles .... 342 v LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page 1. Jolly & Mayo Cash Book 124 2. Checkbook Balance, H. A. Griswold 129 3 . Peru House, Account Deficit 132 4. Schneider & Naas, Loans Extended 136 5. Advertiser Location Stated as Chicago 236 6. Advertiser Listed as Retailer 238 7. Advertiser Listed as Agent 240 8. Advertiser Listed as Manufacturer 241 9. Retail Goods in Tribune Ads .... 242 10. Incidence of Other Goods in Tribune Ads 243 11. Manufactured Goods in Tribune Ads 244 12. General Consumers Identified in Tribune Ads 246 13. Other Consumers Identified in Tribune Ads 248 vi DISSERTATION ABSTRACT The modern consumer culture is so pervasive in society today that we often lose sight of the important connections that are established and reinforced through purchasing decisions. The products we consume offer visual guides that place us either within or beyond the realm of artificial and often mercurial communities. Whether consciously or by habit, Americans have come to rely on consumption as one of the most prevalent and manifest means by which to express popular political and social sentiments. The historical profession has attempted to address the origins of this powerful cultural influence. Yet the canon of consumer history has focused only on the most direct expressions of this phenomenon. For this reason much of the historiography is dominated by works on urban, working-class consumers after 1920. This study is an effort to find the roots of the modern consumer culture. The dissertation focuses on rural consumers of the American Midwest from 1865 to 1900. The "rural consumer ethos" of these farmers provides a unifying concept that highlights the significant changes that took place during this era. This mentalite was formed from the common experiences and mores of the region's commercial vii agronomists and was based on four loosely connected principles: a demand-driven consumer economy, a commitment to communal economic equality, an effort to apply rationalized efficiency to meet consumer demand, an endeavor to apply standards of fairness and honesty that was part of most Midwesterners' Protestant heritage. These elements were extremely contentious and often self-destructive. In the long run, these inconsistencies made it easier for new and established suppliers to maintain or augment their advantage in the face of organized agrarian opposition. The prolonged struggle by Midwestern farmers to use their unique cultural and economic cohesion to stave off the splintering effects of consumerism offers contemporary readers a glimpse at the social costs of rampant materialism. Without an honest accounting of these rural ventures, our understanding of the development of America's consumer culture remains incomplete. viii INTRODUCTION: SEEKING THE "LINE OF MAXIMUM HAPPINESS," MIDWESTERN FARMERS AND CONSUMER CULTURE IN THE GILDED AGE. By the close of the nineteenth century the American economy had undergone a fundamental change. Driven by an intensified rate of large-scale industrialization, new mass­ production technologies, the proliferation of decentralized management professionals, and a general increase in discretionary income, the retail economy emerged as the primary engine of economic growth in the United States. This budding mass market was reflected not only in the rapid rise of heretofore unorthodox merchandising techniques, such as the department store and the mail-order catalog, but also in the appearance of a unique consumer culture. The cornucopia of new goods exhilarated many Americans and created a perception of unlimited material abundance that is still with us today. 1 The renowned economist John Bates Clark was one of the earliest to comment on these profound changes. Clark earned his academic credentials while studying at Brown, Amherst, Heidelberg, Germany, and Columbia, and authored some of the most influential economic tracts of his generation. Born in 1847, Clark first appreciated the burgeoning retail culture as a young man selling agricultural machinery to local 2 commercial farmers. Clark's theories of the late nineteenth century posited that the recent economic changes engendered new moral and social behavior. According to Clark, these modern belief systems contradicted the central assumptions of Classical economics, showing the traditional school to be outdated and overly deterministic. His works demonstrated that Adam Smith and David Ricardo relied too heavily upon independent self-interest and unfettered competition, neglecting the hegemonic aspects of human behavior such as religion, status, and community as corrective forces in the market economy. 2 As a utilitarian revisionist, Clark infused the reigning dogma with a beneficial appreciation for the organic nature of society. He believed that the singular attention paid to fiscal accounting by the dismal science overlooked the important social and moral regulation demanded by an ordered community. The quixotic nature of the consumer economy offered Clark provocative evidence for this conclusion. For example, his famed Marginal Utility Theory of Value advocated that the relative worth of a product was determined less from supply or demand and more by the shifting appreciation that society bestowed upon that good. Clark held that this social evaluation was much more than illogical mood swings quickly
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