Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Wednesday 12 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
A-2 MAT10 Consumer Preferences and Practices
SEB salen (Z)
Network: Material and Consumer Culture Chair: Jon Stobart
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Marcus Falk : Consumption Patterns in the Rural Early Modern Household, Southern Sweden 1670-1860
This paper is a study of living standards and material culture of early modern rural households in southern Sweden between ca. 1670 and 1860, building on a new dataset of circa 600 rural probate inventories from each of the periods ca. 1670-1720, 1780-85, and 1860-65, to a total of ca. ... (Show more)
This paper is a study of living standards and material culture of early modern rural households in southern Sweden between ca. 1670 and 1860, building on a new dataset of circa 600 rural probate inventories from each of the periods ca. 1670-1720, 1780-85, and 1860-65, to a total of ca. 1800 inventories, drawn from a wide area of various economic and geographical character. Most previous studies of Swedish probate records have been mainly focused to post-1750 period urban households; with this newly gathered dataset dating back to the late 17th century we can identify changes in the patterns of material living standard and consumption brought forth by the “agrarian revolution” and population growth period in Sweden after 1750 before industrialization took off in the 1870s.
The “industrious revolution” theory (de Vries, 2008), with its focus on the correlation between the introduction of new consumption trends in the early modern period and the concurrent increases in labour productivity, driven by increasing demand for new consumption goods, has since its publication been influential for our understanding of pre-industrial economic development. It has however been criticized, especially in its application on the more peripheral economic regions, such as Scandinavia, where research on early modern wages and consumption prices suggest a decline in the material welfare of early modern working households as an increasingly larger share of income would have been necessary to uphold consumption (Gary, 2018) – clashing with the idea presented by the “Industrious revolution” theory that increased labour productivity was driven by increased consumption of luxury and comfort goods. The high level of detail in Swedish probate records allows us to analyse not only the material culture of the household, e.g. what types of objects and consumption goods they owned, but also the correlation between consumption and productive capacity, as well as between different types of consumption.
In this paper, we aim to measure the consumption of the new forms of comfort goods central to the changing trends in the “industrious revolution” theory – which includes colonial goods such as tea and coffee, specialized tables such as tea- and gaming-tables, cushioned chairs, porcelain and glass, as well as clocks and paintings – in relation to other more traditional forms of consumption, e.g. value items such as silver and pewter. By further comparing this relation to household productive capacity – measured as a combination of level of pluriactivity and share of household wealth dedicated to income generating capital, – their socio-economic status – owner occupiers, tenant farmers, crofters, labourers, soldiers, - as well as position on the household life cycle, geographical circumstances, and credit capacity, a more detailed and nuanced conclusion of the correlation between household production and consumption strategies, regional economic development, and new consumption trends can be drawn. This has not only implications for our understanding of the mechanisms of the industrious revolution within the European periphery, but for our understanding of Early modern living standards and the household economy more broadly. (Show less)

Matleena Frisk : Before Green Thinking: Shortening Lifespan and Disposability of Products in Finland from the Second World War to the 1970s
This presentation focuses on how and why products’ shorter lifespan became desirable in the shift from scarcity to affluence. Consumers must accept lower quality and learn to throw things away to find disposable and short lifespan products practical. Theoretically, I draw from social practice theory, that addresses practices as a ... (Show more)
This presentation focuses on how and why products’ shorter lifespan became desirable in the shift from scarcity to affluence. Consumers must accept lower quality and learn to throw things away to find disposable and short lifespan products practical. Theoretically, I draw from social practice theory, that addresses practices as a combination of cultural meanings and norms, material and technological aspects and users’ competences. To study how everyday life changed when these products were adopted into use, I utilize a variety of sources: industry archives, statistics, advertising, and magazine articles on the products and their use. Usage and cultural meanings transformed materially relatively similar items into different products: paper tablecloths turned from war-time low-quality substitutes into carefree disposables by the 1970s. Prior to the breakthrough of environmental thinking in public debate, consumption was criticized mainly as waste of resources, materialism, and rejection of the simpler lifestyles of the past. In the 1960s’ women’s magazine Anna, fabric table napkins or serviettes were portrayed as a sign of unnecessary attachment to material things, while disposable cups and plates, together with habits such as drinking straight from the bottle or choosing modern, non-decorative furniture, communicated the desired informal, relaxed atmosphere. In this cultural context, accepting the short lifespan and disposing could be seen as signs of a dynamic and forward-looking attitude. New products intertwined into everyday practices. (Show less)

Ilja Van Damme, Lith Lefranc : Gender, Class, Age and Consumption. Shoplifting and Criminal Detection Bias during the Development of a New Retail Culture in Antwerp, c. 1870-c. 1940
Historical debates about shoplifting are a persistent trope in literature on European fin-de-sicèle consumer cultures. Especially the notion of ‘kleptomania’ has elicited considerable debate among historians. Being in itself a nineteenth-century medical concept and ‘invention’, the kleptomania diagnosis is now increasingly seen as a reaction to these same, rapidly changing ... (Show more)
Historical debates about shoplifting are a persistent trope in literature on European fin-de-sicèle consumer cultures. Especially the notion of ‘kleptomania’ has elicited considerable debate among historians. Being in itself a nineteenth-century medical concept and ‘invention’, the kleptomania diagnosis is now increasingly seen as a reaction to these same, rapidly changing retail landscapes around 1900, and the expected effects e.g. department stores and persuasive advertising campaigns were believed to have had on the supposedly fragile constitution of bourgeois women. While research on the discursive aspects of ‘moral panic’ surrounding the notion of female shoplifting dominates much of the older literature, the practice of shoplifting itself still warrants further empirical testing and scrutiny. This is where our paper would like to make the difference, questioning for modernizing Antwerp (Belgium) between c.1870-c.1940 if the detection of shoplifting was in itself biased by notions of class, gender and age-specific profiling. Adopting an innovative data-driven methodology on the basis of newly digitized Antwerp police reports, we question the likelihood of women being detected for shoplifting. Did women effectively figure more prominently in numbers of shoplifting, and what were the demographic and class-based characteristics of these women (their age and profession)? Can we hypothesize on the missing numbers of male shoplifters, remaining undetected due to the prevailing biased construction of the kleptomania neurosis, which informed both the actions of retail store managers and patrolling police agents? Finally, what do our historical research results tell us about the practice of and reasons for shoplifting itself, and the way it was changing through time in response to a modernizing retail landscape in Antwerp? (Show less)



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