The readings below are from the following required texts. Also see the list of recommended readings.

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. (Originally published in 1900 - this book may be downloaded from the Project Gutenberg site)

Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. (Originally published in 1922 - this book may be downloaded from the Project Gutenberg site)

Horowitz, Daniel, and Vance Packard, eds. Status Seekers. Bedford: St. Martin's, 1995.

Brooks, David. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

 

Week One: Introduction to the World of Goods
Reading: None

Part I: The Rise of a Mass Market at the Turn of the Century

Week Two: Downtown Shopping
Reading: Dreiser. Chapters 1-3, 5-8 in Sister Carrie.

Week Three: Leisure Time
Reading: Dreiser. Chapters 10, 12-14, 16, 20-21, 23-27 in Sister Carrie.

Week Four: The Business of Consumption
Reading: Dreiser. Chapters 28-39, 42, 44-47 in Sister Carrie.

Part II: Making a Middle-class Society in Interwar America

Week Five: Roaring Twenties
Reading: Lewis. Chapters 1-7 in Babbitt.

Week Six: Advertising the American Dream
Reading: Lewis. Chapters 8-18 in Babbitt.

Week Seven: Advertising the American Dream (continued)
Reading: Lewis. Chapters 19-34 in Babbitt.

Week Eight: Abundance and Its Critics (I)
Reading: None

Part III: Mass Culture in Postwar America

Week Nine: Status Seeking in the Suburbs
Reading: Packard. Chapters 1-7 in Status Seekers.

Week Ten: Malling of America
Reading: Packard. Chapters 9-12, 20-21 in Status Seekers.

Week Eleven: Age of Television
Reading: Packard. Chapters 17-19, 22, 24 in Status Seekers.

Week Twelve: Segmenting Markets
Reading: Packard. Chapters 13-14 in Status Seekers.

Part IV: Conspicuous Consumption at Century's End

Week Thirteen: McDonalds, Microwaves, and the Mega-Rich
Reading: Brooks. Chapters 1-3 in Bobos.

Week Fourteen: Abundance And Its Critics (II)
Reading: Brooks. Chapters 4-7 in Bobos.

Week Fifteen: E-Bay and Beyond
Reading: None


Recommended Readings

Chapters 19 and 23 in Out of Many: A History of the American People.

Glickman, Lawrence. Consumer Society in American History.

Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.

Hounshell, David. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932.

Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture.

Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market.

Tedlow, Richard. New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America.

Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream.