17.3: Mass Culture

The Victorian era saw the emergence of the first modern, industrialized, "mass" societies. Written material went from expensive books to mass-market periodicals, newspapers, and cheap print. Inhabitants of villages and regions that were fiercely proud of their identities became inhabitants of larger, more anonymous, and alienating cities. Mass production created cheaper material goods that could be used up and thrown away with a much more casual attitude.

Spread of Literacy

The 19th Century was the century of mass literacy. At the time of the French Revolution, male literacy was just below 50%. By 1970, the number had grown to almost 80%. In 1900, almost 100% of Frenchmen were literate. Female literacy was close behind. This improvement was possible due to the spread of printing in vernacular languages and mass education. In 1882, during the Third Republic and under the guidance of prime minister Jules Ferry, free, public primary schools ensured that every child in France was taught in standard French and studied the same subjects.

Traditionally, paper was made from rags, which were shredded, compressed together, and reconstituted. The resulting paper was durable but expensive. In the late nineteenth century, printers began to make paper out of wood pulp, which dropped it to about a quarter of the former price. As of 1880, the linotype machine was invented, which also made printing much cheaper and more simple than it had been. Thus, it became vastly cheaper and easier to publish newspapers.

From 1850 to 1900, the average French person saw their real purchasing power increase by 165%. Comparable increases occurred in the other dynamic, commercial, and industrial economies of western Europe (and, eventually, the United States). The increased ability of average people to afford commodities above and beyond those they needed to survive was ultimately based on the energy unleashed by the Industrial Revolution. Even with the struggles over the quality of life of working people, goods were so cheap to produce that the average person actually did enjoy a better quality of life and could buy things like consumables and periodicals.

As a result of the cheapening of print and the rise in buying power, “yellow” journalism, sensationalized accounts of political events that stretched the truth to sell copies, emerged. In France, Le Petit Journal was an extremely inexpensive and sensationalistic paper that avoided political commentary in favor of banal, mainstream expressions of popular opinion. Rival papers soon sprang up that did not try to change or influence opinion so much as they reinforced it. Each political persuasion was now served by at least one newspaper that “preached to the choir,” reinforcing pre-existing ideological outlooks rather than confronting them with inconvenient facts.

Overall, the kind of journalism that exploded in the late nineteenth century lent itself to the cultivation of scandals. For instance, a naval arms race between Britain and Germany that was one of the causes of World War I had much to do with the press of both countries playing up the threat of being outpaced by their national rival. The Dreyfus Affair, in which a French Jewish army officer was falsely accused of treason, spun to the point that some people were predicting civil war due to the massive amount of press on both sides of the scandal. Likewise, imperialism, the practice of invading other parts of the world to establish and expand global empires, received much of its popular support from articles praising the civilizing mission involved in occupying a couple of thousand square miles in Africa that the reader had never heard of before.

In short, politics were embedded in journalism. As almost all of the states of Europe moved toward male suffrage, leaders were often shocked that they had to cultivate public opinion in order to pass the laws. Journals became the mouthpieces of political positions, which both broadened the public sphere to an unprecedented extent and, in a way, sometimes cheapened political opinions to the level of banal slogans.

Another seismic shift occurred in the sphere of acquisition. In the early modern era, luxury goods were basically reserved for the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie. There simply was not enough social wealth for the vast majority of Europeans to buy many things they did not need. The average peasant or shopkeeper, even fairly prosperous ones, owned only a few sets of clothes, which were repaired rather than replaced over time. Most people did not think of money as something to “save”. In good years, an average person would simply spend any 'extra' money on more food or, especially for men, alcohol, because it was impossible to anticipate having a surplus again in the future.

Rise of Consumerism

An iconic shift in acquisition and consumerism patterns occurred. Department stores created recognizable modern patterns of buying, in which people shopped for necessities and small luxuries. Traditional consumption was centered on small, family-run shops and traveling peddlers, a system in which bargaining was common and no advertising existed. With department stores, prices were fixed, and a wide variety of goods of different genres were on display together. Advertising became ubiquitous. Branded products could be found across the length and breadth of a given country. Just as print and primary education inculcated national identity, so did the fact that consumer goods were increasingly standardized.

Manufacturing and semi-skilled labor dramatically decreased the price of textiles, and department stores carried large selections that many people could afford. People of all social classes came to own many different items of clothing that were voluntarily replaced due to shifts in fashion, not because it was worn out.

The first real department store was the Bon Marché in Paris. Originally built in the 1840s, it would eventually occupy a city block and employ 4,500 people. During the 1880s, 10,000 clients passed through its doors in a day. In February, during the 'white sales', the number would increase to 70,000 a day. (White sales involved the selling of linens at reduced prices.)

The 1860s witnessed the birth of the seaside holiday. By the 1870s, there were mail-order catalogs. Not to be outdone, tourists still considered a visit to the Bon Marché to be on the same level as one to the Arc de Triomphe built by Napoleon to commemorate his victories.

Figure 17.3.1: The Bon Marché - the “temple of consumerism.”

Ultimately, the Victorian Era saw the birth of modern consumerism, in which economies became dependent on the consumption of non-essential goods by ordinary people. The “mass society” inaugurated by the industrial revolution came of age in the last decades of the nineteenth century. With its bourgeois standards, triumphant self-confidence, and deep-seated “scientific” social and racial attitudes, that society was in the process of taking over much of the world at precisely the same time.