In the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, when the United States was transitioning from an agrarian economy to a capitalist one, considerable anxiety emerged about the consumer choices of the burgeoning middle class. Not unlike the criticisms of 21st-century women whose tastes and identity might be called “basic,” some found women’s purchases and self-fashioning to be particularly alarming. […]
A story in Godey’s Lady’s Book, T.S. Arthur’s “Following the Fashions,” pushed back on the idea that “fashionable” women were uncritical consumers. The story opens with siblings Henry and Mary Grove debating the merits of looking at fashion plates in popular magazines. Henry argues strongly against following the fashions, labeling the women who don the latest styles as “heartless,” “weak,” and “blind.” These adjectives indicate the problem is not so much fashion as it is vanity: the cult of domesticity demanded that 19th-century wives and mothers be self-sacrificing, not self-centered. Henry adds that it is “morally wrong to follow the fashions” because the rules change often and are “unreasonable and arbitrary.” Men like himself, on the other hand, do not care about and do not follow such shifts. Mary counters that it is men who “blindly” adopt each new style, while she carefully selects looks that are becoming on her. She thinks critically about whether new styles “suit my structure, shape, and complexion,” adjusting them to complement her features. Mary cites Henry’s trips to his tailor. The buttons and cut of his frock, the color and material of his cravat–all have changed over the seasons so that Henry did not look “singular.” If Henry desires to look like other people, Mary wants nothing different.
These few examples help us consider what critiques of fashionable women reveal of gender, self-fashioning, and consumer culture in the antebellum period. The middle class increasingly sought to differentiate itself through the acquisition of domestic goods and magazines that illustrated the newest styles. Women’s purchases and practices were imbued with national significance. Men like Judson* and Fowler worried about–and tried to reshape –women’s selections, while women continued to use their consumer choices to shape identity and social status. Their cultural conversation on fashionability and the merits of the maintream began long before PSL season.
*This is not the most accurate scholarly writing I’ve ever seen re: Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson, for the record.
@wordsaredelicious said: I have SO many opinions about pumpkin pie. Also about the HORROR that followed the discovery that the PSL didn’t contain ACTUAL PUMPKIN. Seriously people? There is a fundamental misunderstanding of pumpkins and spices at work here, and I object vehemently.
“A foreigner visiting the United States during autumn is shown a number of pumpkin spiced beverages, pumpkin spice cupcakes, etc. He then asks, ‘But where is the pumpkin? I have already smelled and tasted the spices, and seen the foliage-themed mug in which the latte is safely contained, and licked the equally generically indicative orange-and-brown frosting on the cupcake. But I have not seen the pumpkin!’ It has then to be explained to him that the pumpkin is not another collateral institution, some ulterior counterpart to the beverages, deserts, and breakfast pastries which he has seen. The ‘pumpkin’ is merely a cultural shorthand for explaining which damn spices go in the cupcake.” –Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (1949).
My most deeply held opinion about pumpkin pie, as you have probably already guessed, is that it ought to be made out of hubbard squash.
Following the Fashions: A Basic American Pastime
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