|
|
|
Book Review
Canada and the United States
Regina Lee Blaszczyk. Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning. (Studies in Industry and Society.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2000. Pp. xiii, 380. $39.95.
|
As Regina Lee Blaszczyk argues in this perceptive and dense history of china and glassware manufacturers and retailers, "consumption for ordinary people was made in America" (p. 1). Lured by prices lowered by mass production, images fashioned by savvy designers, and self-definitions of the good life, immigrant to upper-crust consumers furnished their houses with pottery and glassware in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Manufacturers imagined their customers, as the title suggests, through their collaborations with retailers and with other new professionals, including home economics experts, industrial designers, and market researchers. In the end, however, all were beholden to the consumers, whose diverse tastes and varied spending abilities created seemingly endless opportunities for both success and failure in the home furnishings industry. |
. . . |
There are about 576 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|