FROM MAIN TO HIGH: CONSUMERS, CLASS, AND THE SPATIAL REORIENTATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL CITY

 
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ABSTRACT

MAY 2013

JONATHAN HAEBER, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Consumer culture’s spatial dynamics have rarely been examined. This study will use a methodology of “triangulation” – a term borrowed from Geographer Richard J. Dennis – to explore the characteristics of consumer culture among the working classes in a single industrial, planned city (Holyoke, Massachusetts). Each facet of the tripartite method – literary, cliometric, and geographical sources – will be used to conclude that consumer capitalism fundamentally changed the spatial character of Holyoke’s working class communities. A time period roughly from 1880 to 1940 has been selected because novels about Holyoke in this period help augment an understanding of the city’s consumer landscape. The study examines two writers who grew up in Holyoke: Jacques Ducharme and Mary Doyle Curran. It also centers on two streets, High Street and Main Street, which served as the commercial centers for very distinct types of communities. The study draws from oral histories, sociological data, place-based analysis, advertisements, material culture, census records, newspaper accounts, and corporate records from manufacturers and the city’s largest department store.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTERS

I AN ISLAND OF ORGANIZATION

II MODERNITY AND THE AMERICAN CONSUMER

Moralists and Consumption: 1875-1910

Department Stores: 1869 - 1939

Leisure: 1890 - 1939

Mass Marketing and Culture: 1890 - 1940

Consumer Credit: 1920 - 1929

Adjusting to Modernity

III FROM WILDERNESS SUBLIME TO URBAN JUNGLE, 1888 – 1920

Planning and Constructing Leisure in Holyoke

City Beautiful or City Bountiful?

IV MOVING UP, MOVING OUT: FRENCH-CANADIANS, 1900-1940

Survivance and the Ethnic Enclave

From Saint Valérien to Precious Blood

Participatory Community in Holyoke’s Ward 2

V CLAIMING AND QUANTIFYING SPACE

The Sanger Incident and a Threatened Boycott

Department Stores Under Scrutiny

Moulding Minds, Making Sales

Public Relations, Planting Flags

Peddlers in the Paper City

VI GETTING THINGS AND GOING PLACES: 1920-1940

Efforts to Track Worker Budgets in Holyoke, 1919-1930

Divisions at the Irish-American Threshold

The O’Connors as Consumers

Mary Marconi and the A&P

VII RIVERS AND ROADS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

For Mom and Dad.

And for Holyoke.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My research would not have been possible without the help of countless individuals in Holyoke and beyond. Penni Martorell, archivist at Wistariahurst was an enthusiastic supporter of my always evolving thesis ideas. She replenished the table at the archives, and was not only a source for dusty documents but also a wellspring of advice and friendship. Cliff McCarthy and Maggie Humbertson at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History were my able guides to the Albert Steiger department store records, and Joan Steiger – after a chance encounter at a speaking event – encouraged me to look into the collection. Nancy Shawcross and the staff of UPenn Rare Book & Manuscript Library helped me become acquainted with the Curtis Publishing Company materials, particularly the papers of Charles Coolidge Parlin, a pioneer in market research who collected merchant and retail data in the largest cities in the U.S., including Holyoke. The staff at the UMass Special Collections and University Archives and fellow student Emily Oswald joined in my excitement when I discovered Mary Doyle Curran’s unpublished manuscripts. Leslie Fields and Patricia Albright at Mt Holyoke humored my interest in every research paper produced by Mt Holyoke Economics Professor Amy Hewes and her students. Rob Weir also deserves credit for making me aware of the Hewes papers. Due credit also belongs to various professors who met with me to chat about my academic interests, including Daniel Czitrom, Jennifer Fronc, and Jules Chametzky. Dr. Chametzky helped me better understand Mary Doyle Curran as both person and writer. Johan Matthew, my Global History advisor, helped me understand consumer culture from a transnational perspective.

When I first sought out graduate schools, David Glassberg responded to my initial email of interest with enthusiasm. His door was always open, and he was always pleased to hear about my discoveries. The same can be said for Frank Couvares; his illuminating book on labor and social life in Pittsburgh was not only a refreshing read, but an inspiration and model to aspire towards when I first explored Holyoke’s consumer culture. Ethan Carr has helped me look beyond buildings to the landscape itself, to Frederick Law Olmsted’s idealism, and also the many implications of what “landscape” means. These acknowledgments could continue for pages, but I will stop here by recognizing the hundreds of others who have touched my life and encouraged me in some way, including Carrie Whitsett – who has been my anchor of support through the trials and tribulations of graduate school.

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