Smith, Woodruff, Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800 (2002),
339p.
This is a good introduction to the burgeoning literature on the connection between
consumption and the origin of the industrial revolution in northwestern Europe. Today we are
painfully aware that the consumption of consumer goods, rather than just necessities, drives the
economy. However, if we look at the early modern European economy, we see a world where
there was relatively little economic surplus after satisfying the basic needs of the population. In
order to explain the industrial revolution, economic historians have emphasized advances in the
production of goods, which increased income and subsequently increased the consumption of
goods. Smith boldly proclaims in this study what few of the many studies on consumption only
implied: that the increased consumption of goods between 1600 and 1800 was the primary
reason for the economic growth that resulted in the industrial revolution. His book aims to
provide an overall theoretical framework for this claim. Unlike economic historians, who can tie
their history to a well-developed framework of economic growth theory, there is no comparable
set of social theories that describes social and cultural motivation upon which most social
historians can agree. Smith does point us to social theories about the consumption of luxury and
status goods, but in the end his evidence is chiefly based upon the large body secondary works
on the ‘consumer revolution.’ Most of his primary sources are writers from the period, such as
Defoe, Franklin, Pepys and many others. He also uses a number of Dutch and French sources.
This makes this study particularly useful, since the increase in consumption was not just an
English but also a northwestern European phenomenon. Moreover, many of the new
consumption goods that he discusses were internationally traded goods.
Central to the idea of a consumer revolution between 1600 and 1800 is the notion that
increased prosperity was producing a new elite, such as merchants, manufacturers, traders,
professionals and prosperous farmers. He does not call this a middle class, since this is a 19th
century formulation inappropriate for the earlier period, but these social groups did have surplus
income to spend on luxuries. Smith does not agree with those who have argued that their
increased consumption was largely a matter of imitating the life styles and consumption of the
aristocracy. Instead, he argues that they created new cultural contexts in which the motivation for
the consumption of luxury goods was the conferring of respectability upon the consumer. This
new elite did not just rely on the assertion of power and status and conspicuous consumption to
drive home their power, but sought to become respected and respectable through endowing their
pursuit of profit with moral value and demonstrating their status with respectable forms of
consumption. The author, who has also written about international trade, discusses the
consumption of such new luxury goods as tea, coffee, sugar, spices, tobacco, cotton textiles, and
ceramics. His chapters explain how the consumption of particular kinds of goods were endowed
with characteristics that promoted gentility, luxury, rational masculinity, domestic femininity,
and above all respectability. Central to Smith’s argument is his claim that the consumption of
goods must be seen in specific social contexts. The consumption of these goods did not just take
place in the home, but also in public places such as coffee houses, theaters, shops, churches and
city squares. The consumption of these luxuries gave their consumers an opportunity to forge a
new identity for themselves, which not only distinguished them from the vast majority of the
public below them, but also from the old elite above them who still governed their societies.
While Smith does not succeed in providing a new theoretical framework for the patterns of
consumption he describes, this is an informative and interesting introduction to the research on
the consumer revolution as an important component in an explanation for the origin of the
industrial revolution.