History Speech

The DARK SIDE of Consumerism

An image from the popular show that sells macabre antiques called Oddities

Ever since the Biblical times and even before humans have been entertained with what to many may seem taboo. The Romans for example took great pleasure in watching gladiators rip one another apart, Lions devour helpless victims, and burning Christians. During the rise of Consumerism in America the uses of money and leisure spread through a broad spectrum of ways of entertainment and cultural activities. Some of these ways however may have us looking back and asking ourselves “how far is too far?” Welcome to the DARK SIDE of consumerism.

This new era of consumerism began in a time period coming right out of the Victorian era. To fully understand why what may seem to be a dark side of consumerism exist it is necessary to understand the society in which we are speaking occurred. To begin with this era evolved after a series of successful attempts to gain higher wages and more appropriate treatment for maintaining a lifestyle through working therefore people had higher incomes and a growth in leisurely items. Many people often say the Victorians were obsessed with death but when further analyzed it seems that the Victorians and those after were actually more accustomed to accept death into their society than the people of today. This makes a great amount of sense being that medicine was absolutely not in its prime and was still in an experimental/developing stage. I mean were talking about an era where some people thought headaches could be cured with a metal stake through the eye! Yea. I would say they had some work to do. Due to this unfortunate lack of medical

knowledge deaths occurred much frequently especially in infants and children. At one time the death rate of infants was higher than 20%. Because of this normality in child deaths not only was the baby coffin market striving but so was post-mortem photography. Yes, just like medicine photography was also in its developmental stages and although cheaper and easier than having a painting made photography was not as easily accessible as one might think so capturing a memory of a beloved dead one was not as simple as taking photos during the loved one’s life and making a photo album. Because of the often very short life span of an infant and larger demand than supply of photographers couples often didn’t have time to capture memories with their infant before it died and may have only had very few chances to take a photo with it. So instead of losing that memory of a loved one (just like people take photos today to immortalize memories) they took the photo with their beloved deceased while they could (as a last chance kind of memory). The fact that people in America (mostly middle class because photos were cheaper than portraits

A horrifying family photo with a deceased member

although is extremely and eerily obvious which member of the photo is dead) practiced post mortem may not be as disturbing as it is that this style of photography was popular and practiced among completely sane normal families who were desperate to retain a memory of someone they loved. For more tangible memories some people even made jewelry made from dead ancestor's hair to wear.

Even though this society in the earlier 1900s-1920s seems to be more conservative than possible previous centuries as far as cultural practices this erratic behavior may be connected to what Alan Brinkley refers to as “Redefined Leisure” where he states that leisure changes from being viewed as “lazy” and “sloth-like” to a given right often displayed in radical forms.

The term “Conspicuous Consumption” defined as “the act or practice of spending money on expensive things that are not necessary in order to impress other people” by the Merrian Webster dictionary is one that fits the late Victorian-early 19^th century quite well. People used their money to impress others by suspending reality. This is much like people would today using makeup to alter their appearance or wearing expensive designer brands (fake or not) to send a message to others that they are wealthy or classy. It was almost like people could use their money to become self made royalty when in fact they were not (this is obviously directed toward high class wealthy citizens). This love for altering reality explains why the growth in wealth resulted in a growth in Magic shows but the most popular magicians and stunts were always grounded in reality. This new cultures obsession with danger and illusion lead rise to one of the greatest (if not the greatest) magicians of all time, Harry Houdini. As additional support for this society's interest in danger, darkness,

Houdini performing The Chinese Water Torture Cell

and the macabre Harry Houdini's career didn't reach its full peak until he dedicated himself not to illusions but dangerous stunts and escapes including being buried alive and the Chinese water torture cell in which he was restrained and hung upside down in a tank of water to escape from. Additional ways people could suspend their reality was going to see movies. One popular example is the iconic Edison film The Great Train Robbery which includes a scene that terrified people at the time where a cowboy aimed a revolver directly at the camera and fired off shots. In fact indulging in the dark side was even considered cool. A popular example includes family portraits edited (development of editing photos was beginning to take off) to make it appear as if family members were headless or decapitated. The photo below is a famous example:

A Daughter and son pose in an edited photo holding their mom's "decapitated" head (yes this was a normal practice among families who could afford family photos

Money was and is associated with power and people believed that because they had money they could do things they couldn't do before. They also felt a close connection to death being that it surrounded them and was integrated into their culture. Families had close bonds after experiencing previous years of hardship (partly due to factory conditions, depression, etc.) and often wanted to not only revive family members through photos but through spiritualism using their new leisurely money. If there was money floating around America people would find a way to scam it out of others and that's exactly what

A medium coughing up what is referred to as ectoplasm
(basically its like puking up spirits)

spiritualist did. Spiritualist conned millions of middle and high class citizens into thinking that threw a seance a medium could connect to the dead members of those dishing out the money to retrieve messages. These mediums used elaborate hoaxes in  dark rooms to make families think their money gave them the ability to pay to get back in touch with the dead which all goes back to the theme of appearance vs. reality. It just turns out that these con artist picked the perfect era and society to fool people into spending money to connect with the dead.

A poster advertising Ota Benga

This era was one of discovery and curiosity being that there were many unsolved mysteries in the world. Money from middle class funded technology, research, and exploration. People were paying to learn, but not about normal stuff, that's boring! In the same way horror movies are popular today people payed to see oddities at freak shows, deformities, and ethnic people. There was an educational flare to this entertainment be it medicinal or worldly people were curious to see things they had never seen before using their money (may be hard to imagine in today's time when we have access to computers therefore we've seen it all).  People including Africans, Native Americans, and Asians were actually put on display at zoos and brought in great amounts of money. The Bronx Zoo stated at one time that their most popular attraction was Ota Benga, an African man with sharped filed teeth.
In conclusion the investment in the dark side during the late 1800s and early 1900s can be summarized and explained as money being used for the following: keeping memories of deceased, desire to be immortal, suspending reality in a disturbingly lavish way, gross out factor (like today's popular horror genre), education, and entertainment along with straight up curiosity and desperation to maintain past memories. 

A very disturbing photo that freaked me out of kids posing with a deceased member

A Locket with Human Hair a common accessory during this era

sites used

Bronx Zoo Ota Benga Ny Times- This is the official Ny Times website displaying an article about Ota Benga and his controversial display which although I briefly mention gave a great insight in the interest in ethnicity

Houdini Magigc history- I already came into this topic having a great knowledge of magicians so this site just provided some history on his stunts and the photo I used

Conspicuous consumption Merriam Webster Dictionary- The only purpose of this online dictionary was to define Conspicuous Consumption 

Human Oddities News Barnem and Bailey- This website provided photos of  some of the most popular images of human oddities and insight into their public appeal

Headless photos- this website displayed photos of photos edited to make people look headless and talked about the style's popularity

History Book Alan Brinkley- I used this book to provide the foundation of my knowledge on consumerism and to define the author's view of redefined leisure

Spiritualism Jstor article- This article gave some fascinating information on the uses of spiritualism and its societal significance along with its popularity

Victorians obsessed with death- I definitely used this post to exemplify this era of America's interest and investment in the macabre therefore it served a great significance to my post 

Hair jewelry photo- This is an archive displaying photos of the expensive hair made jewelry pieces that have now become rare collectibles for people obsessed with the Victorian era and ,merely served as brief mentioning and a photo in my article