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Access Type
Open Access
Document Type
thesis
Degree Program
History
Degree Type
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Year Degree Awarded
2013
Month Degree Awarded
May
Keywords
consumption, geography, literature, holyoke, history, leisure
Abstract
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.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/4036949
First Advisor
David Glassberg
Second Advisor
Frank Couvares
Third Advisor
Ethan Carr
Included in
Cultural History Commons, Other History Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons