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The fundamental changes in window display were also reflected in both the development of a new profession, the decorator and the increasingly important supply of decorative products. The development of display windows had reached its quantitative limits around the turn of the century. As the complexity and artistic quality of window displays grew, so did the number of goods whose prices were plainly displayed in those windows. The expansion of window display into the interior of the shop made it possible for the front of the store to be considered more in terms of quality. The growing significance of retailing was most important to the development of the shop window. To identify its origins as early as 1830 is unusual in German historiography; the focus is usually on the changes within the production sector. The chapter concludes with some observations on the importance of the development for the history of advertising, the economy, and the society of the German Empire.

Color is a visible technology that invisibly connects so many puzzling aspects of modern Western consumer societies—research and development, making and selling, predicting fashion trends, and more. Addressing the relevant multidisciplinary scholarship, this introduction surveys and makes the case for further study of the transnational history of color in relation to that of the history of consumption in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The chapter concludes by considering the darker side of “bright modernity,” namely, the contribution of new chemically produced colors to environmental pollution and food poisoning in the second half of the nineteenth century.

This article analyzes the interrelationship between expert systems and the creation of public trust in food production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the roles of scientific knowledge and elites in academia, government, and business. The nutrient paradigm of the mid nineteenth century played a crucial part in this history, facilitating new practices of control and standardization based on measurable, empirical ‘facts.’ This article compares the different approaches, power constellations, and results of the struggle for improved and reliable food quality in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the USA. Scientists, especially chemists, the food industries, and public authorities at the local, regional, and federal levels established a structure of science‐based standardization and trust‐building, which acted on behalf of the consumer in enforcing their own ‘objective’ ideas about safe products and additives.

Historians have long been preoccupied with production. Until about the 1980s, the whole fabric of society seemed to reflect the different positions that individuals and groups held in the realm of production. During the past two decades, however, there has been a profound paradigm shift, and consumption has emerged as a sphere in its own right. The way people shop, eat, and spend their leisure has come to be seen not as a direct extension of their income and social status, that is, their position in the sphere of production, but as an expression of more complex cultural and social constellations. Even people with the same budget and class background consume differently. With this shift in historiographical perspective, consumption studies have metamorphosed from a niche topic into one of the most stimulating and vital areas of historical research. Since the late 1980s, interest in the history of consumption has soared in a way previously unimaginable.1

Modern consumption cannot be understood without reflecting on the knowledge structure of societies, market actors, commodification, and consumer goods.1 Consumption was and is knowledge-based, which from the late eighteenth century increasingly meant science-based. Advances in science led to a new understanding of the world, its laws, and its resources. These developments changed modes of producing, distributing, and marketing goods. They created new experiences, practices, mentalities, desires, fears, and symbols. Therefore, consumer societies were always knowledge societies.

Taking Stock and Forging Ahead: The Past and Future of Consumption History H.Berghoff & U.Spiekermann PART I: CONSUMPTION HISTORY TODAY Consumption History in Europe: an Overview of Recent Trends H.G.Haupt Research on the History of Consumption in the USA: An Overview G.Cross The Hidden Consumer: Consumption in the Economic History of Japan P.Francks Consumption, Identities, and Agency in Africa: An Overview H.P.Hahn PART II: CONSUMPTION AND HISTORICAL SUB-DISCIPLINES The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization P.W.Laird Affluence and Sustainability: Environmental History and the History of Consumption F.Uekoetter Consumption Politics and Politicized Consumption: Monarchy, Republic, and Dictatorship in Germany, 1900-1939 H.Berghoff Consumption and Space: Inner-City Pedestrian Malls and the Consequences of Changing Consumer Geographies J.Logemann Continental Europeans Respond to American Consumer Culture: Jurgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, and Umberto Eco D.Horowitz PART III: CASE STUDIES 'God's Own Consumers': Billy Graham, Mass Evangelism, and Consumption in the United States during the 1950s U.A.Balbier A Historical Herbal: Household Medicine and Herbal Commerce in a Developing Consumer Society S.Strasser Science, Fruits, and Vegetables: A Case Study on the Interaction of Knowledge and Consumption in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany U.Spiekermann An Ambivalent Embrace: Businessmen, Mass Consumption, and Visions of America in the Third Reich S.J.Wiesen

The Origins of Marketing and Market Research: Information, Institutions, and Markets H.Berghoff , P.Scranton & U.Spiekermann Selling Indian Indigo in Traditional and Modern European Markets, 1780-1910 A.Engel 'Cotton Guessers': Crop Forecasters and the Rationalizing of Uncertainty in American Cotton Markets, 1890-1905 J.L.Pietruska Mail-Order Doctors and Market Research, 1890-1930 D.J.Robinson Making Metropolitan Markets: Information, Intermediaries, and Real Estate in Modern Paris A.M.Yates Introducing Small Firms to International Markets: The Debates over the Commercial Museums in France and Germany, 1880-1910 S.A.Marin Making the Ledgers Talk: Customer Control and the Origins of Retail Data Mining, 1920-1940 J.Lauer Markets, Consumers, and the State: The Uses of Market Research in Government and the Public Sector in Britain, 1925-1955 S.Schwarzkopf Mrs. Housewife and the Ad Men: Advertising, Market Research, and Mass Consumption in Postwar Britain S.Nixon Subliminal Seduction: The Politics of Consumer Research in Post-World War II America K.Lipartito Gender Realignment: The Design and Marketing of Gas Stations for Women G.Donofrio The Bad Science and the Black Arts: The Reception of Marketing in Socialist Europe P.H.Patterson

Bread is more than a foodstuff: it is a symbol of life. Its cultural status not only includes the Christian promise of brotherhood and equality of mankind, but bread consumption also marks crucial differences between individuals, social groups, and nations. This chapter will analyse a short but important episode in the history of consumption. During the two world wars bread was still the most important foodstuff in the European diet. It was a decisive resource in conflict and for victory. While the First World War was a testing field both for strategists and nutritionists, intensified research and cultural anxieties moved bread to the top of the social and political agenda of the Second World War.1 The type of bread and the efficiency of bread policy were understood to be central for individual health, social efficiency, and national strength. This chapter will concentrate on wholemeal bread policy and compare the efforts of the main European powers, Germany and Great Britain, in the inter-war period.