The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing

The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
- Used Book in Good Condition
In this revealing social history, Daniel Thomas Cook explores the roots of childrenâ€™s consumer cultureâ€”and the commodification of childhood itselfâ€”by looking at the rise, growth, and segmentation of the childrenâ€™s clothing industry. Cook describes how in the early twentieth century merchants, manufacturers, and advertisers of childrenâ€™s clothing began to aim commercial messages at the child rather than the mother. Cook situates this fundamental shift in perspective within the broader transformation of the child into a legitimate, individualized, self-contained consumer.
The Commodification of Childhood begins with the publication of the childrenâ€™s wear industryâ€™s first trade journal, The Infantsâ€™ Department, in 1917 and extends into the early 1960s, by which time the changes Cook chronicles were largely complete. Analyzing trade journals and other documentary sources, Cook shows how the industry created a market by developing and promulgating new understandings of the â€œnature,â€ needs, and motivations of the child consumer. He discusses various ways that discursive constructions of the consuming child were made material: in the creation of separate childrenâ€™s clothing departments, in their segmentation and layout by age and gender gradations (such as infant, toddler, boys, girls, tweens, and teens), in merchantsâ€™ treatment of children as individuals on the retail floor, and in displays designed to appeal directly to children. Ultimately, The Commodification of Childhood provides a compelling argument that any consideration of â€œthe childâ€ must necessarily take into account how childhood came to be understood through, and structured by, a market idiom.
Country USA
Brand Duke University Press
Manufacturer Duke University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Refer to Sapnet.
ReleaseDate 2004-04-20
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780822332688

Country	USA
Brand	Duke University Press
Manufacturer	Duke University Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Refer to Sapnet.
ReleaseDate	2004-04-20
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780822332688

The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer

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