Consumerism started to increase when more goods were made readily available. Today, it is easy to access an abundance of items, even in front of a computer screen. Items used to be more scarce and harder to access. To consume is to own, and society loves to own a lot.

―The expansion of the black middle class in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century transformed the educational and economic aspirations of African Americans. Between 1790 and 1860, few free blacks could expect equal compensation for the same work that a white person completed‖ Se123

―That was commodification: the distant and different translated into money value and resolved into a single scale of relative prices, prices that could be used to make even the most counter-intuitive comparisons—between the body of an old man and a little girl, for example, or between the muscular arm of a field hand and the sharp eye of a seamstress, or, as many nineteenth-century critics of slavery noted, between a human being and mule‖ (Johnson pg 58)

― Those hundreds of thousands of people were revenue to their cities and states where they were sold, and profits in the pockets of landlords, provisioners, physicians, and insurance agents long before they were sold‖ (Johnson 6)

Human capital is worth more than capital from machines is worth today. Slaves were a precursor to the consumption society we have today.

The primary reason why the South was more beneficial was because of the relevancy of slaves and the cotton industry. Land in the South was better for the production of cotton, and the South was more involved in the slave trade. Northerners were not as fond of slavery, but were dependent on the south for their imports of cotton and tobacco. Agriculture being more prevalent in the economy also leads to more wealth in southern states.

―The productivity on which the nineteenth-century industrialists prided themselves required not only their own diligent labors but also their employment of the period’s newest technologies of production, transportation, and communication‖ (Blaszczyk 198)

The steel mill that Carnegie brought over was located in Pittsburgh. It enabled them to produce larger amounts of steel, in a shorter time span, resulting in a higher productivity rate for products made with steel. Ingham, John N. "Clash of the Titans: Andrew Carnegie and Pittsburgh's Old Iron Masters." (Blaszczyk 192)

The Bessemer steel industry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania allowed for industry in this area to become more efficient. Steel is used to make a variety of products such as cutlery, automobiles (as mentioned), medical supplies, houses, buildings, and even roads. By increasing the availability of steel, we allotted for the creation of more industry.

This Era assisted in changing the working conditions and overall regulations regarding jobs

Commonalities among workers (http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/reform.html)› They worked long hours - about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. They all hoped for a federal law that would

require an 8-hour work day.

› They had to deal with the impersonality of the large factory and the sense of being an anonymous cog in a big wheel.

› They were subjected to poor wages, wage reductions, and inflated living costs. As owners tried to raise profits, many laborers were forced to live in company-owned homes and shop in company-owned stores with inflated prices.

› They faced dangerous and unsafe working conditions each day. The railroads were a perfect example. In 1881, 30,000 railroad workers were injured or killed on the job.

› They faced a growing sense of powerlessness as corporate profits grew; the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

› Thus, some workers turned to unions for help.

―The program which American industry proposes to put into effect is aimed ay accomplishing two things:› 1. Increasing the opportunities for all to earn

› 2. Increasing the opportunities for all to buy” – “National Association of Manufacturers Outlines A Plan for Postwar Prosperity, 1944” –(Blaszczyk 375)

It was a goal to create a booming society as soon as World War II was over

―Other Federal Expenditures, such as the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 ( better known as the GI bill of rights) and government support for housing and highway construction, likewise contributed to the emergence of a post-war ―mixed economy‖ of public and private spending that kept mass consumption as its heat for a quarter century‖ (Cohen 118)

American consumerism was first built on a foundation of only wealthy citizens. When products become more mass produced, it makes them more readily available. You no longer had to be wealthy to purchase certain goods

The creation of the middle-class, allowed for more people to get a college education. The concept of loans also provided for more people wanting to further their education. New Jersey is populated by a variety of public and private schools that we use at our disposal. This consumption leads to the consumption of other goods and services.

―Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production and the welfare of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.[Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1937 Modern Library edition, p. 625]‖

―Even as these innovations squeezed greater profits out of existing demand, they continued to assume the existence of a unified, often referred to as ―middle-class‖, market where the mass of consumers shared a consistent set of Populuxe tastes and desires.‖ (Johnson 294)

In New Jersey, the physical manifestation of black professionals work was the all-black town. These places functioned to undermine the institution of slavery both covertly throughout the Underground Railroad and overtly through the promotion of abolitionists’ rhetoric and policies. With a base of operations and a cohort of organized families, the impetus for racial equality in the Garden State grew from the fertile soil of black achievement‖ (Suburban Erasure 125)

When an area is more suburban rather than rural, it leads to increased consumption. If you are located in a place where the nearest mall in thirty miles away, chances are you do not patronize this area often

―By the mid-1950s, however, commercial developers—many of whom owned department stores—were constructing a new kind of marketplace, the regional shopping center aimed at satisfying suburbanites’ consumption and community needs‖ 395 B

The Northeast is one of the most consumer oriented societies. Many places that are still primarily agrarian are less likely to consume as much as we do. When an area is more suburban rather than rural, it leads to increased consumption. If you are located in a place where the nearest mall in thirty miles away, chances are you do not patronize this area often. As we shifted from agrarian to industrial, it leads to more patronizes. The inhibition of consuming could be noted as having a balance between how many consumers you have and how many products they can purchase. You cannot expect high consumerism if there is not a lot of money coming into these people who you desire to buy your products or services.

―New Jerseys transformation from an agricultural economy to one based on the residential and commercial growth of suburbs allows this study to consider African American experience in areas where there were few industrial jobs‖(Suburban Erasure 3)

―New York City in particular was ablaze with consumer activity in the late 1960s and 1970s, boasting a Consumer Affairs Department ( under successive Commissioners Bess Myerson, Betty Furness, and Elinor Guggenheimer); a Consumer Protection Corps under the Commissioner of Markets; neighborhood consumer complaint offices and organizations, such as the Harlem Consumer Education Council; much consumer legislation and regulation; and frequent conferences and other initiatives.‖ (Pg 521 COHEN)

Consumers were now in the practice of living outside of their limits. This leap, created a consumer society with the ideal that you can spend when you are not sufficiently funded. It also created the concept of being able to spend, build up credit, and simply pay back with the cash you already have on hand.

―A small elite, of course, had long enjoyed higher consumption standards and habitually bought luxury goods and services. Elite consumerism created employment for small numbers of artisans and merchants, often clustered around the courts and trading centers of each country‖

Middle-class dominance, growth of the labor force from African American and female entrance, more productive industries, and a new type of consumers who had more to consumer enhanced the world we live in today. I see today how much I can consume in a day, even without the influence of outside sources. It has become engrained in populated societies to purchase what we need or desire.