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consumerism

Historian Lizabeth Cohen on why Americans love to shop

John Fea   |  November 30, 2021

Here is the Harvard historian‘s recent interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly: KELLY: We’re glad to have you with us. I want to go back and try to figure out how this started that Americans became such champion consumers. And...

Did you pay more for your turkey this year? Don’t blame Biden

John Fea   |  November 23, 2021

Blame corporate America. Here is Faiz Shakir at The New Republic: The prices of everyday goods are going up, and everyone from members of Congress to talking heads on cable news have their own diagnoses as to why it’s happening....

Is Wawa about to plant a flag in Sheetz country?

John Fea   |  November 16, 2021

Unless you live in Pennsylvania and the surrounding area you probably have no idea what the title of this post means. Get up to speed here: It looks like Wawa is starting to make some inroads into Sheetz country. Here...

The history of back-to-school shopping

John Fea   |  August 11, 2021

Here’s a relevant piece. Erin Blakemore of JSTOR Daily offers a brief history of back-to-school shopping. A taste: Saddle shoes and sweaters, milk bars and ballerina flats. In the mid-twentieth century, you could find all four at college shops: pop-up...

I went shopping this weekend. Why were so many people wearing masks?

John Fea   |  June 7, 2021

I went shopping with my family on Saturday. My daughter needed to buy some things for her new apartment so we jumped in the car and headed east on the Pennsylvania turnpike. We started at IKEA in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania and...

Preachers and sneakers

John Fea   |  March 23, 2021

Someone needs to start a new show called “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Megachurch Pastors.” Too bad Robin Leach isn’t still alive. Over at The Washington Post, Sarah Pulliam Bailey has a piece on Ben Kirby and his Instagram...

From *Nebraska* to Jeep ads

John Fea   |  February 26, 2021

Tony Norman is right about the Springsteen Super Bowl ad. Watch it again: Here is his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column on the ad: This is not Bruce Springsteen’s best work. Those of us of a certain age were immediately compelled to...

American families are boycotting Publix

John Fea   |  February 15, 2021

Boycotts are as old as the republic. As historian T.H. Breen taught us in his book The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (and several other seminal articles on the 18th-century British consumer revolution), shopping, or the...

JCPenney and Macy’s are the latest stores to dump Mike “My Pillow” Lindell’s products

John Fea   |  February 5, 2021

JC Penney and Macy’s joins Kohl’s, Wayfair, and Bed, Beth and Beyond in refusing to carry Lindell’s products after the so-called “My Pillow Guy” promoted election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Lost cause evangelical Eric Metaxas is very upset...

Episode 77: The Art of Living

John Fea   |  November 29, 2020

How shall we live? Where do we find the resources for living well? In this episode, historian Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn examines the reappearance of ancient philosophical thought in contemporary American culture. She argues that we need to take back philosophy as...

Pope Francis’s scathing critique of American life

John Fea   |  November 27, 2020

Yesterday at The New York Times, Pope Francis published an excerpt of his new book Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. He offers a devastating critique of the selfishness that we Americans try to pass off as...

Episode 67: Exploring the History of Childhood and Play

John Fea   |  May 24, 2020

We are back! COVID-19 forced us to make some changes to our production, but the podcast is ready to forge ahead into the Summer. Since many Americans are still stuck at home playing games with their families to bide the...

Why Do People Need More Toilet Paper?

John Fea   |  April 3, 2020

Will Oremus’s piece at Marker makes perfect sense. A taste: There’s another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper — one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has...

Is Capitalism Good for Us?

John Fea   |  March 2, 2020

Here is a very interesting debate between Mary Hirschfeld and Eugene McCarraher at Villanova University. Hirscheld is the author of Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy.  McCarraher is the author of The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the...

What Would George Washington Think About President’s Day Sales?

John Fea   |  February 17, 2020

According to historian David Head at USA Today, Washington would have loved President’s Day sales! Presidents Day, like most American holidays, is a celebration of shopping. But unlike holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, where the commercial spirit is a corruption...

David Bentley Hart Reviews Eugene McCarraher’s *The Enchantments of Mammon*

John Fea   |  January 8, 2020

And he loves it.  Here is a taste of Hart‘s review of McCarraher‘s new book: The Enchantments of Mammon is a magnificent book. It is, before all else, a sheer marvel of patient scholarship, history on a grand scale and in...

“Why you slummin’ in the city in your fancy heels”

John Fea   |  March 5, 2019

(Note:  The quote in the title of this post comes from “The Schuyler Sisters,” a song in the musical Hamilton). Check out Kimberly S. Alexander‘s post on shoes and patriotism: For many, in the decade leading up to the American Revolution, one’s...

Bancroft Prize-Winning Historian of Health Care Nancy Tomes is Coming to Messiah College

John Fea   |  August 22, 2018

Nancy Tomes is Distinguished Professor of History at Stony Brook University.  Her 2016 book, Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American history. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJRvfHY10YA&w=560&h=315] “This is like...

“As the boomers have aged, denial of death…has moved to the center of American culture”

John Fea   |  May 29, 2018

Check out Yale historian Gabriel Winant‘s review of Barbara Ehrenreich‘s new book: Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Our Illusion of Self Control.  Here is a taste: Ehrenreich contemplates with some satisfaction not just the approach...

The Author’s Corner with Elaine Crane

John Fea   |  April 5, 2018

Elaine Crane is Distinguished Professor of History at Fordham University. This interview is based on her new book, The Poison Plot: A Tale of Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport (Cornell University Press, 2018). JF: What led you to write The Poison Plot?...

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