Sentimental Materialism: Gender, Commodity Culture, and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

A consideration of the intricate relationship between consumption and womanhood in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Taking as her starting point a diversity of cultural artefacts - from domestic fiction and philosophical treatises to advice literature and cigars - Lori Merish explores the symbolic functions they served and finds that consumption evolved into a form of personal expressiveness that indicated not only a woman’s wealth and taste but also her race, class, morality and civic values. The discursive production of this new subjectivity - the feminine consumer - was remarkably influential, helping to shape American capitalism, culture, and nation building.