Cultural Transformation in the Consumer Society

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject History - Miscellaneous, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Centre for British Studies), course: British History, language: English, abstract: In this paper I would like to demonstrate the historical antecedents of the cultural change Britain went through in the nineteenth century as it finds its expression in the construction of a new type of urban institution: the music hall. I will scrutinize the drives that brought in its emergence as a mass entertainment industry by presenting the economic and social factors that prepared the necessary background. By relating the innovations that reshaped the Victorian population, I will try to illustrate the ground upon which this new institution was built. By giving an account of the responses from different sections of the society, I will try to establish the music hall as a product of the new urban population. After delivering a brief history of its evolution I will try to portray the great success it attained. Finally, I will analyse one of the popular entertainment forms it offered in order to understand the values it represented and how it reflected and shaped the cultural trends.