Consumer historian Anaïs Albert studied the behavior of the working classes in Paris in the 19th century.e century. The moral judgment made at that time on the consumption of the poorest remains very current. Maintenance.
Consumer credit, advertising, we get the impression that contemporary consumption patterns were invented in the 19th century.e century to Paris. It’s the case ?
There was a real invention in Paris between 1880 until the 1920s, with a reorganization of consumption extended to the popular classes. In order for people who have little money to spend, it is necessary on the one hand to give them the economic means, through consumer credit and on the other hand, to make them want to use advertising. Credit existed before: at the grocer, the baker, popular consumption is almost always done on credit. But what the popular department stores are doing is scaling up and instituting reimbursement control procedures that were much less common before.
What do these popular department stores look like?
The department stores in central Paris are very well known: Le Bon Marché, la Samaritaine… Very bourgeois, they were established in the 1860s but did not go down very socially. In Paris in the 1880s, the department stores adapted their business methods and moved further afield to get closer to the working classes.
What are these department stores?
The best known, Georges Dufayel, is in Barbès, just next to the Goutte d’Or, this district described at the same time by Zola in L’Assommoir, as the place of alcoholism, misery, the urban proletariat of the end of the XIXe. Georges Dufayel settled there and really made a department store, that is to say a luxurious, magnificent place, with very daring architecture, a large tower that rises to the level of the Butte Montmartre, a lighthouse that illuminates 10 km around and that can be seen all over Paris… A luxury place, but for the working classes and in Barbès.
Are they also “credit houses”?
These department stores, on the commercial side, architecture, advertising, are inspired by those in the center of Paris. The real difference is that they give credit. However, credit in the XIXe century, it is a social marker. In the bourgeoisie, we do not buy on credit because “we do honor to our business”, it is morally very frowned upon. These popular department stores are developing this credit system to give the working classes access to all these goods.
When it comes to the consumption of the popular classes, you say that “morality often takes the form of a screen”. That is to say ?
When I entered this field of research, I only read books that explained to me how badly the lower classes consumed. They are very often read through the prism of morality. Either the poor do not consume enough, it is a sign of their misery and they do not feed national growth. But if they consume too much, it is also very serious because they are threatened with a thousand and one risks.
What are these risks?
In the XIXe, it is generally alcoholism for men and over-indebtedness for women. And how will they repay: by prostituting themselves. Therefore, the consumption of the poor would lead either to alcoholism for men or to prostitution for women. And above all, these popular classes are considered naive, having no expertise on their own consumption and totally subject to the messages of advertising: they are shown an object, they buy it without thinking in terms of budget.
Does moral judgment on consumption still exist?
Much has changed between the XIXe and today, but what is astonishingly long-lasting, are these speeches of stigmatization of popular consumption. The latest example is Jean-Michel Blanquer on the working classes who buy flat screens with the back-to-school allowance. The fact that the statement is false is not the issue for me. What is interesting is what it shows of the stigma of the lower classes on two things: they buy useless, luxury items, where they should buy things needed for school. And not just any luxury item: television, which has been a very strong object of moral denunciation since the 1960s, with the idea that mass culture stupefies the popular classes. Second, they are stigmatized as bad parents. This quote therefore condenses this whole moral grid, both on the working classes and on consumption.
During the health crisis, there were also debates around so-called “essential” items and shops …
It’s a very interesting time for a consumer historian. It is considered that the popular classes have “the right” to consume what is necessary. On the other hand, it is important not that they consume luxury. This border between necessity and luxury is central in the way we morally read consumption. Everyone has a preconceived idea of what is needed, which is luxury. But when you want to go into detail, it becomes totally intangible. This is the case during World War I; At a time when it is necessary to guarantee social equality in the face of the war effort, the state decides to impose a tax on luxury goods. A list of products is made and people are outraged. Workers say: Why would a fishing rod be luxury? It can allow us to eat!
As during the Covid crisis?
Exactly, this is what we found when it was necessary, in supermarkets, to close so-called “non-essential” shelves. The originally planned list has undergone a lot of rewriting because in fact it is very difficult. We see gender stereotypes appear: makeup was unnecessary but colors for dyeing hair were. All announced by a man over 60, the Prime Minister, Jean Castex. It was very interesting because we can see that it depends on the point of view of the observer.
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