Shopping Malls
The Mauling of America
Malls are the central institution of our modern consumer culture. Although
the roots of consumerism go back to the period between 1880
and 1920, when industrialization pulled labor off the farm into the
factory, department stores were invented, and advertising emerged.
Today's consumerism at malls is as far ahead of those modest origins as
the internet is ahead of newspapers. (For further reading see: Simon
J. Bronner, edited, Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of
Goods in America, 1880-1920, New York, 1989; and William
Leach, Land Of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American
Culture, New York, 1993.)
