Consumerism In The 19th Century

The rise of capitalism, consumerism, and growth of cities are three factors to what has caused a disturbance on the seemingly structured social class that almost seemed set for people to follow. It allowed people to work their way up the social ladder and get out of their current situation. In my opinion, the different points discussed were focused toward gaining control over a certain group. The members of the upper class felt the need to suppress the possibilities of the working class ever moving the social ladder and, in return, attempted to develop ways of taking back the control that they felt was necessary to keep the social class as organized and structured as possible.
Presentation of identity had been a very important aspect amongst

Consumerism eventually led to an era of industrialization in America. Innovative ideas were created during this time; more people began producing items for sale instead of producing them for the purpose of personal use. People had liked this idea of earning money from self-made produce in order to purchase items of their own interests. Eventually, people had begun to work harder towards ways they can better their lives. One of their main hopes was to be able to move up the social ladder. Making the effort to go beyond social classes than ones previously raised in had become the norm. In other words, no one wanted to stay in a single class, even if they had originated from it. This situation is an example in itself of the clash between social classes. Aristocrats had felt threatened as the working class had begun to slowly gain attention for their work and progress with their produce. This is what made a distinction between social classes even more clear. It became clear that the working class were slowly emerging into the social hierarchy, which made it hard for the members of the traditional aristocrats hard to accept this

Large numbers of people had left their farms to work and live in cities. Urbanization is also facilitated by improvements in surplus agriculture, as cities are always dependent upon external farming for food. The United States and most European nations began to urbanize heavily in the 19th century. Although there were class distinctions, those in the lower classes had worked hard to move up, hence the reason people had left to the cities in hope to find more success and contribute to the larger innovation of the urban society. Even those outside of US territory also aimed to find success in the cities. In the middle half of the nineteenth century, more than one-half of the population of Ireland emigrated to the United States as well as Germans. Most of them had traveled to the US due to civil unrest, severe unemployment or almost inconceivable hardships at home. This wave of immigration affected almost every city and almost every person in America. This had caused the population boom in major cities such as New York. Urban populations interact with their environment. Urban people change their environment through their consumption of food, energy, water, and land. And in turn, the polluted urban environment affects the health and quality of life of the urban