CONSUMPTION IN OUR SOCIETY
First printing of this major work by the pioneering economist and economic anthropologist, compiler of the cost-of-living index that became the basis for the Consumer Price Index.
Very good.
Price: $750.00
CONSUMPTION IN OUR SOCIETY
"The starkness and directness of the machine appears in our music, our drama, our literature and the other forms of our art. Sentimentality slips out as the machine comes in."
Hoyt's Depression-era study of consumer habits and preferences, along with their reciprocal influence on competing manufacturers and marketers of goods and services, drew heavily from her anthropological background. The study earned praise for its objectivity and insight, as well as Hoyt's willingness to analyze the "more or less sacred" institution of the home as an economic unit in need of rational improvements: "Most of the consuming of the world is done through the agency of the household," and frequently driven by the women in it, yet dispassionate consideration of change to the family's economic functioning draws forth "the most violent antagonisms on the ground that decency is being challenged and the bulwarks of civilization are being swept away."
Together with Hazel Kyrk and Margaret Reid (acknowledged by Hoyt as the "godmother" of this book), Hoyt was a founder of the new field of home economics as the study of consumption. Hoyt is also notable for compiling the Cost of Living Index, direct precursor to the Consumer Price Index, between 1917 and 1921: "The government didn't seem disposed to do anything, so the person for whom I worked said, "We'll publish an index. You start it" (Hoyt, 1980 interview).
Read more: Parsons, "Pioneering Consumer Economist: Ellizabeth Ellis Hoyt (1893-1980)"; Le Tollec, "Home Economics as an Art of Improving Family Welfare: Creating a Rational Consumer, 1924-1945"; Becchio, A History of Feminist and Gender Economics.
The Object
First edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1938. 9.25'' x 6''. Original green cloth with gilt-lettered spine. 420, [2] pages. Previous owner's name in pen to front free endpaper. Light edgewear and scuffing to cloth, faint toning to spine. Trace marginal toning to interior, some underlining in red to a few chapters.
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