Consumers and Advertising in the Victorian Era

Study Guide and Activities

Objective

Victorian Era middle-class women are the great grandmothers of the consumer culture. They spent much of their time and money buying the inexpensive merchandise rolling off production lines; goods necessary to create a proper middle class life. The way those goods were advertised and sold changed dramatically during the Victorian Era and examining how this change occurred allows a better understanding of how shopping and advertising intersected to create new opportunities for women to interact with commerce. Using mourning goods as a case study creates an opportunity to closely examine the ways advertising targeted women and pushed them toward a new kind of consumerism during the Victorian Era. This forever altered the way shopping was done and the ways women viewed their place in society.

Grades10-12

MaterialsHandouts and website

Procedure

1. Bring in womens and mens magazines and/or commercials to share with the class. Have the class talk about modern advertising strategies and techniques. Bring in womens and mens magazines and video commercials. Discuss what goods the students or their families have purchased. Were the advertising campaigns for those items successful? Ask them how items are sold to them (endorsements, sexy models, lifestyle) and how it makes them feel to want items they cant afford or a lifestyle they cant live.

2. Explain to students that industrialization was a period of time when social and economic changes moved people from farming to industrial societies. It takes place when large scale manufacturing replaces handmade goods and generally occurs due to technological advances. Industrialization in the Victorian Era created a middle class that loved to buy the inexpensive goods being made in factories. This consumer driven society and the role of middle-class women changed as cheap, mass-produced goods became readily available. Goods were linked to respectability, and having the right kind of items was necessary to maintain social status. The Victorian middle class valued presentation above substance and merchants created an atmosphere that linked conforming to consumer spending. As the use of advertisements that targeted women specifically increased, middle-class women realized that they had the power of choice. This allowed them to create their own way to engage in commerce and business responded by offering women a pleasant, safe, and comfortable shopping experience. Discuss the changes in advertising that occurred from 1860 to 1900. Have students review Handout 1. Encourage students to point out the changes that occurred over time that they see in the advertisements that occurred over time. Does the increase in use of these kinds of ads indicate that these were successful attempts at selling?

3. Introduce the massive changes that occurred during the Victorian Era and caused many middle-class Londoners to feel as if the world they knew was gone. The looked to Queen Victoria to alleviate some of their uneasiness because the Queen stood for respectability and security in a world that often had little of either. Her presence in the lives of the middle class created the idea that there was an intimate and personal connection. When she lost her husband unexpectedly in 1861, her subjects felt the blow as if they had lost a family member, and they mourned with her. Prince Alberts death created a wound in the heart of the Queen from which she never fully recovered. Middle-class woman followed her example and practiced elaborate and complicated mourning rituals, which almost always necessitated a trip to the local mourning emporium. Discuss the importance of mourning in the Victorian Era and how merchants capitalized on the absolute necessity of procuring mourning goods and services. Jays Mourning Emporium and Peter Robinsons House of Mourning were two of the biggest sellers of mourning, and examining their ads gives a clear picture of how selling strategies increased in the years between 1860 and 1900. Hair work jewelry and post mortem photographs were especially important to mourners during this time because of the link they created between the living and the dead. Discuss how merchants capitalized on the social and sentimental need of Victorian middle class women to purchase mourning goods. Talk about who they think is being targeted in each ad and why.

4. Explain the ways advertisements changed the way goods were sold during the Victorian Era. As merchants realized middle-class women had money to spend on goods they began to create a shopping experience with women in mind. This change evolved into the modern department store. This new way of doing business showcased goods using elegant displays, great customer service, and clearly marked merchandise. The addition of restaurants and bathrooms and cash-only policies made it easy for middle-class women to buy goods. As merchants successfully pushed women into commerce, women began to want more retail options. Talk about the rise of the department store and how small, dark, cramped stores were replaced with well lit, open stores that offered everything a respectable middle-class housewife needed. Talk about the success of department stores and how it rose out of womens desire for a convenient and safe shopping experience.

Learning Experience ActivitiesTeachers can pick one or two

Activity 1--Break students into small groups of four or five and have them design an advertisement that could have been published during the Victorian Era. They can sell any product they wish. Remind them they are trying to get a person from the Victorian middle class to buy their goods. Have them discuss how todays ads are similar and different from ads then. Have them explain discuss why they chose the design of the advertisement they created. Ask them what consumer they targeted their ad toward and did they use any idealized consumers to sell their goods.

Activity 2Have each student design a small piece of jewelry and a type of hair work to accompany it. They should remember that this is meant to memorialize a lost loved one and this is how the Victorians ordered such items, by looking through a catalogue of jewelry pieces and hair work designs. Samples of this type of jewelry are listed in Handout 2. Discuss how choosing this piece made them feel, what they think about this type of relic, and how they think the Victorians regarded such items. Discuss the different ways that cultures mourn today. How do we remember our dead and how does that differ from the way the Victorians remembered?

Activity 3Read Handout 3, On the Etiquette of Mourning. The author makes a point of telling women to limit their mourning spending, but do you think that she really meant this? Why or why not? What ways did advertising create a need for women to participate in the purchase of mourning goods in spite of the calls for less spending? What part of this article do you think would be the most important to a Victorian Era middle-class women? What mourning rituals seem strange or excessive for then and now?

Activity 4Read Handout 4, Dressing as a Duty and an Art. Why was such an importance placed on the way women dressed and how did advertising in womens magazines create this importance? Do you see any class distinctions being made in this article? If so, why do you think such distinctions were important to the upwardly mobile young housewife? How does this article play into the fears many middle-class women had of not being seen as respectable? In what way do you think these type of articles were helpful to middle-class women and in what ways do you think they created unrealistic expectations?

Activity 5Read Handout 5, List of Mourning Clothing. This article is very specific about what a widow could wear. In what ways did advertising help to create the need for middle-class women to purchase these goods? There were organizations during the Victorian Era who wanted to limit some of the excesses related to mourning rules. Review this article and discuss the ways that these organizations were successful or not. Talk about the ways you think media played a part in creating pressure for middle-class women to participate in expensive mourning customs during the Victorian Era?

Activity 6Read Handout #6, A Conversation on Mourning and Etiquette. In what ways do you think this is a realistic portrayal of middle-class womens fear of breaking rules? How much do you think advertising impacted the decisions regarding purchases these two women made? How big a role do you think Queen Victoria played in enforcing mourning rituals?

Activity 7--Have students discuss different ways to share information. They can add onto the existing script or create their own conversation on mourning and commerce and then film their vision to post on the internet.

Discussion Questions

1. Remembrance pieces were important to the Victorians. What ways do you remember someone that is no longer present in your life?

2. The activities of Queen Victoria were very important to many middle-class women. How does this display in the advertisements of the time? Where do you see this influence and how do merchants use her to sell goods? Is this similar to how modern advertisements are presented?

3. Why were department stores so successful? What did they offer female shoppers that increased the likelihood of their success?

4. Creating a piece of jewelry to hold and display the hair of a dead loved one was very common in the Victorian Era. Do you think advertising played a role in the way this kind of jewelry was viewed by the middle class? How much did advertising affect the need to cre