workers who previously were not earning an income.
In the "Working" chapter of Victorian America, we learn that the United States underwent significant changes during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Women and children entered the work force in large numbers as the political power and economic force of the independent farmer began to decline ("Working" 35). It was possible for these relatively unskilled and often uneducated workers to enter the workforce because of the standardization that the Industrial Revolution brought to the workplace. No longer were items produced by single craftsmen who worked years to acquire the skills necessary to make their goods; instead, a single machine could be operated by an unskilled individual with confidence on the owner's part that each part stamped out by the machine would be identical to the previous one.
However, the fact that the country was now capable of producing goods faster and more efficiently than in the past did not mean that there was an immediate market for those goods. After all, if consumers were working 12-hour days for only substandard wages (even if those wages represented an increase over what they might have made in an agricultural setting), they would have no leisure time in which to purchase or use the new goods which they helped to manufacture.
This issue of creating a culture where consumerism is viewed as a positive factor is introduced and explored by
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