1890s: A Decade of Desire

For some, the 1890s were bountiful. New discoveries and inventions made over the century promised improved health and higher standards of living. Driven by new sources of wealth, technologies and markets, a consumer society flourished at the end of the century. The first department stores were founded in Derry, North Ireland, Paris and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 1830s. By the end of the century they had grown so large that they spawned a distinct building type, cynically called “cathedrals of capitalism.” World’s fairs, begun in London in 1851 and held almost every year in cities throughout
Europe and North America, celebrated innovation and industry. Mass production, consumption and transportation were bound together by mass marketing.

Posters had long been used to sell a merchant’s wares or services, but in the 1890s the medium was elevated to an art form. Inspired by the bold patterns and colors of Japanese prints, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Chéret created lively, eye-catching designs admired as much for their aesthetics as for their selling power. Chéret capitalized on the burgeoning desire to possess, republishing limited editions of his and his colleagues’ posters in "Les maîtres de l’affiche" [The Masters of the Poster] on a subscription basis, turning the lowly advertisement into a collectible. The impulse to accumulate not only things but experiences expanded to the entertainment industry – café concerts, theaters, fairs – giving rise to the modern notion of celebrity.
Conspicuous consumption fostered a backlash against materialism. In the second of this two-part series, 1890s: A Decade of Dissent, we will examine the flipside of the beautiful life.