The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850–1914

Abstract

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Advertising, Commercial Spaces and the Urban

“…And in the nineteenth century, outdoor advertising became a significant factor in creating a public space built around words and images (Henkin 1998). With the development of new printing technologies in the nineteenth century, advertising posters could be mass-produced at little cost, and by 1885, 522 billposter firms were operating in 447 British towns (Fraser 1981).…”

“…Advertising posters covered much of the available space in cities and new posters were pasted directly over the old ones creating a thick layer of peeling adverts on the sides of buildings (Fraser 1981). Indeed, outdoor urban advertising was a site for developing new promotional techniques for the industry as a whole, with London and Paris seen as the models for advertising innovation (Haas 2000).…”

“…Nineteenth-century English cities were nightly replastered in advertising posters by 'external paper hangers', and the streets thronged with 'sandwich-men' carrying advertising boards and people distributing handbills (Elliott 1962: Fraser 1981Nevett 1982;Wischermann and Shore 2000). Advertisers exploited cities' densities as efficient means of communicating with large numbers of people but also enlisted mobile means of circulating their advertising 'puffs'.…”

“…This was directed primarily at its perceived effects on public morality and decency, and on the impact outdoor advertising was having upon the aesthetics of the countryside and cities. In 1893, the National Society for Checking Abuses of Public Advertising (SCAPA) was set up to attempt to curb the impact of advertising on such spaces (Fraser 1981) to the derision of the United Bill Posters Association which described it as the 'Society of Busybodies' (Turner 1965: 107). Mobile forms of advertising were seen as particularly invidious as they encroached on public space in all manner of ways.…”

Business, Liberalism and Dissent in Norwich 1900–19301

“…In the second half of the nineteenth century the new, town-dwelling industrial working-class began to demand more thanjust the basics of existence, and industries emerged to satisfy this demand. 7 In Norwich, factories developed in the high class and children's footwear market, food processing, especially Colman's Mustard, ready-made clothing, printing and publishing, and all the trades associated with the construction sector, especially builders' merchants. 8 As all these industries depended on the increased purchasing power generated by cheap food, their leaders were staunchly free trade and remained so until the 1930s.…”