In chapter 5 the Historical Roots of Consumer Culture it deals with mainly the intro to manufacturing and the history of consumer goods. The main manufacturing company in the late 1800’s was the Quaker Oats company. They were the first huge business to start manufacturing, selling, distributing, and advertising their product. During this time agencies started buying up yearly advertising spaces in newspapers and would eventually sell these spaces to companies to advertise their product. Shortly after this time period is when fashion became more prominent and name brands became more important to the buying customers.
Furthermore, when first opening a business the chapter also discusses how it is more important to getting to know your customer rather than selling your products. The more you get to know your customer the more they will want to buy off of you in the future. It just so happened that during this time (early 1900’s) the main consumer of all products were females. For this reason the advertising industry started focusing their marketing schemes towards women.
