Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture

Traces the rise of America's mass-market culture, from its beginnings in the 1890s to its present-day domination of American life. By the author of True Love and Perfect Union. 10,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.

From 1880 to 1930, life in the U.S. changed from a society dominated by the work ethic to one ruled by consumer capitalism. In this outstanding cultural history, Leach ( True Love and Perfect Union ) provides a carefully researched analysis of the interaction of power structures that cooperated to produce this transformation. Utilization of new advertising techniques and display artistry by retail merchants such as Philadelphian John Wanamaker created a commercial aesthetic that meshed with a new positivism in mainstream religion. These two trends, together with the emergence of commercial brokers both in and out of government, facilitated a commitment to consumerism as a cultural value that endures today. Leach argues that L. Frank Baum's childhood classic, The Wizard of Oz, and the Oz sequels, were imbued with positive thinking and the idea that possessing luxurious objects could bring happiness. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In an alternate history of modern American life from 1890 to 1927, Leach (History/Columbia; True Love and Perfect Union, 1980) offers an encompassing, learned, and fast-paced account of how entrepreneurs, manufacturers, bankers, clergymen, and government leaders produced a culture of consumers--as well as the rituals, morality, aesthetics, and institutions that identify the good with the goodies, acquisition with virtue. Innovative merchandising--initiated by the great department stores of the 1890's (Wanamaker's, Marshall Field, etc.) and extending in time to hotels, banks, public utilities, service industries, etc.--began with an excess of production: superfluous pianos, lamps, rugs, cheap jewelry, and food. To dispense with the surplus, merchant princes developed a technology of enticement, the arts of display--including posters, outdoor signs, light, color, glass, window trimming, packaging, catalogues, architecture, and, ultimately, an urban geography with entire shopping districts (epitomized in Manhattan in the showmanship of Times Square, the retail establishments of Fifth Avenue, the fashion and garment districts, and on Wall Street, the source of the financing). Beyond the visual were the rituals--holiday seasons, pageants, parades, children's culture--and the escalators and credit-granting through which department stores became democratized. Americans' getting and spending produced a standardization of taste and beauty, as well as colleges for business and design, fashion magazines, hotel chains, and intermediaries--brokers and agencies for everything from models to real estate. In 1932, Herbert Hoover's Department of Commerce and its imposing building in Washington made merchandising part of government--incarnating, as Leach sees it, the ethics and fantasies embodied in the Emerald City of The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum also wrote the definitive text on window trimming). Fascinating, detailed, and evangelical: a yellow brick road full of rare adventures, intriguing characters, and surprising vistas. (Twenty-four pages of photos--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.