The principal purpose of this essay is to research how the development of needlework education interacts and interconnects with consumption patterns. Iceland has been used as a case for this study but any country would be applicable. The point of departure is the assumption that when a society develops more and more into being a consumer society, the needlework education also will change – in drastic forms. And that tracing a development towards consumerism can be traced in the curricula regarding this specific subject. People’s changing attitude towards spending, wasting, and an extravagant living is an important feature which explains the shift between non-consumer societies to a consumer society. Society’s outlook on these features is best reflected by that policy the institutions society uses to form its citizens’ desirable (consumer) behavior. In understanding the development from a non-consumerist society to a consumer society the study on the Icelandic syllabi for needlework and textile education plays a prominent part. A presentation on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period of time in question has also been used in order to see the general increase of the standard of living and rise of consumerism in Iceland. Also numbers on trade and unemployment have been enclosed in order to give a more telling picture of the development and the results. The spatial imprint of the development of the Icelandic educational system and the development of syllabi for the textile handicraft subject show that an established consumer society firstly can be found in Iceland somewhere between 1960 and 1977, thus slightly ensuing the most immediate period after the World War II. A society that educates its young ones to darn, mend, and knit with the explicit motive to help deprived homes and states that this is a necessary virtue for future housewives cannot rightly be called a consumer society. It is also worth mentioning that the subject was after this breakthrough also available for boys. Furthermore, this seems to coincide with the so called “haftatímanum”, the restriction era, which lasted from 1930 to 1960. During this time the Icelandic government controlled the market having an especially harsh policy on the import of consumer goods, with product rationing as a result. Both of these two matters - the syllabi for the textile handicraft subject and the haftatímanum - had an anaesthetized impact on the development of the Icelandic consumer society.

This dissertation seeks to explore the wide reaching effects of the ‘Consumer Revolution of the Augustan Period’ (1680-1750) by examining the Hudson’s Bay Company from the perspective of the London metropole. During this period, newly imported and manufactured goods began flooding English markets. For the first time, members of the middling and lower sorts were able to afford those items which had previously been deemed ‘luxuries.’ One of these luxuries was the beaver felt hat, which had previously been restricted to the wealthy aristocracy and gentry because of its great cost. However, because of the HBC’s exports of beaver fur from Rupert’s Land making beaver widely available and therefore, less expensive, those outside of the privileged upper sorts were finally able to enjoy this commodity. Thus, the focus here will be on the furs leaving North America, specifically Hudson’s Bay, between 1670 and 1730, and consider the subsequent consumption of those furs by the British and European markets. This thesis examines English fashion, social, economic, and political history to understand the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Consumer Revolution, and their effects on one another.

This dissertation seeks to explore the wide reaching effects of the ‘Consumer Revolution of the Augustan Period’ (1680-1750) by examining the Hudson’s Bay Company from the perspective of the London metropole. During this period, newly imported and manufactured goods began flooding English markets. For the first time, members of the middling and lower sorts were able to afford those items which had previously been deemed ‘luxuries.’ One of these luxuries was the beaver felt hat, which had previously been restricted to the wealthy aristocracy and gentry because of its great cost. However, because of the HBC’s exports of beaver fur from Rupert’s Land making beaver widely available and therefore, less expensive, those outside of the privileged upper sorts were finally able to enjoy this commodity. Thus, the focus here will be on the furs leaving North America, specifically Hudson’s Bay, between 1670 and 1730, and consider the subsequent consumption of those furs by the British and European markets. This thesis examines English fashion, social, economic, and political history to understand the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Consumer Revolution, and their effects on one another.

This paper examines the painter Peh Hilleström (1732–1816) as a participant in the eighteenth century, Stockholm art market, according to the model used by Michael Baxandall in his study of Italian Renaissance art. The art market of the eighteenth century was expanding and included new groups of buyers, outside traditional patrons of art as court and aristocracy. The main purpose of the paper is to find these new art consumers. I use probate inventories from Stockholm, from the years 1735, 1775, 1795, and 1815, in which I search for annotations of paintings. The results are examined from an economic perspective, based on wealth, and a social, based on occupation and titles. Examining these four years I find a rather extensive, bourgeois, market for art, including the less well of households, and fairly independent of social status. The sources give few if any, details of the paintings listed. Hence it is not possible to connect any of the annotations in the probate inventories to Hilleström, since artists’ names are never mentioned. From some of the clues given, there is nevertheless, possible to reconstruct the outlines of what an art collection might have looked like. The wide scope of Hillestöm’s production, illustrated by the artist’s own list of his paintings, might be interpreted as a way to cater for this new market, illustrated by e.g. the frequent repetition of motives. Finally, I examine a few of Hilleström’s own paintings in the light of the previous investigation. Together the sources give a picture of a – fairly widespread – ideal of interior decoration, in which paintings are an important part.