Young men's consumption, especially that of students at Oxford, has not received much attention from scholars although they participated fully in the economic life of the University town by becoming customers, indeed often compulsive shoppers, as numerous Chancellor's Court and bankruptcy court cases suggest. My thesis provides a window onto male students' consumer culture and indebtedness, especially their link to the 'credit system'. 'Conspicuous consumption' and overspending was a marker of undergraduate culture which had two dialectical dynamics: students tried to position themselves in their community by displaying the signs and habits of the elite; and, simultaneously they went through a process of individualization, expressing particular tastes and their own extravagance. These processes reflect how students learnt their future roles as rulers by managing their private interests and public image, but also by developing a consumer experience, a majority of them becoming prudent economic agents. This dissertation explores consumption from both an individual and collective perspective. In particular it examines juvenile agency, going beyond the clichés of the 'great masculine renunciation' and the idea of prominent female shopping, reconstructing the different paths undertaken by young men, from their first steps into consumption, to consumption routine. It builds on diverse disciplines including social and economic history, retailing and advertising, education, law and gender studies to tackle a gap in the history of consumption, capitalism and trade in Oxford. Between 1830 and 1880, student consumerism was intertwined with the university reforms and the rise of competition between tradesmen. This study assesses education costs and budget constraints; commercial practices such as 'touting freshmen'; students' social background and insolvency; the use of long-term credit as a tool to drive consumption; and the formation of male identities through the purchase and display of different goods.

This dissertation deals with consumption in Swedish households between 1913 and 2001. More specifically, it asks whose resources matter most in determining consumption patterns. As a second question, the dissertation also attempts to establish whether the fact that simple covariance between a spouse’s background variables implies that the spouse has any influence at all over the household’s consumption decisions. The theoretical background is mostly drawn from literature regarding intra-household allocations: on the one hand cooperative game theory and on the other hand sociological theory. Cooperative game theory establishes influence, say or power within the household as a function of the marriage’s or cohabitation’s alternative cost, i.e., the difference between the utility level for a married or cohabiting person as opposed to a single person. Sociological theory considers the contribution one makes to the total level of utility in the household, whether in the form of monetary income, household work or as something else. This is in part conceptualized as a difference between exit and voice. The dissertation’s statistical analysis uses three surveys of household expenditure conducted in 1913, 1952 and 1999-2001. They give us an excellent picture of what they actually purchased during that year. The sample sizes are 552, 596 and 3,501, respectively. The dissertation’s main result is that human capital is a previously underestimated determinant of influence in consumption decisions. As the female stock of human capital increases, so does her influence over the household’s consumption decisions. In an attempt to determine the level of democracy within households, the dissertation uses a complementary data source: a questionnaire called “The Swedish People 1955”. Here, one of the questions directed to females was whether they checked with their husbands before deciding on a purchase, as a measure of intra-household democracy. This was then regressed upon the female share of total income, ideological position and two forms of human capital, one general and one for household work. Both forms of human capital lead to democratic households, which is taken to mean that human capital is important not only because it increases labor opportunities in the event of divorce (exit) but also because it increases female voice.

This thesis explores the social changes in Budweis in the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century from a perspective of local beer brewing and hospitality industry. The principles of economic nationalism are examined on the example of interactions of two local breweries. The second part of this thesis focuses on inns and taprooms in Budweis. These are presented as important locations for social life and consumption. A typology of these establishments is prepared based on multiple factors. The mutual relations between establishments and beer suppliers are also investigated. The locations of both breweries' clients is compared with the local population's character in order to investigate to what degree did nationality determine the preference of a given beer brand. Finally, two case studies present the "dark side" of the hospitality industry and they suggest that nationality was not the main influence on the consumers' relation to a given brand or establishment. Key words: Budweis, brewery, beer brewing, public houses and taprooms, nationalism, economic nationalism, history of consumption

[pt] Esta tese busca analisar articulações entre consumo, comunicação e movimento das mulheres no Brasil oitocentista. Particularmente, na forma de diferentes dinâmicas de consumo presente em periódicos que lutavam pela emancipação feminina no final do século XIX. Para tanto, esta pesquisa, de caráter bibliográfico e documental, recorreu mais a fontes primárias e secundárias. No âmbito teórico, refletimos, em um primeiro momento, sobre a trajetória do consumo dentro das ciências sociais e humanas, e a concepção do mesmo enquanto sistema simbólico essencial para a manutenção do capitalismo e da sociedade moderno-contemporânea. Em seguida, nos debruçamos nos estudos sobre as mulheres, com um foco especial no pensamento sobre a condição e o papel da mulher na sociedade ocidental. Dessa forma, começamos com a querelle des femmes, no final do século XV, e avançamos em direção às discussões mais recentes, pautadas por questões identitárias e anticolonialistas. Depois, nossa atenção se desloca para a história e transformação do periodismo brasileiro durante os anos 1800, em que o meio se apresenta como uma plataforma para debates e contestações políticas. Atenção especial é dispensada ao período conhecido como Belle Époque Tropical (1870-1920), que entrevê mudanças significativas na sociedade brasileira da época. Dentre elas, a emergência de um número considerável de periódicos femininos dedicados à defesa da emancipação das mulheres. Com uma base teórica e histórica sólida, apresentamos, analisamos e comparamos, enfim, o corpus desta pesquisa, recolhido a partir de oito periódicos diferentes que circularam entre os anos de 1852 e 1900, no Brasil. Eis, pois, que, o consumo não é só uma forma de satisfazer necessidades físicas ou biológicas dos seres humanos, mas, sim, um sistema simbólico complexo, é possível arguir que a existência de diversas dinâmicas de consumo associadas ao periodismo feminino no final do século XIX aponta para a existência de um movimento, com contornos feministas, que buscava estabelecer-se de maneira mais concreta no cenário nacional ainda que com mais dificuldades do que suas contrapartes estadunidenses e europeias. O movimento das mulheres no Brasil, como outros movimentos antes dele no Velho Continente, emerge de maneira desconexa, mas é de grande relevância. Dentro da esfera do consumo, desenvolvem-se relações comerciais e de troca que possibilitam entrever um emaranhado de conexões significantes entre proprietárias, editoras e redatoras de jornal com ambições sociopolítico potentes e diversos estabelecimentos comerciais, indivíduos influentes ou diferentes profissionais. / [en] This dissertation seeks to analyze the connections between consumption, communication, and women s movements in nineteenth-century Brazil. Particularly, it focuses on the different dynamics of consumption present in periodicals that fought for women s emancipation in the late 1800s. Therefore, this research, bibliographical and documental in nature, relies heavily on primary and secondary sources. Theoretical considerations begin with the trajectory of consumption within the social sciences and humanities and its conception as a symbolic system essential to the maintenance of capitalism and modern-contemporary society. The studies on women are examined next, with a special focus on the condition and role of women in Western society. The analysis begins with the querelle des femmes in the late fifteenth century and advances towards more recent discussions, about identity and anticolonial issues. Then, the focus turns to the history and transformation of Brazilian press during the 1800s, when the medium served as a platform for political debates and challenges. The period known as the Tropical Belle Époque (1870-1920), which witnessed significant changes in Brazilian society at the time, including, but not restricted to, the emergence of a considerable number of women s periodicals dedicated to the defense of women s emancipation. With a solid theoretical and historical foundation, the research corpus, collected from eight different papers that circulated between 1852 and 1900 in Brazil, is presented, analyzed, and compared. Hence, consumption is not only a way to satisfy physical or biological needs but a complex symbolic system. It is argued that the existence of different consumption dynamics associated with women s journalism in the late nineteenth century indicates the existence of a feminist movement that sought to establish itself more concretely on the national scene, albeit with more difficulties than its American and European counterparts. The women s movement in Brazil, like others before it in the Old Continent, might have emerged in a disconnected manner but is of great relevance. Within the sphere of consumption, commercial relationships are developed, which allows for significant connections between owners, editors, and newspaper writers with powerful sociopolitical ambitions and various commercial establishments, influential individuals, or different professionals.