Tea at Trianon: A Look At The Great Depression Through The Sears Catalog

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, June 21, 2020

A Look At The Great Depression Through The Sears Catalog

From Zero Hedge:

Takeaway: put aside the obvious cyclicality of categories like household durable goods, and the 1930s technological disruption of mass electrification is the other notable if hidden force behind these page category variations. During the decade of the 1930s the percent of American households with electricity went from barely half (58%) to a large majority (80%). That not only explains the 62% increase in home appliance page count, but also the first category, which includes fabric. Electric sewing machines dramatically decreased the time required to make one’s own garments. The Greatest Generation was famously parsimonious, but they still adopted new technologies just as we do today.

#3: As far as how prices changed from 1932 to 1938, let’s look at the apparel featured in each catalog:

Here are women’s day wear dresses, from the first page of each catalog’s selection. Note that every dress in 1938 has an elaborate story around it while 1932 offers more affordable options and less flowery descriptions: (Read more.)