Workers Go Shopping in Argentina : The Rise of Popular Consumer Culture

In 1951 an Argentine newspaper announced that the standard of living of workers in Argentina was "the highest in the world." More than half a century later, Argentines still look back to the mid-twentieth century as the "golden years of Peronism," a time when working people, who had struggled to make ends meet a few years earlier, could now buy ready-made clothing, radios, and even big-ticket items like refrigerators. Milanesio explores this period marked by populist politics, industrialization, and a fairer distribution of the national income by analyzing the relations among consumers, consumer goods, manufacturers, advertising agents, and Juan Domingo Perón's government (1946-1955). Combining theories from the anthropology of consumption, cultural studies, and gender studies with the methodologies of social, cultural, and oral histories, Milanesio shows the exceptional cultural and social visibility of low-income consumers in postwar Argentina along with their unprecedented economic and political influence. Her study reveals the scope of the remarkable transformations fueled by the new market by examining the language and aesthetics of advertisement, the rise of middle- and upper-class anxieties, and the profound changes in gender expectations. Front Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 14 1: Industry, Wages, and the State: The Rise of Popular Consumer Culture 29 2: Surveys and Campaigns: Discovering and Reaching the Worker-Consumer 64 3: Commercial Culture Becomes Popular: Advertising and the Challenges of a Changing Market 96 4: “How Can a Garbage Collector Be on the Same Level as We Are?”: Upper- and Middle-Class Anxieties over Working-Class Consumers 136 5: Love in the Time of Mass Consumption 171 6: Tales of Consumers: Memory and Working-Class Material Culture 203 Epilogue: Consumer Culture Today 233 Notes 246 Selected Bibliography 290 Index 308 Back Cover 321 "Dr. Milanesio examines the ways mass consumption transformed Argentina in the twentieth century in a comprehensive analysis of the relations between consumers, goods, manufacturers, advertisers, and the state during Juan Perón's reign. She examines the social and political changes that occurred when the general population became consumers of industrial goods and participants in consumption"--Provided by publisher. "Dr. Milanesio examines the ways mass consumption transformed Argentina in the twentieth century in a comprehensive analysis of the relations between consumers, goods, manufacturers, advertisers, and the state during Juan Peron's reign. She examines the social and political changes that occurred when the general population became consumers of industrial goods and participants in consumption"--Del editor