The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Chapter 3
Consumption and footwear
La vraie richesse d'un peuple consiste dans l'appropriation et consommation des
produits nécessaires a Ia satisfaction de ses besoins, et non dans l'encombrement et
l'accumulation dans lesfabriques et les magasins.
C.-L.-M. Bronet, Des prix réduits dans leur rapport proportionnel avec les salaires (1849).
3.1 Introduction
Recent developments in the historiography of the pre-industrial European
economy have underlined the importance of consumer demand as a key factor in
understanding the dynamics of change of urban productive systems. Studies by
Thirsk, McKendrick, Weatherill and Brewer and Porter have identified, in
different ways, a 'consumer revolution' in late-seventeenth and eighteenth-
century Britain.' Research has been focused on theoretical and archival studies
investigating the ways in which increasing quantities of goods changed the
material and social space of eighteenth century British and European society.2
These studies have discovered what de Vries has defined as a 'new consumerism
tempered by commerce' in which cities like London and Paris were not only
J. Thirsk, Economic policy and projects: the development of a consumer society in early
modern England (Oxford, 1978); N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J.H. Plumb, The birth of a
consumer society: the commercialisation of Eighteenth Century England (London, 1982); L.
Weatherill, Consumer behaviour and material Culture in Britain, 1660-1 760 (London, 1988); J.
Brewer and R. Porter, eds., Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993).
2 M. Douglas, The world of goods: towards an anthropology of consumption (London, 1978);
B. Lemire, 'Reflections on the character of consumerism, popular fashion and the English
market in the eighteenth century', Material History Bulletin, XXI (Spring 1990), pp. 65-70; L.
Weatherill, 'Consumer behaviour and social status in England', Continuity and Change, I - 2
(1986), pp. 191-206; D. Roche, The People of Paris. An essay in popular culture in the 18th
century (Lemington Spa, 1987); L. Weatherill, Consumer behaviour, cit.; C. Campbell, The
romantic ethic and the spirit of modern consumption (Oxford, 1989); B. Fine and E. Leopold,
'Consumerism and the industrial revolution', Social History, XV - 2 (1990), pp. 151-79; B.
Lemire, Fashion's favourite: the cotton trade and the consumerism in Britain, 1660-1800
(Oxford, 1991); J. Barry, 'Consumer passions: the middle class in eighteenth-century England',
Historical Journal, XXXIV - 1 (1991), pp. 206-16; N.B. Harte, ed., Fabrics and fashions.
Studies in the economic and social history of dress (London, 1991); M. Berg, 'Women's
consumption and industrial classes of eighteenth-century England', Journal of Social History,
XXX - 2 (1996), pp. 415-34; P.N. Stems, 'Stages of consumerism: recent work on the issues of
periodization', Journal of Modern History, LXIX - 1(1997), pp. 102-17.