Think the age of consumerism is something new? No way! Consumerism is as old as the colonies.
The lifestyle differences between people who lived during the Middle Ages and those who lived in Colonial America are almost unimaginable. Both were tough environments by today’s standards, lacking most modern amenities and comforts. If you could use a time machine to transport yourself back, it probably wouldn’t take long for you to transport yourself back to today.
Standard of living did improve a lot during the Colonial Era, however. Before the American Revolution in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, myriad factors combined to make new consumer goods available to the mass population—some call this period the “Consumer Revolution.” With rising incomes in the colonies came rising expectations. As society became nimbler, social rank was determined by more than just houses, land, and livestock. The colonialists had access to personal care products and foods never dreamed of before.
In many ways, this period gave birth to the Consumer Staples industry we recognize today as new standards related to consumer necessities emerged in response to an improving economy.