The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer

by Daniel Thomas Cook

In this revealing social history, Daniel Thomas Cook explores the roots of children’s consumer culture—and the commodification of childhood itself—by looking at the rise, growth, and segmentation of the children’s clothing industry. Cook describes how in the early twentieth century merchants, manufacturers, and advertisers of children’s clothing began to aim commercial messages at the child rather than the mother. Cook situates this fundamental shift in perspective within the broader transformation of the child into a legitimate, individualized, self-contained consumer. The Commodification of Childhood begins with the publication of the children’s wear industry’s first trade journal, The Infants’ Department, in 1917 and extends into the early 1960s, by which time the changes Cook chronicles were largely complete. Analyzing trade journals and other documentary sources, Cook shows how the industry created a market by developing and promulgating new understandings of the “nature,” needs, and motivations of the child consumer. He discusses various ways that discursive constructions of the consuming child were made in the creation of separate children’s clothing departments, in their segmentation and layout by age and gender gradations (such as infant, toddler, boys, girls, tweens, and teens), in merchants’ treatment of children as individuals on the retail floor, and in displays designed to appeal directly to children. Ultimately, The Commodification of Childhood provides a compelling argument that any consideration of “the child” must necessarily take into account how childhood came to be understood through, and structured by, a market idiom.

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long and arduous read. Discursive this and that...here's what I got from it:

Cook coined the term “pediocularity” to describe the ability of early twentieth century marketers to see the world through a child’s eyes, as “once the child’s perspective was acknowledged, it was but a small step…in creating products…to appeal to it.” Pediocularity has its origins in the early twentieth century when advertisers tried to reel in mom, a new potential customer identified in part because of her access to disposable cash and to the decline of house servants. Advertisers hawked pre-made children’s clothes to these overworked middle-class mothers. Consequently, we see the development and use of age distinctive terms such as toddler, girl, and even adolescent. By the 1930s, advertisers bypass parents and target children in their own right. As a result, in this period in America, the child, in all of his/her phases, became a target for consumption. In addition, because they are targeted as consumers, Americans start to see their children in a new light. A child becomes, “a person with self-knowledge, desire, and growing social right to express that desire.” Parents start to cave in to child demands with alarming regularity because, as Cook suggested, parents begin to see their children as individuals with the right to buy and own property. This is a view that remains to this day.

P.S. I'm not saying that he didn't raise good questions, he did...it's just that the book was difficult to understand.

[Heather Clitheroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on the development of the view of the child consumer, though I think Cook could have expanded more on the marketing of youth culture from the 80s on instead of focusing so heavily on the early 20th century. Still - very helpful; read it for research I'm doing for grad school on YA fiction.

[Erendira · Rating 4 out of 5]

VCL acq - 3/29/10

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HQ 792.U5 C673 2004