Cohen’s research focuses on how buyers, specifically the working-class, find and react to mass-produced goods. Her argument is that though people share the experience, they do not always have similar reactions (13). Her dominant focus is on Chicago because it had the most records available for the 1920s and 1930s time frame. She offered an example on how people still shopped at local grocers rather than chain markets that sold mass-produced, name-brand goods (11). Also, how people saw the same movie but had different reactions to particular scenes (13). Key vocabulary from include mass culture, mass consumption, and “nationality hour.”
Methods of research that Cohen utilizes are literary criticism and history. She looks at the newspapers of various ethnic groups, listens to the stories of people who lived during that era. She also uses sociology to further her research and understanding by studying the overall way of life of working-class civilians.
Sources used in the article were both primary and secondary. In the paper, Cohen includes charts and graphs that depict the economy and the amount of available goods in Chicago at the time. She also references first-hand accounts to make the argument more reliable.
I thought the overall argument was interesting and informative. Mass production and name-brand items are huge in today’s industry and it is exciting to see where the industry got started. Since I and my family classify as the middle-class, seeing how people were affected by this economic change is intriguing. Questions for discussion I would pose are how are people in all economic classes affected by the industry, as it is larger than ever before?
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