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“Conspicuous Consumption”

“Conspicuous Consumption”. “The Gilded Age”. Title of a book by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner (1873). The term itself comes from William Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily... is wasteful and ridiculous excess."

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“Conspicuous Consumption”

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  1. “Conspicuous Consumption”

  2. “The Gilded Age” • Title of a book by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner (1873). • The term itself comes from William Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John: • “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily... is wasteful and ridiculous excess." • Today, historians use the term to refer to the last few decades of the 19th century. • The gap between rich and poor grew as the nation experienced the Second Industrial Revolution and its attendant social problems.

  3. Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) • Sociologist • Author of The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Economic Institutions (1899) • His argument is that societies evolve to a point where a ruling class is able to delegate mundane tasks to lower classes. • The term “conspicuous consumption” means that the wealthy individuals will purchase goods and services for the express purpose of displaying their wealth publicly.

  4. In the Hudson Valley… • The “Captains of Industry” (Robber Barons) looked up river for beautiful locations to build their castles. • At one point, John D. Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor IV, William Frederick Vanderbilt, and Jay Gould , some of the richest people in global history, called this valley their home.

  5. The Three Case Studies • “Lyndhurst” (Tarrytown)-Jay Gould • “Vanderbilt Mansion” (Hyde Park)-Frederick William Vanderbilt • “Kykuit”-John D. Rockefeller (Sleepy Hollow)

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