Skip to content
Home/ Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer

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

by Cook, Daniel Thomas
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780822332688

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 material: 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.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateApr 20, 2004
ISBN-10082233268X
ISBN-139780822332688
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-10-04 03:37
$33.52
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Monday, October 12, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Children's Studies
See all
Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival in Prep School
Jones, Abigail
$15.82
One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War
London, Charles
$13.60
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
Orenstein, Peggy
$13.47
Child in the World of Tomorrow: The Next Generation
This book provides an interdisciplinary projection of the factors affecting the lives of Europe's children in the coming decades. It is a sequel to a volume of the same name, published in 1979. Europe is undergoing dramatic changes, demographic, political and technological, which will influence the health, well-being and potential of children. Children are an ever diminishing proportion of the population and their interests rank low on the agenda of most countries. Efforts to improve the quality of their life tend to be uni-dimensional, focusing on a specific group or undertaken by a specific discipline. The absence of co-operation, coordination or even communication between professionals involved with children and families results in inappropriateness, inaccessibility and ineffectiveness of programmes for children and their families. Lack of advocacy for children results in priority being given to other groups. This book brings together professionals and researchers from a wide range of disciplines (maternal and child health, genetics, psychology, psychiatry, social sciences, epidemiology, city planning, education, law etc.), who participated in a conference, discussed the issues and contributed chapters on topics which appear to be of greatest importance, or to present new challenges, for the healthy development of Europe's children and their passage into a satisfying and productive adulthood. The chapters are arranged in five sections dealing with family, environment, health, education and state, with a final section covering the overall projections. Reference is made to the predictions made in the earlier volume, and the success or failure in basing action on those predictions, and special emphasis is given to children with special needs.
$161.59
Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture: 1875-1945
Savage, Jon
$20.26
Stopping at Every Lemonade Stand: How to Create a Culture That Cares for Kids
Vollbracht, James
$20.26