Exploring the roots of Canadian consumer culture between the 1890s and the Second World War, Purchasing Power uncovers the meanings that Canadians have attached to consumer goods. Offering a new perspective on the temperance, conservation, home economics, feminist, and co-operative movements of this period, this book brings women’s consumer interests to the fore. Due to their exclusion from formal politics and most paid employment, many Canadian women leveraged their consumer roles into personal and social opportunities. In the consumer sphere, they sought solutions for their isolation, their desire for upward mobility and personal expression, and their families’ survival. Through their purchasing power, Canadian women transformed consumer culture into an arena of political engagement.

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"Today, the term 'pro-sumer' denotes 'a consumer who becomes involved with designing or customizing products for their own needs.' This study of women considers the forms of political consumerism in which they engaged and reveals the political values they held."

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"La force du livre de Donica Belisle, dont l’écriture est par ailleurs limpide, est de restituer la complexité et les ambivalences qui ont ponctué le chemin vers la société de consommation industrielle. Cet ouvrage représente donc une contribution majeure à l’histoire de l’économie politique canadienne."

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"This is a wonderful book that delves deeply into issues of class, gender, and race, considering how these classifications alternatively empower and exclude."

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"This is a book about the rise of a Canadian consumer culture as viewed through the prism of women’s associations, publications and activities. This, it does well."