L’argent ne fait pas le bonheur : les discours sur la société de consommation et les modes de vie à Montréal, 1945-1975
This dissertation examines discourses on consumer society in Montreal between 1945 and 1975, during a period known as the “golden age of capitalism.” Relying on a variety of sources that reflect a diversity of perspectives — namely mainstream periodicals, “feminine” magazines, social work theses, commissions of inquiry, and publications produced by financial institutions, parent associations, unions, Catholic organizations, and community associations — this dissertation reveals how a wide array of commentators perceived the beginnings of mass consumerism in Montreal and its repercussions on lifestyles. It also explores, to an extent, how so-called ordinary people experienced these beginnings and repercussions in their everyday lives. Although economic indicators display a relative prosperity, this dissertation first offers a quantitative analysis that shows that consumer society did not truly begin in Montreal (or Quebec more generally) before the 1960s. This study then proceeds to a qualitative analysis of discourses concerning Quebec’s and Canada’s economic situation. Apprehensions surrounding the economy persisted throughout this period — most notably around inflation, despite its being under control — and several experts continued to view prosperity as fragile. This dissertation then looks at the positive, ambivalent, but more frequently negative reactions to the beginnings of mass consumerism and the changes in values it entailed. It then finally examines discourses that addressed the repercussions of consumer society on household financial practices, on familial relationships and identity construction within the home, and on poverty. This dissertation suggests that French-Québécois experts resisted mass consumerism to a greater extent than their anglophone colleagues and that the arrival of consumer society reinforced patriarchy (at least discursively). It also highlights a rupture within discourses on consumerism sometime around 1965 as the conservatism of the previous two decades gave way to ideas linked to the social unrest of the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s. From the mid 1960s onward, most commentators began to understand phenomena like debt and poverty as fundamentally connected to consumerism as they developed an oftentimes militant socializing rhetoric that increasingly viewed consumption itself as a structural and collective problem.
XXe siècle Conditions sociales Genre Consumerism History Twentieth century Living conditions Consumer credit Gender Poverty Lifestyles