Journal article

Penner B

01/01/2004

Winterthur Portfolio

1

0084-0416

Weddings, Gift-Giving, Retail Architecture, Display, Domesticity

This 12,000 word paper traces the commercialization of American weddings in the second half of the nineteenth century. Specifically, it explores how jewellers and silverware manufacturers recognized the possibilities of the bridal trade: they began to offer special bridal goods and services, sought to influence the practices surrounding fashionable weddings, and used innovative display techniques and retail environments in order to expand demand. The article aims in part to close a gap in the existing historical literature, as there is currently little published on 1850s retail practices in American urban centres. However, it is also concerned with how these practices affected the domestic environment, through rituals like the display of bridal presents, which turned the home into "jeweler's shop" and threatened the neat divide between public/commercial and private/domestic upon which the ideology of separate spheres rests. "This paper traces the commercialization of weddings in the second half of the nineteenth century. During this period, jewellers and silverware manufacturers recognized the possibilities of the bridal trade. They began to offer special bridal goods and services and sought to influence the practices surrounding fashionable weddings in order to expand demand." "The aim was in part archival: to close a gap in the existing historical literature, as there is currently little published on 1850s retail practices in American urban centres and on how merchants became more strategic in stimulating consumer demand (using fancy store interiors, display techniques, trade fairs, and publicity). However, I also considered how such techniques then affected the domestic environment, through rituals like the display of bridal presents, which turned the home into ""jeweler's shop"" and threatened the neat divide between public/commercial and private/domestic." Architecture "There have been a number of publications by American scholars, most notably by Cele C. Otnes and Elizabeth Pleck and Vicki Jo Howard, that explore the commercialization of weddings in a later period. However, I was interested in considering an earlier period, the 1850s, when I believe weddings first began to be tied to market in a significant way." Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum