Consumption of Necessities and Vices

The twentieth century no doubt bore witness to the birth of the consumer society as a rise in disposable income led to an increase in purchasing power. It is perhaps for this reason that the autobiographers detailed consumption of items such as food and medicine in their childhood reminiscences, as this was a period in which disposable income was notably limited for many working-class families and money spent on unnecessary frivolities could be detrimental to the nuclear family. Such was the case for Jane Walsh whose quote entitles this chapter; her family’s poverty was exasperated by her parents spending what little money they had on alcohol. Her memory of their alcohol consumption is notable, not because it tells us that the working class purchased alcohol at the start of the 1900s (this is well documented), but because it reveals much about acceptable behaviours as well as domestic ideals in the first half of the twentieth century. The autobiographers’ recollections of the consumption of items necessary for survival—food and healthcare, as well as their descriptions of consumption of vices—drinking, gambling and criminal activity will be explored within this concept of respectability to further our understanding of how consumption patterns link to working-class notions of appropriate behaviour and propriety in the first half of the twentieth century.