France at the Crystal Palace: Bourgeois Taste and Artisan Manufacture in the Nineteenth Century

Whitney Walton approaches the nineteenth-century French industrial development from a new perspective—that of consumption. She analyzes the French performance at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 to illustrate how bourgeois consumers influenced France's distinctive pattern of industrial development. She also demonstrates the importance of consumption and gender in class formation and reveals how women influenced industry in their role as consumers.

Walton examines important consumer good...