Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores various sites of expertise, the expertise expressed by consumers themselves remains a persistent strand of investigation. It also explores the religious motivations behind much ethical consumerism by Julien Vincent. Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel traces the history of the National Consumers League to demonstrate how, at the start of the twentieth century, it began to embrace other consumer issues as it lobbied for the reform of social welfare legislation, thereby providing a link to more explicitly consumerist organisations of a later period. Carolyn Goldstein examines the role of women professionals who were brought into the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Home Economics from 1923 where they worked with producers to improve the quality of commercial goods and sought to educate housewives into making more rational family buying decisions.