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  • Consommateurs engagés à la Belle Époque. La ligue sociale d’acheteurs by Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel
  • Franck Cochoy
Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel. Consommateurs engagés à la Belle Époque. La ligue sociale d’acheteurs. Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 2012. 344 pp. ISBN 978-2724612561, €28.00 (paper).

The early years of the twenty-first century witnessed a proliferation of public concerns and scholarly works in the field of so-called political consumption. This notion designates the promotion of public goals and values through individual shopping behavior (e.g., boycotts, “buycotts,” fair trade, and organic consumption) rather than through the classic means of governmental policies and legal frameworks (e.g. Micheletti, 2003; Halkier, 2010; Dubuisson-Quellier, 2013). Several of these works, of course, pay tribute to similar endeavors from earlier periods, but because of a lack of knowledge, most of these pioneering developments are attributed to the United States (see, for instance, Glickman, 2012). Chessel’s welcome book fills the gap, by disclosing the contribution of a French social league of buyers—the Ligue sociale d’acheteurs (LSA)—to the early rise of political consumerism, at the time of the Belle Époque in France, a period of technological and social changes analogous in many respects to the Progressive Era in the United States.

The first part of the book describes the LSA and its founders. If, in her introduction, Chessel concedes that this association was a very small movement among several (and often bigger) ones, she convincingly shows that given its specific character and distinct modes of action, the LSA played an important role in shaping new ideas and policies about work and consumption. The founders of the LSA were French, but open to the world. In particular, they were inspired by the U.S. National Consumers’ League, its women-driven character, its openness to varied religious influences, its tool of “white lists” of acceptable shops and factories, and so on. The LSA was animated by French bourgeois women, but also often by their husbands — as in the central couple of Henriette and Jean Brunhes. The LSA members were rooted in Catholicism but open to other religious orientations, as well as to the progressive republican ideas of the time. Chessel shows that these balanced and plural orientations were precisely what helped the LSA find a way to give women a political role while also involving men in their effort, tracing multiple connections with several influential actors, and “circulating” progressive ideas and initiatives both at the national and the worldwide levels.

The second part of the book documents the LSA’s modes of action. Among these, it particularly insists on the reliance of the method of the “social survey” (enquête sociale) based on the Leplaysian tradition. However, Chessel shows that with LSA, the survey was converted into [End Page 447] a distinct female tool: Instead of targeting the building of academic knowledge, LSA’s women used surveys to determine proper action, particularly ones focused on disclosing the discrepancy between the fancy character of novelties and the ugliness of the misery behind it. This effort expressed the reflexive concern of bourgeois Catholic women when facing their own shopping practices, and their willingness to care about protecting dressmakers against exploitation through socially aware consumption. This goal was achieved by establishing white lists of acceptable providers, by organizing exhibitions in which objects appeared with explanations on the way they were produced, and other similar actions.

The third and last part of the book covers the action of the LSA related to some larger social issues, especially related to reducing work hours. Given their Catholic background, LSA members showed a major concern for banning work during the weekend and urging consumers to avoid shopping during this period; they also championed banning night work for bakers. Chessel shows that male LSA members played a greater role in these two particular issues in connection with their involvement in the public sphere, especially in universities, politics, and law (whereas LSA’s female members were more focused on home, female workers, and market issues). One of the author’s main contributions is to show that the LSA did not promote private responsible consumerism as a means to undermine...

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