Reliving the 1890s

Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s. In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. As the first general secretary of the National Consumers League, Florence Kelley, put it: “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to have responsibility.”  [excerpt from "Letters from an American" (Nov 25, 2025)]

Women and children. Photograph by Rubenstein
[Source: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Date: Circa 1885]