The other "child study": Figuring children as consumers in market research, 1910s-1990s

This article examines how notions of "the child" were constructed in market ing research literature from the 1910s through the 1990s. Drawing on childr en's industry trade literature, market reports and books, I argue that chil dren have become increasingly portrayed as individualized, autonomous consu mers. Over this time period, the desire for consumer products becomes figur ed by industry observers and researchers as a mode of children's "self expr ession." The analytic isolation of "the child" in the persona of a "consume r" authorizes a new morality for consumption by construing children's desir e for goods as preexistent and thus natural.