Abstract
In the period after the First World War a new kind of Machine Age mass consumerism was developed as a parsimonious solution to twin crises confronting the country, one political and the other economic. This machinic consumerism was the key to the integration and intensification of a heterogeneous network composed of new commodity forms, infrastructure, logistics, financial and governmental structures, landscapes, subjectivities, and machinic processes. A theoretical framework developed out of Marx’s reflections on the use of machines on the factory floor is effective in illuminating the many nodes of this assemblage. Recognizing the linkages within a machinic network requires transcending traditional dualisms between micro- and macro-processes, histories and presents, humans and machines, and material and ideological processes. An archaeological assemblage excavated from a coal-company town shanty enclave in Pennsylvania provides examples of how artifact morphologies reflect the infrastructure, landscapes, aesthetics, advertising strategies, and media effects of these developments.
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