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 "In the summer of 1851, the great gleaming Crystal Palace displayed the prowess of the rising British Empire and the status of the metropole as a commodity culture; this wonder marked the consolidation of Victoria and Albert’s emphasis on the family and progress. After the harsh economic and social conditions of the 1840s, American reformer Horace Greeley’s cautious remarks metonymically measuring the wealth of the Empire in terms of the comforts of the Victorian home show that the discourse surrounding the Exhibition exuberantly focused on how the goods displayed created a sense of abundance, even endless surplus: 'Not until every family shall be provided with a commodious and comfortable habitation, and that habitation amply supplied with Food and Fuel not only, but with Clothing, Furniture, Books, Maps, Charts, Globes, Musical Instruments and every other auxiliary to Moral and Intellectual growth as well as to physical comfort, can we rationally talk of excessive Production.' (qtd. in Richards 29) Thomas Richards asserts that the utopian promise of this ‘coherent representational universe for commodities’ even led some visitors to trust that the apparent excess and order of the Crystal Palace would translate not only into the realm of the family domicile but also effect broader social change (29–30)." |
