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Niagara Falls inhabits a privileged place in the imagination of American national culture. As a popular icon, tourist destination, honeymoon getaway, and industrial site, Niagara Falls (New York and Ontario) also figures largely in the history of modern mass consumption. The various contributions to this web page are part of an anthropological inquiry into the forms and meanings of consumption and consumerism in everyday life. University of Rochester students enrolled for the 1997 spring semester in Anthropology 226, "Culture, Consumption and Consumerism," with Professor Robert Foster, were asked to develop research projects on consumption and material culture that were connected in some way to Niagara Falls. These projects range from studies of sightseeing and shopping (in both souvenir stores and outlet malls) to analyses of the uneasy relations between "culture" and "nature" at the Falls. The projects all treat consumption as social activity that constructs subjects, objects, and the relations between them. |