‘Buy Cheap, Buy Dear!’: Selling Consumer Activism in the Salvation Army c. 1885–1905

Abstract

This article examines how the late nineteenth-century Salvation Army used consumer activism as a fundraising strategy, an impetus towards social change, and a means of consolidating its visible presence in public and domestic settings. It argues that the Salvation Army was unique in its combination of its own production systems with the creation and capture of an unusually far-reaching activist market. As much of its support came from lower-income communities, the Salvation Army developed ways to facilitate their participation in activist consumption. Harnessing consumer identity allowed the organization to cast its supporters as active participants, and both donations to and purchases from the Salvation Army were framed as positive changes in consumer behaviour connected to spiritual welfare. Much of this process was refracted through the Trade Department, which competed with secular sellers to produce a range of household essentials; but this also put pressure on the membership to use their consumer power to benefit the Salvation Army whenever possible. The article draws on the organization’s substantial periodical output to interrogate the communication strategies that underpinned these consumer engagement practices. It offers a comparative analysis of two examples of the Salvation Army’s commercial ventures during this period: the trading activities centred around the Trade Department, and the Darkest England Match Factory. It argues that while the Trade Department demonstrates the success of the organization’s own brand of accessible consumer activism, the match factory shows a failure in the communication strategies designed to win consumers for the Salvation Army cause.