Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, capitalist ventures birthed a new ethos in America. This “consumer capitalism” created “a culture almost violently hostile to the past and to tradition, a future-oriented culture of desire that confused the good life with goods . . . one moving largely against the grain of earlier traditions of republicanism and Christian virtue.”22 This old culture, based on values rooted in tradition, community, and religion, was replaced by a new culture that promoted “acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness.”
