Emily Dickinson's poetry, written in the mid-nineteenth century, can initially seem deeply local and even domestic in its concerns. It tends to focus on the natural world, often inspired by what Dickinson could see from her own Massachusetts home. Moreover, the poet's reputation as a reclusive genius can further encourage readings of her work as detached from the wider world. Yet poems like "I Could Bring You Jewels—Had I A Mind To—" take place against a backdrop of a rapidly changing, industrializing America. This poem negotiates several realities of the period: the encroachment of industry, pollution, and urbanization on the natural world, the widespread extraction of natural resources, especially from colonized nations, and the increased availability and affordability of material goods for wider ranges of Americans.
In Britain, the Industrial Revolution began at the end of the eighteenth century and continued into the early nineteenth. The United States began the process of industrializing several decades later, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Agriculture and manufacturing within the home gave way to large-scale, factory-based production, spurring urbanization and a surge of upward mobility—even as it massively disrupted established social patterns and fostered dangerous working conditions for those employed in the new industrial settings. The westward expansion of the U.S. offered access to new natural resources and the wealth that accompanied them. Furthermore, the expansion of the American railroad system allowed new cities, fully fueled by the industrial economy, to spring up. Simply put, American life—much like British life just prior—was in many ways wholly transformed by industrialization, both because of the wealth it produced for some and because of the change in labor conditions it brought about for others.
These changes also produced a new type of consumer culture. Industrialization produced a middle class, with money to spend and leisure time to fill, eager to purchase commodities produced via industrial processes. For the first time, Americans outside of the very upper echelons of society were able to afford and access a variety of new goods that would have previously been prohibitively expensive or simply unavailable, ranging from food to clothing. Even the act of shopping was transformed by industrialization. Department stores and mail-order catalogs partially replaced the small local shops of the preindustrial period, offering a wide variety of consumer goods at varied price points: Sears, Roebuck & Company, which gave rural families access to an unprecedented range of affordable items via mail-order catalog, was established within a decade of Dickinson's writing of this poem. It was women, in particular, who were slotted into the nascent role of consumer: whereas middle-class men were generally seen as responsible for producing household wealth outside the home, women were seen as responsible for creating a comfortable home environment through the tasteful spending of this wealth.
The industrialized economy suddenly eased upward mobility, making it possible for many Americans to find themselves far wealthier than their parents. Yet this mobility also created social anxieties, as the freshly wealthy sought means of fitting in among their socioeconomic peers. Ownership of items that would have been considered luxuries a few generations prior offered a way to strengthen a tenuous social status. Meanwhile, the advertising industry flourished. The crowded consumer landscape incentivized companies to compete for customers, inducing advertisers to seek new ways of standing out to middle-class consumers. These advertisements coaxed consumers to buy commodities by suggesting that, by doing so, they could appear wealthy, tasteful, and sophisticated. As a result, social historians note that nineteenth-century American homes and, more broadly, nineteenth-century American lives, simply contained an unprecedented number of ornamental, material objects.
In this poem, Dickinson's speaker takes aim at these new attitudes and at the rise of consumer culture, as well as the urbanizing economy that created it. She does so not by directly critiquing this phenomenon, but instead by expressing appreciation for a form of ornamental beauty neither created through industrial means nor commodified by new forms of shopping and advertising. In doing so, Dickinson casts doubt on the value of other commodified goods, suggesting that these are valued at the expense of the natural world not because they are particularly beautiful or useful but because they serve a function within an impersonal economic system. The poem demystifies and deconstructs the value of consumer products, while using figurative language to create a sense of mystique and excitement around a non-commodifiable flower.
