This sounds suspiciously like a homework question.

But you have to recognise that this is a chicken egg situation. I'd argue that the middle class emergence, lead to consumerism, not the other way round.

As for historical basis, take one of the best examples of consumerism in history. The urban Italian States during the Renaissance, what we consider to be a period noted for its outstandingly fine art was the product of an emerging middle class and consumerist market - just not as we think of it.

I'm personally a fan of Richard Goldthwaites The Building of Renaissance Florence which is an excellent book detailing how construction and the artworks to fill new bigger buildings in the city during the Renaissance was driven entirely by a new emerging class that had money to spend.

I think they're clearly linked, but we have to be clear about timing and changes in both. Also, there's every chance they will vary across countries and will emerge at different times (and maybe for different reasons) in different social groups. I'll talk from a British perspective; these comments may not hold true in other places.

First, to be clear what we mean by "consumerism". I'd view this in two ways, from the supply and demand side.

On the supply side, it means that people's basic needs have, on the whole, been met. This means that suppliers move into selling "luxury" goods and services and, perhaps most importantly, stimulating new desires in consumers.

On the demand side, consumerism is about constructing and displaying an identity through your personal consumption of goods and services. In particular, you can define consumerism against other identities - as a worker, entrepreneur, member of a religion, etc..

To be a consumer you have to have some level of disposable income, so you're not left buying whatever you can in order to get by. (Although its an interesting question to what extent consumerism can work even at low levels of income, if the market still offers some choice.) There's an obvious link here, because to be middle class means having disposable income, whereas the working class have only slowly reached this position. So the growth of the middle class was certainly the rise of people who had the wealth to be consumers.

Looking at the upper class, the idea of consuming to display or generate social status or construct an identity is nothing new. An aristocrat holding a banquet or a tournament, sponsoring a composer, wearing fine clothes - these are all ways of spending money that can translate into social standing. It's a slightly shakier step to say that they can be used to construct an identity. What is clear is that there is more to the status and identity than this - most importantly, the hereditary position.

The era of the rise of the middle class is the 19th century. There's the growth of the industrial (and financial) bourgeoisie. They want to find a way to convert their money into social standing. Generally they do this through politics and munificence. (They also often buy land to gain respectability.) So we see a great many public buildings erected by industrialists in this era. This is a way of converting money into status and expressing identity, but I wouldn't call it consumerism. Partly because the consumption is not personal but perhaps more importantly because the core of these people's identity is still based on being producers (and often Christians and/or Englishmen).

The 19th century also sees a massive increase in professional and managerial jobs (doctors, accountants, bank managers, etc.). With a bit of security and control over their work and a bit of capital, you could call these petty bourgeoisie. I don't want to get into this sort of argument though - unless you're a strict marxist you'll probably be happy calling these people middle class. These people have disposable income to spend. However once again, it's not core to their identity, which is based around their profession, religion, family. Good evidence of this is the high propensity to save.

So I'd quite firmly say that the victorian middle class were not consumerists. They were (tautologically) Victorians.

However the late 19th century does see signs of consumerism coming in. A good place to see this is in the growth of advertising, the handmaid of consumerism. At this stage, advertising is only crudely linked to lifestyle or aspiration, but both consumerism and advertising presuppose the existence of choice. No longer do people simply buy a product primarily because they need it, they are choosing between different products, different brands.