Accumulating assemblages of significant, rare, and/or valuable items is not a new phenomenon. Interesting pebbles, found amassed in an 80,000-year-old French cave, may mark the beginning of collecting. Over time, Noah, King Tut, and the Medicis kept the collecting spirit alive. And aristocrats followed their lead; as explorers and amateur archaeologists told of their finds, upper class wanted to emulate them by accumulating the world's treasures; 'cabinets of curiousities' (de rigueur for scholarly men of status with a love of exploration and collection from the 1600s through the Age of Enlightenment) provided a way to display unique earthly marvels. Increased exposure to--and availability of--goods gave a rising Industrial Age middle class a more egalitarian access to the world and its products, and the American public began collecting them. For a time, collecting became "a pervasive phenomenon" reflecting may aspects of 20th century American consumer culture. However, around the start of the 21st century, signs that a major cultural shift was taking place (with indications younger generation had less interest in accruing collections) became evident, and a variety of theortical perspectives emerged in the social sciences, investigating the 'collecting' phenomenon in the United States. In offering a review of the history of collecting and collectors, as well as utilizing relevant literature and data supplied by a 129-informant survey with eleven follow-up interviews, the author draws upon that information while providing new material on the topic. By exploring two questions: is collecting disappearing as a pastime, and, if so, is the acquiring of a collection a generational activity, this thesis examines the motivations for collecting (or not), implications about the ways we create our identities in a consumer society, and an assessment of collecting's future.