Consumer Habits and Advertisement in the 1920s, A List

Newspapers had once been the only mass communication & entertainment. The demand for new products that emerged in the 1920s created a new industry, advertising, which enticed buyers to purchase new products, and now that the radio had emerged, advertising was integrated into this media outlet . Radio shows like Amos n' Andy, became a nationwide hit. The advertising industry grew with the emerging industries of mass culture, especially radio and cinema. For the first time, from coast to coast, Americans experienced the same shows and used the same advertised products due to mass culture. The first commercial radio station aired in 1920 and broadcast music to a few thousand listeners. By the end of the decade, thirty-three

The economic shift the took place was the shift for the wartime economy production from World War I to the peaceful economy production of the 1920s. There were new products and technology that arose from the period of the 1920s such as the automobile and the labor-saving appliances such as the washing machine, stove, and refrigerator. These new technologies lead to an economic growth of the 1920s due to many people purchasing them. The many people of the 1920s wanted to buy the new technologies but many could not afford these products that were being mass produced. Producers and sellers used many different types of advertising techniques to attract consumers to buy their new products such as the leisure products.

The economic boom of the 1920’s enhanced the everyday life of Americans. Mass production of goods made prior tasks, such as washing clothes, simple and allotted woman to have leisure time. The assembly line utilized by Henry Ford made the production of automobiles cost less lowering the price for consumers. The amount of cars sold from 1921-29 went up from 1.5 million to 4.5 million. (Document 9) With more leisure time because of useful inventions people sought activities to occupy their free time. Radios grew increasingly popular and steadily increased to be in 10 million households in 1929. (Document 9) The economic power held by the U.S permitted technological advances to be attainable, which unconstrained the daily lives of many Americans.

Hard-selling advertising was popular during the 1930’s, however three creative philosophies also emerged. J. Stirling Getchell developed and refined a distinctive photojournalistic style in advertising (Sivulka, 2012). Raymond Rubicam would use research to determine the proper layout designs, and ways to improve advertising. Bernice Fitz-Gibbon would use simple folksy style advertising to relate to the consumer (Sivulka, 2012).

“Describe the consumer culture that emerged in America during the 1920s, and explain the factors that contributed to its growth.” The consumer culture that emerged in America during the 1920s wanted to show off new technologies and wanted people to start enjoying the somewhat good life they had in their hands at the moment. Factors that contributed to its growth were some things like the rise of advertising, prosperity, and availability of installments. There are more, but these are some of the ones that stick out the most. People listened and enjoyed it because of the many exciting changes happening.

Without question, the 1920s “new era” was one of the eras in American history that made the most progress, especially from immense business and industry contributions. These business and industry contributions to America included the creation of automobiles, radios, house appliances, and much more. Not only did these product contributions change America, but also efficiency improved within the “new era” increasing the production of goods. Overall in this time period, the consumer culture had a significant change with the development of mass production industries, welfare capitalism, and government efforts to enforce prosperity abroad.

The 1920s became known as an era memorable for being a time when new products, new ways of marketing and advertising, and standardization gave the country new ways to interact, enjoy themselves, and introduce them to new products. Although very common today, standardization of mass culture like magazines, radio, movies, music, and sports were exciting new innovations to the people of this time. Not only did they distract from the monotony and stresses of work but they created celebrities that people aspired to be like.

B. The 1920’s was a spark of wealth and opritunity in America. After just finishing WW1, the economy and social life began to change. The stock market was at record highs and wall street was the real land of oppritunity. A backfire in liquior laws allowed people to obtain alcohol even easier and at a lesser cost. You can now see why people named this decade “the roaring 20’s”

Mass production during the 1920s fed the mass consumerism that had emerged among the American

The 1920s are described as “roaring” because major social developments occurred during the 20s, as shown by the creation of a consumer culture. The Great Gatsby depicts the consumer society when Fitzgerald’s fictional character Daisy Buchanan bawls, “‘They're such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before,’” (Fitzgerald 99). Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the fictional character Daisy represents the consumer culture of the 1920s; Americans were obsessed with materialistic wealth. Also, during the 1920s, the economic wealth of America increased by twofold, granting many American families with a newfound disposable income.

The author of this book Bruce Barton was a partner in a successful advertising firm during the 1920's. This was a time when the industry of advertising was under going some major changes. These changes had a lot to do with a number of factors the first of which being the post war prosperity this meant people had more money than they ever had before. Another one of these factors had to do with the high number of teens who were now attending high school, this proved to be important because it created a whole other market which hadn't existed before. One more factor was the advances made in transportation and communication, these advances allowed goods, people, and information to travel long distances

Due to advances in technology, significant changes in advertising appeared in the 1920’s. In the latter half of the 1900’s ads were illustrated in color for the first time and the layout of most magazines changed. Advertisements, in the 1910 Ladies’ Home Journal, were mostly located in the back of the magazine. Though due to the popularization of name brands, ads moved to the front as competition between products produced more revenue.

Technology played a vital part in helping America become the great economic and cultural success that it was during the 1920s. New advancements, new discoveries, and new inventions improved American lives in every imaginable way but not without a few negative side-effects. As mentioned earlier, the automobile really came into play during the 1920s by making traveling a common thing for anyone who could afford a car (Trueman, 2000). Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company, which began to mass produce affordable automobiles known as the Model-T. Ford's Model-T car became such an irresistible success that by the end of the decade, there was almost one car per family in the United States (Bruce, 1981). The automobile seemed to give people a type of new freedom, but the automobile also proved to be a dangerous item in the hands of many irresponsible people who loved to drink during the 1920s. The washing machine, telephone, and radio made their arrival during the twenties. People were discovering life to be far easier than the previous generations because of technology, but they were also slowly being driven into an industrial nation. People were lured

The 1920s was a time in which society changed dramatically. During this rich decade, many exciting social and political changes took form. More citizens started moving to the cities, which was different than the farm life that they have been so accustomed to. Due to the emerging consumer age, many Americans started having extra money for leisure activities, clothes, and products for the home. People also started having extra time and money for activities.

But first, we should give a useful definition of advertising. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), advertising are ‘‘the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised’’. Meanwhile, Belch and Belch (2009, p.18) describe advertising as ‘‘any paid form of impersonal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor’’.