Mass Consumption In The 20th Century

Only a couple of decades ago, hard work and determination guided people to obtain a piece of the opportunity America is all about. Lately there is a surge in having our fifteen minutes of fame and work less, buy more. There are Americans who feel that materialism is the way to obtain true American happiness. TV ads bombard the population with information on what is truly needed to be the best. All media outlets convey how to be more like the famous. Commercials inform on how this star uses this phone and this athlete buys this car. In trying to assimilate to others, some continue to spend even though they cannot afford it. In “Framing Class, Vicarious Living,

Once working citizens had started to receive higher salaries, they could afford more and nicer items than they would have otherwise. According to Daily life… (Kaldin, 2000) the average working man could buy a split-level house on display. In one year, the overage woman bought nine dresses and suits and 14 pairs of shoes. New appliances had also been invented during the 1950s. These appliances were simple in design with basic designs that reflected a new style of European modernism. The 1950s brought a “populux age “to America- a time when every appliance had handles or was easy to lift. Because of this, most appliances and technology could be moved around the house. This was just one of the advances in

Living the American dream was a part of the road to Suburbia. As soldiers were returning home from the wars, births were reaching record highs known as the baby boom. Just in the year 1957, a total of 4,308,000 babies were born.4 Desiring large families and great economic prosperity, the women’s role as mother and homemaker were built-up in movies and television and magazines. Ultimately, with additional “leisure time” at home, Americans bought televisions, nice record players, lawn mowers and other electronic products. Manufactures and advertising agencies jumped at the opportunity to profit on consumerism. “More and more, ad executives and designers turned to psychology to create new strategies for selling. Advertisers appealed to people’s desire for status and “belongingness” and strived to associate their products with those values.”5 The Baby Boomers that began the consumerism in the mid-1950’s socially altered the United States then and still do

In the late 1800's, American society began to burst with cultural activity. After the Civil War and the Reconstruction, Americans were eager to return to their normal lifestyles. The period that followed, however, was quite different from what the country was used to. During the war, many pushed hard for a rise in industry, leading to an explosive industrial revolution far beyond what people had expected. America's business and economy had boomed, and, as the new century approached, many had a new outlook on life. They were eager to escape the dull regiments of both the past Victorian era and the new urban lifestyle. This was easy for the upper and middle classes, both of which were growing due to the rapid increase in industry. It

The rise in advertisement played a key role in the rise of consumption. Thanks to well-developed advertisement campaigns, America redefined what a necessity is. Advertisers encouraged Americans to actively work towards maintaining a high social standing. “Advertisers made no secret of their intention to promote novelty for its own sake, in the hope that consumers would exchange perfectly serviceable goods for goods that conformed to the latest fashions” (Lasch, 2000). Consumers devoured this advertisement scheme and began to rapidly increase their spending. Many advertisements for common, household products made claim that they could make the normal appear comparable to the high end. For example, Lux, a soap company, ran an ad in 1920 that depicted two women talking - one of the women complemented on the other on the quantity of sweaters she owned, only to find out that it is not a new sweater, but rather her old sweater that Lux soap made it look brand new (Lux)! Men and women alike began to believe

In Eric Schlosser’s 2001 piece, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, he examines the rise of the fast food industry in the 1950’s as it was associated with the rampant consumerism of the era and shows how this led to the fast food industry becoming one of the most unethical, manipulative, and greedy industries that ever existed. Schlosser shows how fast food corporations, through mass appealing advertising, were able to manipulate consumers, especially young generations, into buying their products. Children were made the targets of advertising campaigns because these corporations knew that they were the most gullible audience. The 1950’s were filled with consumer trends in which buyers went after products that they believed to be popular and wanted to have the same things as everyone else. Corporations knew that they would have a very easy job in luring consumers because many other products and services had become trend setters in the 1950’s, so consumers would line up to buy fast food if it was presented as being “modern” and “trendy” in a sense. This paper will detail how consumerism and advertising played a large role in constructing American cultural identity during the post-war era.

The 1950s is described as the “‘golden age’ of capitalism,” where a comfortable standard of living became accessible to many new, middle-class Americans (991). According to Foner, “the official poverty rate, 30 percent of all families in 1950, had declined to 22 percent a decade later”(991). The poverty rate declined as more Americans entered white-collared jobs with increased wages. Essentially, the “American standard of living” during the 1950s was characterized by the ability of citizens to participate in the mass consumerist society; this was only possible through an increase in income. Jack Straus, the chairman of the board of Macy’s stated “‘The consumer is the key to our economy...The luxuries of today are the necessities of tomorrow’”(Foner 994). The American economy was based off of consumers; “In a consumer culture, the measure of freedom

In the wakes of both World War I and World War II, middle class Americans benefited from long-term economic prosperity. In many ways, the 1920s and the 1950s were similar, including the return to mass consumerism after war, the expansion of the auto industry, and the growth of credit. One key difference, however, was the values behind the consumerism. In the 1920s conspicuous consumption prevailed because of society’s value of increasing social status, while in the 1940s and 1950s, it was prevalent in light of family values and the value of financial stability, in addition to “social climbing.”

Before reading the excerpts from “The Overspent American” I was not familiar with Juliet Schor’s work. While reading however, I saw that her views were different from many of the other authors that we have read so far. When I had finished the reading I found the reading enjoyable and fascinating. The reason that her writing intrigued me was because of her multiple perspectives while writing. Not only does she concentrate on the economics of American people, but she also uses a sociologist lens to show the purchasing habits of our culture. “The Overspent American” focuses on how we as a society have changed our spending patterns from the past. During the 1950s the phrase “keeping up with the Jones’” was coined and it represented Americans trying to outspend their neighbors and friends. For example, my friend buys a boat and I also need to buy a boat to make sure my friends saw me as being wealthy. Today our society as changed in many ways but Schor finds that our spending habits have altered the most since the 1950s. By analyzing and evaluating her work, one can see how Americans spending habits have changed over time and how our economics have been overtaken by television and broadcast media.

Also the repetitive advertisements of growing housing infrastructure and the introduction of the family car is analysed by Cohen illustrates the rise of family life within America caused for an increase houses consuming where excessively spending’s were used to purchase utensils and appliances to fill the new homes reflecting mass consumption addressed within the 1946 Women’s Weekly advertisements and

The impact that the dawn of mass consumption had on Americans was that some were enjoying the consumer culture that was uprising and proud of it actually of how people around the globe even tried to do the same. Yet, there was also other Americans who were not so on board with this by saying it was boorish and

After World War II, Americans viewed their nation as an example for the world of what society that was committed to mass consumption looked like. Mass consumption transformed American life. Mass consumption lead to Americans buying a lot of material goods and while this was good for the American economy, this also lead to troubles. Consumer credit became very popular during the 1950s and many Americans were using this way of paying for things a great deal. Lizabeth Cohen in her book “A Consumers’ Republic the Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America”, argues that after World War II, there was a shift in Americas economic, political, and cultural system. Mass consumption was beginning to be a common thing seen in America during this time.

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

During the 1950’s in people were concerned with the idea of consumerism which meant that society was constantly looking for the next best product to come on the market. This idea comes from people who are constantly buying more and

The author James B. Twitchell identifies consumerism as being the next evolution of our social behavior. “In our postmodern world we have, it seems, exchanged knowledge of history and science for knowledge of products and how such products interlock to form coherent social patterns” he asserts (Twitchell 321). The implication is that, where we used to rely on crafting items and learning skills for ourselves, we instead find that technological progress has now enhanced the means of production to be so efficient that the value we provide to one another now is not by what we can offer, but by what we decide to buy. These purchase trends are used as a means of forming social connections, and I agree. I have personally observed consumption trends lead to social connections. Certain cultures and sub-cultures have specific styles or looks associated with them. Like-minded or similar interested people can easily identify each other. If an individual is impassioned by rap music, he or she consumes certain brands and types of goods that another person, who’s enthusiastic about country music, would refrain from acquiring.