"Many of the products they are trying to sell have, in the past, been confined to a 'quality market'. Here began the slow unleashing of the acquisitive instincts, write historians Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J.H. Advertising. But there have been unexpected benefits, too. The 1950s was characterized as a prosperous and conformist for several reasons. He identified the beginnings of "a massive conservative reaction to the idea of enlarged social guidance and control of economic activity", a backlash against the state taking responsibility for social direction. Consumerism In The 1950's Essay. People were encouraged to board an escalator of desires and progressively ascend to the luxuries of the affluent (Credit: Getty Images), Charles Kettering, general director of General Motors Research Laboratories, equated such perpetual change with progress. The traditional objective of making products for their self-evident usefulness was displaced by the goal of profit and the need for a machinery of enticement. Technological advancements led to economies of scale; these favored wealthier. Key Points. After World War II, African Americans challenged decades of racial segregation by demanding recognition by advertisers and equal access to goods and services. [6] The consumer movement is the social movement which refers to all actions and all entities within the marketplace which give consideration to the consumer. U.S. consumer credit rose to $7 billion in the 1920s, with banks engaged in reckless lending of all kinds. At the beginning of the 1950s, after all, Britain had been threadbare, bombed-out, financially and morally exhausted. In the US, existing shops were rapidly extended through the 1890s, mail-order shopping surged, and the new century saw massive multi-storey department stores covering millions of acres of selling space. During the 1950s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate, retail analyst Victor Lebow remarked in 1955. Over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism moulded the ordinary person into a consumer. Plumb in their influential book on the commercialization of 18th-century England, when the pursuit of opulence and display first extended beyond the very rich. The consumer revolution that occurred in the 1920s gave Americans prosperous hope for the future of the United States of America. Workers voted for it by three-to-one in both 1945 and 1946, suggesting that, at the time, they still found life in their communities more attractive than consumer goods. The game is to make them the necessities of all classes. After World War II, consumer spending no longer meant just satisfying an indulgent material desire. Notwithstanding the panic and pessimism, a consumer solution was simultaneously emerging. The 1950s was the decade of change. Car companies catered to young buyers' tastes as well as their fantasies. By the mid-1950s, the average length of car ownership had dropped from five years in 1934 down to just two. Coontz also explains that the social society during the 1950s was different than the social society we have today. Quite the reverse: Frugality and thrift were more appropriate to situations where survival rations were not guaranteed. Unless he could be persuaded to buy and buy lavishly, the whole stream of six-cylinder cars, super heterodynes, cigarettes, rouge compacts and electric ice boxes would be dammed up at its outlets. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for AMERICAN CARS OF THE 1950S By Auto Editors Of Consumer Guide - Hardcover **NEW** at the best online prices at eBay! For instance, the development of the suburbs. Entertainment. The 1920s bonanza collapsed suddenly and catastrophically. Consumerism increased after World War II, when the nation stopped prioritizing the military needs, consumer goods became popular as Americans established lives. The 50s was a time of conformity while the 60s was a time of conflict and protest. Fifties Fashions, the peak of the Baby Boomer Years where following the end of the great depression and then World War II people wanted to live a normal life raising a family, teens found rock and roll music and Elvis, parents found more consumer choice and jobs were abundant. The 1950s was an exciting time for many, the war was over and the economy began to flourish once more. Thus, just as immense effort was being devoted to persuading people to buy things they did not actually need, manufacturers also began the intentional design of inferior items, which came to be known as planned obsolescence. In his second major critique of the culture of consumption, The Waste Makers, Packard identified both functional obsolescence, in which the product wears out quickly and psychological obsolescence, in which products are designed to become obsolete in the mind of the consumer, even sooner than the components used to make them will fail.. The capitalist system, dependent on a logic of never-ending growth from its earliest inception, confronted the plenty it created in its home states, especially the US, as a threat to its very existence. At the same time he was well aware of the role of advertising: Goods are plentiful. According to Le Bon, A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls up a series of other images, having no logical connection with the first; crowds can only comprehend rough-and-ready associations of ideas, leading to the utter powerlessness of reasoning when it has to fight against sentiment. Bernays and his PR colleagues believed ordinary people to be incapable of logical thought, let alone mastery of abstruse economic, political and ethical data, and saw the need to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it; PR could thus ensure the maintenance of order and corporate control in society. Electricity sparked a whole new wave of consumer product possibilities (Credit: Getty Images). Additionally, disagreements and rebellions. *This is an edited version of an article thatoriginally appearedinThe MIT Press Reader, and is republished with permission. The Consumer Era, 1940s-1970s Postcard of Eichler home, 1950s During the Consumer Era, production boomed and consumerism shaped the American marketplace, which spread from cities to suburbs. However over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by molding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for its wonderful stuff.. This improvement in food variety did not extend durable items to the mass of people, however. Progress was about the endless replacement of old needs with new, old products with new. Scrappy upstarts challenged established networks, innovated programming, and catered to under-served audiences. The cardinal features of this culture were acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratization of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society, Leach writes in his 1993 book Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. Significantly, it was individual desire that was democratized, rather than wealth or political and economic power. It would be the most influential youth movement of any decade - a decade striking a dramatic gap between the youth and the generation before them. As television grew, Americans worried about its effect on children. Economy was booming again and people had . Consumerism In The 1950's. The 1950s was an exciting time for many, the war was over and the economy began to flourish once more. Jobs were secure and came with great benefits. TV ads evolved with the creative revolution and the civil rights movement, embracing hip consumerism and incorporating more underrepresented consumers. There, especially in the US, consumption continued to expand through the 1920s, though truncated by the Great Depression of 1929. First we share the belief of the American people in the principle of Growth, the report maintains, specifically endorsing ever more luxurious standards of consumption. To Galbraith, who had just published The Affluent Society, the wastefulness he observed seemed foolhardy, but he was pessimistic about curtailment; he identified the beginnings of a massive conservative reaction to the idea of enlarged social guidance and control of economic activity, a backlash against the state taking responsibility for social direction. In fact, the American consumer was praised as a patriotic citizen in the 1950s, contributing to the ultimate success of the American way of life. Television and radio super-charged advertising, directly into people's homes (Credit: Getty Images). "They want to put some sizzle into their messages by stirring up our status consciousness," he wrote. These products included washing machines, dishwashers, frozen foods, television, microwave ovens, lawn mowers and automobiles. The products have been the luxuries of the upper classes. Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. The rise to power prompted the 1920s to become a decade of evolution for womens rights, African Americans rights, and consumerism. She begins her argument by stating some reasons why the nostalgia for the 1950s exists. Kerryn Higgs is an Australian writer and historian. He argued that business "cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable". Quite the reverse: frugality and thrift were more appropriate to situations where survival rations were not guaranteed. 5. As the popular historian of the time Frederick Allen wrote, Business had learned as never before the importance of the ultimate consumer. Here began the "slow unleashing of the acquisitive instincts," write historians Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J H Plumb in their influential book on the commercialisation of 18th-Century England, when the pursuit of opulence and display first extended beyond the very rich. Coontz discusses that jobs, marriage, birthrate and education were at very high points in the 1950s. Significantly, it was individual desire that was democratised, rather than wealth or political and economic power. Consumers and the economy immediately saw an upsurge in new consumer products. The great corporation which is in danger of having its profits taxed away or its sales fall off or its freedom impeded by legislative action must have recourse to the public to combat successfully these menaces.. Electrification was crucial for the consumption of the new types of durable items, and the fraction of US households with electricity connected nearly doubled between 1921 and 1929, from 35 to 68%. As Bernays noted: Many of mans thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which [he] has been obliged to suppress. During the 50s, there was a deeply ingrained social stigma against divorce, and the divorce rate dropped. Americans purchased homes, cars (sometimes two), television sets, new home furnishings, modern refrigerators, clothes for work and their new found leisure time, barbeque grills, lawn mowersthe list is endless. This department store took window shopping to a new level with a machine called the "Tell-it-to." In researching his excellent history of the rise of PR, Ewen interviewed Bernays himself in 1990, not long before he turned 99. The sixties was a decade unlike any other. President Herbert Hoovers 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes welcomed the demonstration "on a grand scale [of] the expansibility of human wants and desires", hailed an "almost insatiable appetite for goods and services", and envisaged "a boundless field before us new wants that make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied". Consumerism - The 1950's: An age of affluence Consumer Demand Spurs Economic Growth Rising incomes, easy credit, and aggressive marketing helped create a culture of consumption in the 1950s. Although inflation has shown signs of peaking . Though it is status that is being sold, it is endless material objects that are being consumed. At the same time he was well aware of the role of advertising. As the popular historian of the time Frederick Allen wrote, "Business had learned as never before the importance of the ultimate consumer. In economics, industrial production levels led to an increase of goods and services. This was particularly true of women. Predicated on debt, it took place in an economy mired in speculation and risky borrowing. . The U.S. was recovering from World War II and GIs were coming home. Founded: 1950 in Quincy, Mass. Galbraith was alert to the way that rapidly expanding consumption patterns were multiplied by a rapidly expanding population. "Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. The twentieth century was a period of struggle in which the socialist countries, largely influenced by the former USSR, provided stiff competition to the united states, but Nevertheless, America has not been immune to pitfalls and struggle during its journey of success and it is by the dint of hard work, keen foresight and sharp business acumen Usually that new thing in culture is associated with young people and perceived threats to its cultural identity. Stuart Ewen, in his history of the public relations industry, saw the birth of commercial radio in 1921 as a vital tool in the great wave of debt-financed consumption in the 1920s a privately owned utility, pumping information and entertainment into peoples homes.. Although the shorter workweek appealed to Kelloggs workers, the company, after reverting to longer hours during WWII, was reluctant to renew the six-hour shift in 1945. 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