8/3/2019 The Birth of Consumer Culture

1/5

CHAPTER 6I. From Salvation to Self-Realization: The Birth of Consumer Culture

A. Cultural dimension of shift1. New entity is consumer culture; in full swing by the 1920s

B. The Rise of Consumer Capitalism and the New Middle Class

1. New approach to labor processa. Pushed by industrialistsb. Based on increased efficiency, partly due to machinery, but also new

processes created1. Reorganizing process of labor2. Frederick W. Taylor

a. Born in 1856b. Interested in engineeringc. Fascination with ordering labord. In 1911, publishes The Principles of Scientific Management

1. Argues that you must eliminate brain work from labora. Managers to deal with brain work

1. Reduce it to certain rules and laws2. Decision making by management

a. "Time and Motion" studies of labor1. Workers would be hired and fired basedupon stopwatch times; also pay would be adjustedbased upon speed

c. Industrial Psychology in the 1920s takes Taylors ideas further1. Emerges after factory studies

a. Conclude that workers worked harder when observedb. Emphasize psychological maneuvering

c. Discover work cycles1. Use music to counteract

a. During slow period fast music; soothing whenworking faster

d. Recreation lounges createde. Company sports teamsf. Culmination is personnel counselingg. All created to deal with the tedium of industrial work and pull

workers away from unionsd. Impact

a. Negative: Labor no longer spiritually rewardingb. Positive: Bigger wages and cheaper mass produced goods give

people a greater ability to consume2. Formation of consumer America

a. In early 1900s shift in capitalism1. From producer to consumer capitalism

a. Early emphasis had been on basic industrial goods1. Iron, steel, etc.2. 1st stage

b. Changes to growing emphasis on consumer goods

8/3/2019 The Birth of Consumer Culture

2/5

1. Washing machines, cars, toothpaste, etc.2. The automobiles was the ultimate consumer item

a. Henry Ford one of most influential in American history1. Cars cutting edge of consumer capitalism2. Grew up in Michigan3. Gets interested in the combustion engine4. In 1911 opens plant in Highland Park5. Installs the assembly line in 1913

b. Prior to 1913, one car every 12.5 hours; by 1927, one carevery 24 seconds

c. Produces millions of cars; by 1929 1/5 of all Americansowned a car and Americans drove 80% of the worlds cars

d. Cars become sign of successe. Early slogan read "Buy at Ford and Spend the Difference"f. Altered many aspects of American life

1. Growth of suburbs, shopping centers; changed datingpatterns (city elders in Muncie, IN called

automobiles prostitution on wheels); even thenature of crime changed

c. Rise in consumption fueled by the rise of credit and growingelectrification

1. In 1927, 2/3 of all cars were being bought on installments;Americans were borrowing over $7 billion a year by 1929; debt being further de

criminalized2. By 1928 2/3 of all families had electricity in their homes; 15 million irons

and 7 million vacuum cleaners purchased in the 1920sd. Also see the rise of planned obsolescence in production.

e. By 1929 weekly movie attendance had reached 80 million, double the figure of1922.

f. Lastly, some claimed consumerism had replaced politics as the focusof public concern1. Voter participation dropped off tremendously; 80% of eligible

voters turned out in 1896, but less than 50% in 1924a. What else could have contributed to this drop?

1. One party dominance of Republicans; consolidation ofone-party politics in the south; and the lower turnout ofwomen to vote due to strength of existing gender controlsregarding political behavior

3. Dramatic change in cultural valuesa. Threw off last vestige of Victorian self restraintb. New notion of self-fulfillment

1. Gratify wants and needsa. Thorough consumption

c. New emphasis on personal growth and personality rather thancharacter4. New consumer values evident in new middle class

a. Traditionally Victorian; defined by independent self-made

8/3/2019 The Birth of Consumer Culture

3/5

businessmenb. Now middle class are not individual entrepreneurs, they are whitecollar workers

1. Embraces consumerisma. Labor

1. In corporate America notion of efficient labor not just forblue collar workers

a. "Paper Pushers"; less and less interesting labor2. Big payoff in terms of good wages

a. Gives ability to consumec. Rise of business bureaucracy

1. Name of the game is not hard work but getting along with peoplea. Social and interpersonal skills

1. Personality key to success2. Dale Carnegie,How to Win Friends and Influence People

(1936)a. Wrote success literature

b. Gives lectures on how to be successfulc. Turns it into a book

1. Bestseller, 120 printingsd. Personality the key to getting ahead

1. Thus cultivate it2. Need to make other people feel important3. Manipulation of an image

C. Experts and the Family

1. The family becomes receptive to consumer valuesa. Previously, Victorian families perceived as havens in a heartless

world

1. Place for love and benevolenceb. Now, as economy shifts, self-fulfillment, etc.

1. New model emergesa. Family as haven for enjoyment of consumer goods

1. The suburban family2. Personality, not character, is shaped

a. Urged to pursue happinessc. The liberation of the American family

1. Automobiles advertised as an instrument for family liberation2. Growing emphasis on youth

a. Sets standards, products promoting youth3. Efficiency of family

a. Emergence of domestic science1. Home must work more efficiently2. Version of scientific housekeeping for women3. Good Housekeepingbecomes a national bestseller; also see the

rise of magazines such asReaders Digestin the 1920s4. Constant message of purchasing to make house more efficient

a. Washers and other goods5. Declare war on germs

8/3/2019 The Birth of Consumer Culture

4/5

6. Women become managers of the domestic scene

D. Advertising and Consumption

1. Great indicator of consumer culture; exploded after WWIa. $400 million spent annually before 1917; by 1929 $2.6 billion

1. Rise of radio helps to feed this trend (190,000 sold in 1923;5 million in 1929); also highway billboards

2. In Victorian era it was mostly just for informationa. Pushed durability

3. Changed and explodesa. By the 1920s becomes commercial therapy; pushes consumerism

1. Nothing of the products makeup, but instead that it will make youhappy

a. National campaign for toothpaste1. Give you a dazzling smile and romantic life

b. Pool tables1. "The Year Round Sports that gives youth and vitality"

c. Cigarettes advertised for women1. Torches of freedom

d. Listerine connects bad breath to social acceptance1.Always a bridesmaid, but never the bride from ad

4. Bruce Barton's, The Man Nobody Knows (1925)a. Had grown up protestantb. Became journalist of successful ministersc. Founds advertising agency in 1919

1. Becomes leading admand. His book sold widely

1. About Jesus

2. Jesus the founder of modern businessa. Understood sparkling personality and big stories

3. Insists he should be emulated4. Jesus picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business

and forged them into an organization that conquered the world.e. Representative figure

1. Consumerism linked to personality developmentE. Cultural Backlash in the 1920s

1. Not all welcomed the changes brought on by the rise of consumer cultureand growing urban centers.

a. Felt traditional values and morality threatened through a perceivedloosening of morals and growing ethnic diversity1. In 1930, the film industry adopts the Hays code which prohibitednudity, long kisses, adultery and barred scripts that showed clergy

in a negative light and criminals sympathetically2. Many important cultural figures, labeled the Lost Generation, fledthe U.S. during the 1920s for Europe; i.e. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude

Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.b. Christian fundamentalists fought against modernism and new

individual freedoms which they felt threatened morality.

8/3/2019 The Birth of Consumer Culture

5/5

1. Billy Sunday, the most popular preacher of the era, used theatricalmethods to preach to approximately 100 million during hislifetime.

c. Prohibition also part of this process (18th Amendment ratified in 1919banning the manufacture and sale of liquor)

d. Scopes Trial1. 1925 trial against John Scopes who was arrested for violating a

state law which barred the teaching of evolution in Tennessee.a. Trial was carried live on the radio; fundamentalists, who were

strongest in the South and West, felt Darwins ideascontradicted the biblical account of creation.

b. The ACLU, created in 1917, provided for Scopes defense,specifically the talents of Clarence Darrow, a successfullabor lawyer

c. The highlight of the trial was an extended debate betweenDarrow and William Jennings Bryan when Darrow called Bryanforth as an expert on the Bible.

d. Scopes would be found guilty of violating the law which would later beoverturned on a technicality; fundamentalists would retreat from the battleover public education and evolution, creating their own schools, until thelate 20th Century.

e. The Second Klan1. The Klan had been reborn in 1915 after the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewishfactory owner in Atlanta accused of raping and killing a teenage girl.2. By 1925, over 3 million members with deep roots in the West and North; it

wasthe largest state organization in Indiana and controlled the Republicanparty in that state

f. All helped to fuel the anti-immigration sentiment of the period.