what was consumerism in the 1950s

After the stock market crashes in 1929, people were left jobless and hungry. Beat movement, also called Beat Generation, American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred in the bohemian artist communities of San Francisco's North Beach, Los Angeles' Venice West, and New York City's Greenwich Village. We publish thought-provoking excerpts, interviews, and original essays written for a general reader but backed by academic rigor. By striving to buy the productsay, wall-to-wall carpeting on instalmentthe consumer is made to feel he is upgrading himself socially. After cars became more popular as people saw them. More and more people were abetted to live in the cities, most people had jobs, therefore money to spend, and they spend it by having a good time (McNeese,88). Founded: 1950 in Quincy, Mass. If profit and growth were lagging, the system needed new impetus. It would not do if people were content because they felt they had enough. The economy was a category that experienced a significant growth in the 50s. Attempts to promote new fashions, harness the propulsive power of envy, and boost sales multiplied in Britain in the late 18th century. Entertainment. Sandwiched between the war-ravaged 1940s and the explosive 1960s, the 1950s was a time of great growth and prosperity in many aspects. Since WWII caused the economy to grow rapidly, things started to change within American society. Some memorable TV spots during this time period were for Alka-Seltzer, Ajax, and Frosted Flakes. Consumption is now frequently seen as our principal role in the world. 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. During the 1950s, Americans were lauded for their approach to consumerism. Consumerism In The 1950's Essay. New needs would be created, with advertising brought into play to augment and accelerate the process. Prospects for further economic expansion were thought to look bleak. During the 1950s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. People would be encouraged to give up thrift and husbandry, to value goods over free time. Hours of work in the United States have been growing since 1950, along with a doubling of consumption per capita between 1950 and 1990. An excerpt from the celebrated 19th-century photographer's memoir "When I Was a Photographer.". Between 12th and 14th Streets Victor Cutter, president of the United Fruit Company, exemplified the concern when he wrote in 1927 that the greatest economic problem of the day was the lack of consuming power in relation to the prodigious powers of production. This department store took window shopping to a new level with a machine called the "Tell-it-to." Free shipping for many products! The 1920s bonanza collapsed suddenly and catastrophically. In the 1950's, they were usually office jobs. Bernays and his colleagues were anxious to offer their services to corporations and were instrumental in founding an entire industry that has since operated along these lines, selling not only corporate commodities but also opinions on a great range of social, political, economic, and environmental issues. As the economic engine slowed in the 1970s, productivity waned, wages flattened, and Americans faced an energy crisis that reshaped consumer expectations. The 1950s Family. For instance, the development of the suburbs. 1950s For a while there were about 10-year cycles of moral panics. Constitution Avenue, NW This decade became a major influential time that brought many cultural and societal changes. The Civil Rights movement was gaining speed and many became involved in political activism. In 2008, a similar unravelling began; its implications still remain unknown. Although the shorter workweek appealed to Kelloggs workers, the company, after reverting to longer hours during World War II, was reluctant to renew the six-hour shift in 1945. However, by the, Automobiles allowed for travelling and the transporting of goods to be easily accomplished. Once World War II was over, consumer culture took off again throughout the developed world, partly fueled by the deprivation of the Great Depression and the rationing of the wartime years and incited with renewed zeal by corporate advertisers using debt facilities and the new medium of television. The 1920s was a time of great change. United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) The annual inflation rate in the US slowed only slightly to 6.4% in January of 2023 from 6.5% in December, less than market forecasts of 6.2%. Bernays and his PR colleagues believed ordinary people to be incapable of logical thought, let alone mastery of abstruse economic, political and ethical data., The commodification of reality and the manufacture of demand have had serious implications for the construction of human beings in the late 20th century, where, to quote philosopher Herbert Marcuse, people recognize themselves in their commodities. Marcuses critique of needs, made more than 50 years ago, was not directed at the issues of scarce resources or ecological waste, although he was aware even at that time that Marx was insufficiently critical of the continuum of progress and that there needed to be a restoration of nature after the horrors of capitalist industrialisation have been done away with., Marcuse directed his critique at the way people, in the act of satisfying our aspirations, reproduce dependence on the very exploitive apparatus that perpetuates our servitude. 50,000,000. number of tv sets by 1960. Harlem Renaissance Dbq 928 Words | 4 Pages But, while poorer people might have acquired a very few useful household items a skillet, perhaps, or an iron pot the sumptuous clothing, furniture, and pottery of the era were still confined to a very small population. The products have been the luxuries of the upper classes. Magazines in mid-century became vehicles for dissemination of consumerist attitudes and the promotion of group and professional . Discrimination was widespread. This improvement in food variety did not extend durable items to the mass of people, however. But its evident that 1950s did in fact produce the troubles of the. Furthermore, new synthetic fabrics offered fresh possibilities for mass-produced clothing. Coontz discusses that jobs, marriage, birthrate and education were at very high points in the 1950s. such as the early civil rights movement's demand for access to public accommodations in the 1940s and 1950s and the consumer and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s . It was an idea also put forward by the new consumption economists such as Hazel Kyrk and Theresa McMahon, and eagerly embraced by many business leaders. 2. Consumerism further developed in the 20th century. Consumerism in the 1950s Susan Nacey 2. Its a study of a love affair as much as anything else.". It was marked by major events such as the Cold War, rise of capitalism and consumerism, the civil rights movement, and anti-communism, which changed the fate of the country. Electrification was crucial for the consumption of the new types of durable items, and the fraction of U.S. households with electricity connected nearly doubled between 1921 and 1929, from 35 percent to 68 percent; a rapid proliferation of radios, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators followed. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. The stage was set for the democratization of luxury on a scale hitherto unimagined. From fashion to politics, this period is known as one of the most explosive decades in American history. Dr Matthew White describes buying and selling during the period, and explains the connection between many luxury goods and slave plantations in South America and the Caribbean. New needs would be created, with advertising brought into play to "augment and accelerate" the process. The people became comfortable on how they were living their lives. Though it has become fashionable in recent decades to brand scholars and academics as elites who pour scorn on ordinary people, Bernays and the sociologist Gustave Le Bon were long ago arguing, on behalf of business and political elites, respectively, that the mass of people are incapable of thought. [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. The Australian comedian Wendy Harmer in her 2008 ABC TV series called Stuff expressed irritation at suggestions that consumption is simply generated out of greed or lack of awareness: I am very proud to have made a documentary about consumption that does not contain the usual footage of factory smokestacks, landfill tips and bulging supermarket trolleys. The 1920s bonanza collapsed suddenly and catastrophically. This weathervane used the iconic image of Colonel Sanders as the companys unifying brand. As television grew, Americans worried about its effect on children. 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. Consumer Spending, 1950-1960. Although the period after World War II is often identified as the beginning of the immense eruption of consumption across the industrialized world, the historian William Leach locates its roots in the United States around the turn of the century. Consumer prices increased by 0.9% in February following a 0.4% rise in January. "Many of the products they are trying to sell have, in the past, been confined to a 'quality market'. The consumerism of the present day has roots that go back at least a century (Credit: Getty Images). She begins her argument by stating some reasons why the nostalgia for the 1950s exists. During the 50s, there was a deeply ingrained social stigma against divorce, and the divorce rate dropped. critics claimed americans were becoming a ----- society. Yet in the literature of the resource problem this is the forbidden question.. 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". Dunkin' Donuts. The two decades led to historical breakthroughs as well as setbacks; they are imperative to the history of the United States. Vance Packard echoes both Bernays and the consumption economists of the 1920s in his description of the role of the advertising men of the 1950s. In the 1950s, the relatively new technology of television began to compete with motion pictures as a major form of popular entertainment. A thing may be desired, not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of his success. A steady-state economy capable of meeting the basic needs of all, foreshadowed by philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill as the stationary state, seemed well within reach and, in Mills words, likely to be an improvement on "the trampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each others heels the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress". But business did not support such a trajectory, and it was not until the Great Depression that hours were reduced, in response to overwhelming levels of unemployment. The postwar boom and popular culture In the aftermath of World War II, the United States emerged as the world's leading industrial power. Retailing was already passing decisively from small shopkeepers to corporate giants who had access to investment bankers and drew on assembly-line production of commodities, powered by fossil fuels; 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. 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. In the early years, advertisers sponsored whole shows, as they did with radio. In Australia, too, the trend could be observed; there, however, the base was tiny, and even though car ownership multiplied nearly fivefold in the eight years to 1929, few working-class households possessed cars or large appliances before 1945. The commodification of reality and the manufacture of demand have had serious implications for the construction of human beings in the present day, where, to quote philosopher Herbert Marcuse, "people recognise themselves in their commodities". Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. Code of Regs., tit. 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. This era marked a high point of American productivity and a high standard of living. Significantly, it was individual desire that was democratised, rather than wealth or political and economic power. In the United States in particular, economic growth had succeeded in providing basic security to the great majority of an entire population. Retailing was already passing decisively from small shopkeepers to corporate giants who had access to investment bankers and drew on assembly-line production of commodities, powered by fossil fuels. Illuminating the bold ideas and voices that make up the MIT Press's expansive catalog. While some of the youth became politically active, others escaped into the counterculture disbanding their faith in government and the ideals, In her essay, What We Really Miss About the 1950s, Stephany Coontz talks about the myth of the 1950s. It would be feasible to reduce hours of work further and release workers for the spiritual and pleasurable activities of free time with families and communities, and creative or educational pursuits. Still, it is the lowest reading since October of 2021, with energy prices rising 8.7% while food cost went up 10.1%. The fifties was a period of civil rights groups, feminism, and change. A national conversation about television and the common good fostered public broadcasting. Though the television sets that carried the advertising into peoples homes after World War II were new, and were far more powerful vehicles of persuasion than radio had been, the theory and methods were the same perfected in the 1920s by PR experts like Bernays. 1950s American culture was characterized by a boom in consumerism, which bolstered the economy and left cultural impacts as well. From 'Make do and Mend' to 'Your Country Needs You to Spend': Constructing the Consumer in Late-Modernity Alison Hulme 3. In the 1950s, the greater geographic diversity in designers meant more styles from which to choose. The prospect of ever-extendable consumer desire, characterized as progress, promised a new way forward for modern manufacture, a means to perpetuate economic growth. Constructing consumerism involved educating citizens in the business of buying things they didn't know they needed. Read about our approach to external linking. In the 1950s, advertising on TV compared with schools and churches with social influence. Edward Cowdrick, an economist who advised corporations on their management and industrial relations policies, called it the new economic gospel of consumption, in which workers (people for whom durable possessions had rarely been a possibility) could be educated in the new skills of consumption.. The concept came about . The labor struggles of the 19th century had, without jeopardizing the burgeoning productivity, gradually eroded the seven-day week of 14- and 16-hour days that was worked at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England. At first, consumer goods were more likely to supply basic needs rather than luxury items (Credit: Getty Images). People, of course, have always "consumed" the necessities of life food, shelter, clothing and have always had to work to get them or have others work for them, but there was little economic motive for increased consumption among the mass of people before the 20th Century. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff. The Czech writers darkly humorous novel, published in 1936, anticipated our current reality with eerie accuracy. Over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by molding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for more stuff. Progress was about the endless replacement of old needs with new, old products with new. Requiring no significant degree of literacy on the part of its audience, Ewen writes, radio gave interested corporations unprecedented access to the inner sanctums of the public mind. 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