Children were precious assets and the center of the family. 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. Though the television sets that carried the advertising into peoples homes after WWII 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. Also, new ideas emerged, changing the look of families both then and now. The 1950s are most often remembered as a quiet decade, a decade of conformity, stability, and normalcy. Basically, it means that purchasing certain material goods is likely to increase the level of satisfaction with life. Bernayss views, like those of several other analysts of the crowd and the herd instinct, were a product of the panic created among the elite classes by the early 20th-century transition from the limited franchise of propertied men to universal suffrage. Unless [the consumer] 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.. 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. For instance, the development of the suburbs. This improvement in food variety did not extend durable items to the mass of people, however. Its major cities were still bombsites, it was almost impossible for many. 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". Coontz discusses that jobs, marriage, birthrate and education were at very high points in the 1950s. The 1950s were a decade marked by the post- World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the civil rights movement in the United States. "The cardinal features of this culture were acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratisation 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". Read page 1950 of the latest CBS+ news, headlines, stories, photos, and video from CBS News. 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. Firms began adding a few ethnic and racial minorities to their staffs. However, over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism preserved its momentum by moulding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for its "wonderful stuff". Key Points. "They want to put some sizzle into their messages by stirring up our status consciousness," he wrote. 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. Prospects for further economic expansion were thought to look bleak. At the same time he was well aware of the role of advertising. The fifties was a period of civil rights groups, feminism, and change. Kyrk argued for ever-increasing aspirations: a high standard of living must be dynamic, a progressive standard, where envy of those just above oneself in the social order incited consumption and fueled economic growth. The labour struggles of the 19th Century had, without jeopardising 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. Electricity sparked a whole new wave of consumer product possibilities (Credit: Getty Images). In these circumstances, there was a social choice to be made. Franchising increased after 1950 and offered Americans the opportunity to own a small business. In the 1950s, consumers made television the centerpiece of the home, fueling competition among broadcasters. 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. "Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. Technological advancements led to economies of scale; these favored wealthier. Consumption is now frequently seen as our principal role in the world. Kellogg, however, gradually overcame the resistance of its workers and whittled away at the short shifts until the last of them were abolished in 1985. 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. In fact, most still embraced traditional gender roles men were tasked with working in a career, and women were tasked with keeping the home in order and taking care of the children. The civil rights movement succeeded in bringing equal rights to the African American population within the United States in a peaceful manner thanks to meaningful art forms. Men were back home and ready to work and women were back to doing their womanly duties again (cooking and cleaning) this reflected the social position of the women following the war. During the 50s, there was a deeply ingrained social stigma against divorce, and the divorce rate dropped. Constitution Avenue, NW From 'Make do and Mend' to 'Your Country Needs You to Spend': Constructing the Consumer in Late-Modernity Alison Hulme 3. 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. The stage was set for the democratization of luxury on a scale hitherto unimagined. The Cold War escalated and shaped the 1950s societies. The 1950s ushered in an era of consumerism that has rolled on virtually unopposed to the present. After cars became more popular as people saw them. Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. 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". Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. 3. Sandwiched between the war-ravaged 1940s and the explosive 1960s, the 1950s was a time of great growth and prosperity in many aspects. 8 Silk Pillowcases for Your Best Beauty Sleep. Baby boomers came of age and entered colleges in huge numbers. ", Galbraith quotes the Presidents Materials Policy Commission setting out its premise that economic growth is sacrosanct. It is a question of change, change all the time and it is always going to be that way because the world only goes along one road, the road of progress. These views parallel political economist Joseph Schumpeters later characterization of capitalism as creative destruction: Capitalism, then, is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is, but never can be stationary. The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers, goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates. In 1930, the US cereal manufacturer Kellogg adopted a six-hour shift to help accommodate unemployed workers, and other forms of work-sharing became more widespread. Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own. In fact, the American consumer was praised as a patriotic citizen in the 1950s,. This weathervane used the iconic image of Colonel Sanders as the companys unifying brand. 10, 1950.122.6), the DFPI will continue to examine the supervisory activities of a branch manager to ensure that the branch manager is adequately supervising each MLO and employee regardless of whether they are working at a remote location or a branch office. As Bernays noted: Many of mans thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which [he] has been obliged to suppress. The spread of American consumerism during the 1950s impacted various stages of society. "Those who create wants rank amongst our most talented and highly paid citizens. Consumerism for example, is an industrial society that is advanced, a . In the 1950s, the greater geographic diversity in designers meant more styles from which to choose. 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. A new wave of consumerism swept across much of the population of the United States during the 1950s. The rise of consumer debt, interrupted in 1929, also resumed. . U.S. consumer credit rose to $7 billion in the 1920s, with banks engaged in reckless lending of all kinds. 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. Predicated on debt, it took place in an economy mired in speculation and risky borrowing. Furness was an example of the growing power of TV in terms of consumerism. The glove section at an early department store, which changed the way people shopped (Credit: Getty Images). In 1955, he opened KCOR-TV, expanding his broadcasting business and community-centered media vision to television. Progress was about the endless replacement of old needs with new, old products with new. Its a study of a love affair as much as anything else. Notwithstanding the panic and pessimism, a consumer solution was simultaneously emerging. In the 1950s, advertising on TV compared with schools and churches with social influence. The American home was at the center of post-war stability. 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. During the Consumer Era, production boomed and consumerism shaped the American marketplace, which spread from cities to suburbs. Join one million Future fans by liking us onFacebook, or follow us onTwitterorInstagram. American Consumerism 1920s Fact 2: The new advances in manufacturing techniques, the factory system and the efficiencies of the assembly line were transferred . They were regular consumers of food, music, and of course - TV. This decade became a major influential time that brought many cultural and societal changes. As Daily Life in 1950s America puts it, "along with rising incomes, easy credit, and fear of being left behind with outmoded products, aggressive marketing in the form of slick advertising campaigns fed the culture of consumerism." While some items found in the average home are still the standard to this day, other fads were just plain bizarre . 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. Instead, it features many happy human faces and all their wonderful stuff! 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. 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. In these circumstances, there was a social choice to be made. The U.S. was recovering from World War II and GIs were coming home. Though men and women had been forced into new employment patterns during World War II, once the war was over, traditional roles were reaffirmed. 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. "The good purchaser devoted to 'more, newer and better' was the good citizen," The 1950's was the decade of change. 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. During the 1950's and 1960's standards of living were boosted by full employment and a sustained rise in money wages. Consumer Spending, 1950-1960. In 1930, Kellogg adopted a six-hour shift to help accommodate unemployed workers. Want creation advertising is a ten billion dollar industry.. 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. 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.. There, especially in the United States, consumption continued to expand through the 1920s, though truncated by the Great Depression of 1929. After working in a Spanish-language newspaper, he founded a radio station, which became the voice of the Spanish-speaking community in San Antonio. 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