Modern Times

America's consumer culture, saturated with advertising, has its roots in 1910 when Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line. At his Highland Park, Michigan plant, Ford implemented a system where skilled craftspeople were replaced by easily trained workers, each performing a specific task on a specialized machine. This innovation significantly reduced the time required to assemble automobile chassis from over 12 hours in 1910 to just over an hour and a half in 1914, enabling Ford's plant to produce over 1,000 vehicles daily.

By the early 1920s, mass production had permeated other industries, allowing manufacturers to produce a wide variety of goods faster and more affordably than ever before. However, this rapid production posed a challenge: manufacturers needed to cultivate a mass market of consumers who would continuously purchase their products. To achieve this, they sought to shift American values away from thrift and self-reliance towards a desire for constant consumption of the latest commodities. Mass-media advertising emerged as the primary tool for reshaping the consciousness of American consumers.

Customers in the manufacturing industry.

Before the era of mass production, businesses primarily targeted consumers from the middle and upper classes. However, to leverage their increased productive capacity, industries needed to expand their market beyond the elite. This expansion necessitated the cultivation of consumer culture, drawing upon populations of low-paid workers, subsistence farmers, and immigrants who cherished values such as "self-sufficiency, communitarianism, localized popular culture, thrift, and subjective social bonds." These groups had traditionally relied on homemade goods.

In response to this challenge, advertisers of the 1920s pioneered numerous techniques that are now integral to modern marketing. Just as industries utilized "scientific" principles to enhance manufacturing efficiency, the advertising sector employed psychological insights to create a demand for these commodities.

Modern Advertising

To effectively connect with a broad audience and appeal to customers from all backgrounds, advertisers aimed to tap into "universal" instincts such as social insecurities and aspirations for improvement. Their strategy involved steering customers' attention away from product features and towards self-reflection. For instance, a Listerine ad famously urged readers to "Suspect yourself first," insinuating that personal attributes like bad breath or neglected grooming habits could be hindering their success in career or social endeavors.

The ads posed questions such as: "Do your appearance or hygiene habits leave a negative impression?" "Are you jeopardizing relationships due to neglecting self-care routines?" They suggested that any dissatisfaction or setbacks could be traced back to personal flaws, which consumers may not have been aware of until encountering the ad's revelation. Issues like "sneaker smell," "office hips," "ash-tray breath," or "spoon-food face" were highlighted, with the promise that products like "Woodbury Soap," "Colgate Dental Cream," "the Alpine Sun Lamp," and others could remedy these concerns and pave the way for a better life.

Regulate behavior within society for order and conformity.

Industry leaders recognized that manufacturers needed to go beyond simply promoting specific products like cars or face creams. Influential figures such as department store magnate Edward Filene spearheaded the notion that a more extensive initiative, akin to "social planning," was necessary. Filene and his contemporaries believed in the imperative of "educating" consumers to embrace mass production and consumption. Their objective was to assimilate the varied subcultures of American society into a uniform culture characterized by consumerism. This agenda also entailed corporate leaders exerting social control by suppressing any dissent against capitalism, be it through individual nonconformity, preservation of immigrant cultural practices, or outright socialist movements. These industrialists aimed to channel discontent into consumerist desires rather than demands for broader social change.

Employee dissatisfaction

The rise of mass production altered the American approach to work significantly. Before industrialization, skilled artisans crafted goods for individual buyers. However, with the advent of factory production, workers became replaceable parts in a machine, valued more for their endurance than their expertise. The nature of manufacturing and assembly line jobs became characterized by monotony and peril.

This stark reality of work clashed with the idealized vision of the consumer society. Advertising and public relations campaigns purposefully avoided any mention of the manufacturing process, with manuals cautioning against such references. Helen Woodward, a prominent advertising writer of the era, advised her colleagues against visiting factories, fearing that exposure to the production process would hinder their ability to create the superficial marketing messages necessary to sell products.

Advertisements touted consumer goods as solutions to modern life's problems without acknowledging the factory system's role in creating some of those problems. For instance, if factory pollution was detrimental to the skin, the solution proposed was to purchase more of the skin cream produced by the same factory. This tactic effectively transformed critiques of commodity culture into endorsements for the same culture.

Cultural practices emphasize independence in meeting one's needs.

Industrial leaders felt it necessary to guide society away from traditional influences, especially those stemming from immigrant communities, which they perceived as conflicting with capitalist ideals. The advertising industry responded with "antidote ads," designed to discredit and dismiss old-fashioned beliefs, particularly targeting immigrant populations and portraying foreign customs as inferior.

For instance, an advertisement promoting the Sherwin Cody School of English emphasized English fluency as a means to avoid social exclusion. The American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, formed by a coalition of business and political figures, provided advertising to foreign-language publications and exerted influence over their editorial content. It propagated a narrative linking patriotism with consumption, asserting that advertising in immigrant communities served as a defense against Bolshevism.

In other instances, advertisements criticized home crafts and production methods. Printer’s Ink, a publication focused on the advertising trade, encouraged the biscuit industry to create antidote ads discouraging home baking. Some ads advocated for combining traditional practices with modern products while subtly undermining traditional methods. For example, an ad for Fels-Naptha laundry detergent claimed that it rendered the time-honored practice of boiling clothes unnecessary. While acknowledging that one could still boil clothes with Fels-Naptha, the ad suggested that the modern product made such traditions obsolete.

Evolution of the family structure.

In the pre-Industrial Revolution era, predominantly agrarian societies witnessed families working collectively under the direction of an authoritarian father to produce essentials. These families were self-sufficient, generating most of their food and clothing. A 19th-century farmer documented spending $10 or less annually on manufactured goods.

However, by the 1920s, the family structure faced challenges. Divorce rates soared, and traditional roles within families underwent upheaval. With the Industrial Revolution altering the nature of labor, the concept of families as producers waned. By 1930, around two-thirds of the US population's income was allocated towards purchasing manufactured items like food, clothing, and furniture.

Feminists and libertarians envisioned the changing family dynamic as a potential avenue for gender equality. Yet, the industrial sector held a different perspective. With work transitioning from home-based tasks to factory employment, the father assumed the role of "breadwinner," providing income for the family to purchase consumer goods. The corporation, where the father worked, assumed an authoritarian stance. Consequently, the traditional family structure evolved into a "symbolic" rather than practical entity.

Kids engaging in purchasing goods and services.

Children, with fewer productive responsibilities, began to catalyze consumerism. They absorbed marketing messages from the media and corporate-sponsored school activities. Families increasingly allocated funds towards goods and services related to raising children. The mother assumed the role of the home "administrator," responsible for selecting and purchasing most household items. Consequently, advertisements predominantly targeted women, encouraging them to substitute homemade goods with packaged foods and to streamline their tasks with labor-saving appliances. By the close of the 1920s, consumerism had significantly advanced, emerging as a defining characteristic of American society. A prominent business strategist of the era remarked that a woman "is no longer a cook – she is a can-opener." By 1929, women's purchases fulfilled 80% of a typical family's needs.

Depression's impact during WWII.

Corporations' aspiration for social control remained unattainable. With the onset of the Depression, Americans started to seek more socialist solutions, such as the New Deal, to address the issues of capitalism. During the 1930s, the government expanded its role, and its expenditure became vital for industrial expansion. Government allocations for public works and other initiatives served as mechanisms for absorbing surplus capital. With the outbreak of World War II, government spending redirected focus towards defense industries, creating a new sphere of economic activity.

Rise in consumer spending after the war.

Mass consumption became prevalent in the postwar era, emerging as a mainstream lifestyle as television emerged as a new medium, broadcasting commercial messages into households around the clock. Television programs such as situation comedies and quiz shows portrayed consumerism as a desirable and typical way of life. Similar to earlier advertisements that disparaged immigrant traditions and self-sufficiency, postwar culture emphasized strict adherence to the consumer mindset, while continuing to marginalize nonwhite and immigrant communities.

The media portrayed the blonde woman as the epitome of beauty, leading individuals to "anglicize" their ethnic-sounding names and alter their ethnic features through plastic surgery. Advertisers did not target black audiences directly until the late 1960s.

The tumultuous 1960s witnessed the emergence of various forms of resistance, including the civil rights movement, counterculture, and feminism. As marketers portrayed products as a solution to the factory work involved in their production, advertisers adopted the counterculture's criticism of corporations. For instance, General Mills advertised natural foods as an alternative to the low quality of mass-produced foods. By the 1970s, consumerism had become ingrained in American culture. While Americans grew increasingly skeptical about the marketplace's ability to address their social and personal concerns, they still viewed the "commodity system" as the primary means of satisfying most human needs.