Davis Grant Dye
Mr. T. Moore
HIST 1700
CONSTRUCTIVE CAPITALISM
Great ideas and innovations had their beginnings in small and simple minds. “The new
era of the 1920’s brought a booming economy and modern times to America, vastly accelerating
the forces of change—bureaucracy, productivity, technology, advertising and consumerism,
mass media, peer culture, and suburbanization.”1 Presented are three documents that show how
quick the capitalistic side of America had grown and declined before, during, and after the Great
Depression and World War I.
The first document is an excerpt from a book titled Remaking Leisure in Middletown,
written by Sociologists Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd. “[They] wanted to study the
effects of modernization on an urban community ‘in that common denominator of America, the
Middle West.’ They chose Muncie, Indiana, which they referred to as Middletown.” The excerpt
begins by them talking about how “the first real automobile appeared in Middletown in 1900.”
They then give statistics as to how many cars there were by 1923, how many people owned a car
in the area, and what make it was. Ford, one of the “Big Three” car companies of America, was
among the majority of owners. “These cars average a bit over 5,000 miles a year.” Compared to
today’s vehicles, the cars of the 1920’s got pretty far for what they were worth. “For some of the
workers and some of the business class, use of the automobile is a seasonal matter, but the
increase in surfaced roads and in closed cars is rapidly making the car a year-round tool for
leisure-time as well as getting-a-living activities. As, at the turn of the century, business class
people began to feel apologetic if they did not have a telephone, so ownership of an automobile
1
Experiencing History: Interpreting America’s Past, p. 684
has now reached the point of being an accepted essential of normal living.” They then give
classic examples as to why there is no reason for anybody to be late to anything; they are called
“impersonal, matter-of-fact things” in this book. Because of these things though more and more
families are being seen in their cars doing things than busy about the chores and labors of home.
Not only does it affect that but it can really put a dent in the family budget. “The automobile has
apparently unsettled the habit of careful saving for some families. … The ‘moral’ aspect of the
competition between the automobile and certain accepted expenditures appears in the remark of
another business man, ‘And automobile is a luxury, and no one has a right to one if he can’t
afford it. I haven’t the slightest sympathy for any one who is out of work if he owns a car.” The
good side about having a car is that it “… is justified as an agency holding the family group
together.” All the family members will be together in one car, sometimes closer than they usually
have been, where personal discussions can occur. Robert L. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd
observe both sides of the issue of having a car—how it is both good and bad. They focus most of
their discussions on the family, the most important social aspect of America. But “this selection
considers the automobile a new but already troubling phenomenon in Middletown.”2
The second document is an advertisement for the mouthwash, Listerine. “During the
1920’s, it has been noted, advertising copywriters increasingly emphasized the consumers to
whom they hoped to sell products rather than the products themselves.” We see much of this
today in advertising as the creators of these ads will attract the observer’s attention by something
catchy or not even relating to what is being sold. “Advertising for Listerine provided a classic
and successful illustration of this strategy: the product’s advertising budget rose by 5,000
percent, the producers profits by 4,000 percent. Listerine was marketed as a treatment for colds,
2
Excerpt from Middletown: A Study in American Culture, 253-260. Copyright 1929 by Harcourt, Inc., and renewed
1957 by Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
sore throats, and dandruff and as an astringent, aftershave, and deodorant as well as a
mouthwash.” The advertisement shows a picture of a woman speaking to a dentist. It is titled, “In
his discreet way he told her.” The text begins with how the woman never knew she had it, not
saying what she actually had. Later in the text it says she has “… Halitosis (the scientific term
for unpleasant breath)….” It then begins describing how it can be treated, finishing with, “Your
druggist will supply you. He sells lots of Listerine.” The advertisement, in a way, is meant to be
kind of “stupid” so that it will catch the readers attention and make them read it to the end to
actually see what the product is. “Key features of modern life—mass society, mass culture, and
mass consumption—took hold, fed by mass media in the form of radio, movies, and masscirculation newspapers and magazines.”3 4
The third document is another excerpt from a book titled, “The Man Nobody Knows”, by
Bruce Barton, a leader in advertising. Growing up, “Barton worked as an editor and magazine
sales manager. During the First World War, he did volunteer work for the Salvation Army and
served as publicity director of the United War Work Agencies. It was then that he met Roy
Durstine and Alex Osborne, with whom he founded an advertising agency in 1919. With a
merger in 1928, the firm became even more famous as Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborne
(BBD&O).” The excerpt from the book is titled, How It Came to Be Written. Barton begins by
talking about a boy sitting in a church wooden chair, thinking many different things. A woman
leans over and asks him what he is thinking about. “The little boy did not say anything. He was
afraid to say anything; he was almost afraid that something would happen to him because of the
things he thought.” By how the article is presented it is clear the young boy did not want to be in
Church. “For one more week the little boy had got rid of Jesus.” He was thinking about the old
Experiencing History: Interpreting America’s Past, p. 684
Listerine ad by Lambert Pharmacal Company, St. Louis, in Literary Digest, November 17, 1923. Courtesy of
Warner-Lambert Company, the copyright and trademark owner.
3
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Prophets, their strength, and about Jesus, how he was “… a ‘man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief’”—expressed in a sort of negative way. Barton then shows this same young boy as a
business man later in life. “He began to wonder about Jesus. He said to himself: ‘Only strong
magnetic men inspire great enthusiasm and build great organizations. Yet Jesus built the greatest
organization of all. It is extraordinary.’” The man goes on to talk about how Jesus truly was the
greatest business man of all. He learned this through reading about the people that were closest
to him: the Twelve, Mary, Joseph, etc. “When the man had finished his reading he exclaimed,
‘So the man waited for someone to write the book, but “This is a man nobody knows. No one
did. Some day,” said he, “someone will write a book about Jesus the ‘lamb of God’ who was not
weak and not unhappy and glad to die. Every business man will read it and send it to his partners
and his salesmen.’” The man became impatient. One day he said, ‘I believe I will try to write that
book myself. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.’ And he did.” “The
advertising industry was not central to the ‘associative state’ sought by Herbert Hoover, but it
was essential to the consumer goods-based economy and the ‘new national culture’ of the
1920’s”5
“When the stock market crashed in 1929, weaknesses in the economy—overexpansion,
declining purchasing power, uneven distribution of wealth, weak banking and corporate
structures, ‘sick’ industries, and economic ignorance—finally brought the economy down, and
with it the New Era came to a close.”6
Bruce Barton, “How it Came to Be Written” from The Man Nobody Knows. Copyright © 1925 by The BobbsMerrill Company and renewed © 1953 by Bruce Barton. Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a division of
Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
6
Experiencing History: Interpreting America’s Past, p. 684
5