Time Travelers: Teaching American History in the Northwest, 2007
Regional Learning Project, University of Montana
Consumer Boom
The 1920s were a transformative decade in the development of the Unites
States’ consumer economy. Following the Great War, the U.S. economy began to shift towards the more mechanized production of consumer goods that is familiar today. The mechanization of factories led to greater production and increased wages for employees, which in turn led to a greater demand for consumer goods. Also, the extension of credit and the innovation of paying for expensive goods in installments allowed widespread access to electrical appliances, automobiles, and homes. While this credit system raised the standard of living of most Americans, it also produced the negative effect of many living beyond their means.
The first commercial radio station began broadcasting in the 1920s in
Pittsburgh, while the first public radio station was created on the campus of the
University of Wisconsin. By 1922, over three million American households had radios, and purchases of radio-receivers had increased by 2,500%, giving the radio industry annual sales of $850 million by 1929. Initially, radios stations played popular music and provided religious services via the airwaves.
Eventually, commercial broadcasting began where an individual sponsor would fund a program, with commercials for their products at the beginning and end of every program. These “soap operas,” named after a famous Ivory soap drama, began broadcasting dramatic, comedic, and humorous programs. Ultimately, radio stations shifted toward a more profitable system of multiple advertisers in which commercials for various products would be run at intervals during a broadcast. Also, the motion picture industry was booming following the Great
War.
As Hollywood entered its Golden Age, the motion picture industry became one of the ten largest industries in America selling over forty million tickets a week in 1922. By 1929, sales grew to nearly 100 million tickets a week. Highly profitable for the studios and movie theaters, film became a highly popular form of entertainment and assumed the significant role in American culture that it still maintains.
The automotive industry also grew to huge proportions in the 1920s.
Since its invention, the purchase price of automobiles steadily declined. By the middle of the 1920s, many working families could now afford their own car. In
1926, the Ford Model T had the retail price of just $290, which the family could pay in installments. Over 75% of automobile purchases made in the mid-1920s were made on installment plans. The proliferation of automobiles increased the demand for steel, rubber, and petroleum products; which promoted the growth of these industries and led to the development of a national system of highways. In addition, ancillary businesses developed in the form of automotive repair garages, filling stations, and roadside restaurants. In fact, the term “motel” is a blend of motor and hotel, created to describe the inns that catered to automobile travelers. The abundance of automobiles contributed to the overall mobility of the American people.

Time Travelers: Teaching American History in the Northwest, 2007
Regional Learning Project, University of Montana
The 1920s also witnessed an upsurge in product advertising. While the advertising of products was nothing new, the sheer quantity and cleverness of advertising produced increased demand for products. Now, to successfully sell a product, businesses had to create memorable and coercive advertisements to convince shoppers that their product was superior to its competition. Advertising agencies grew in Chicago and New York, hiring professional writers and illustrators to create witty and convincing promotional material for their products.
Memorable radio ads, known as “jingles,” were written by admen with the intent of ingraining the product’s name and slogan into the consumer’s head.
Also during the 1920s, several infamous advertisements sought to capitalize on consumers’ fear of social exclusion by targeting fears of inadequate hygiene. Listerine coined the term “halitosis” for bad breath, giving it a scientific sounding name to sell their product. The foot fungus, Tinea Trichopyton, a form of ringworm fungus, was renamed “Athlete’s Foot” to aid in the sale of the product Absorbine Junior. Deodorant ads utilized the fear of ostracism to sell their products, with Lifebuoy soap ads coining the term “B. O.” for body odor.
Also, the Kotex brand sold their feminine hygiene products by solving the
“laundress problem,” that is, replacing the need for the perceived embarrassment of laundering one’s cloth menstrual absorbers with disposable, cotton products.
While the boost in consumer awareness of hygiene products have yielded obvious positive results in the health and proximity tolerability of Americans, it has also embedded an insecurity about the natural smells and sights generated by own bodies.
The economic prosperity of the 1920s, coupled with an increase in the demand for consumer goods further transformed the U.S. into a consumer society. The credit system and prominent consumption of goods have had a lasting impact on American culture. While the blessings of consumption are mixed, they have become a central feature in the American economy and society.
Sources:
Stephen Fox. The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its
Creators . New York: William Morrow and Company: 1984.
Jackson Lears. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in
America . New York: Basic Books: 1994.