Consumer Culture and the
Selling of America
Wisconsin Workshop: Wed. 10:00-11:00
Emily S. Rosenberg,
University of California, Irvine
This morning we looked at the efforts to
“Advertise America” during World War I
Now let’s consider another way of
“selling” America. during the Cold War –
the use of so-called “Soft Power”
“Soft Power”
• What is “hard” vs “soft” power? (See Joseph Nye, “Soft Power”)
• The Cold War is often cast as a story of high politics: military and
diplomatic confrontation. [next slide]
• But it was also waged by selling America as the land of abundance,
fun, and the future.
• Let’s look at Cold War Expositions of the 1950s
• Then consider
– whether these “soft” appeals were ultimately critical to winning the Cold
War.
– Does the U.S. still “sell” itself in the world effectively?
What is power in foreign affairs?
Does power always involve high politics?
Cold War Expositions of the 1950s
• U.S. Expositions abroad during the 1950s
aimed to convince the world of the
superiority of the “American Way of Life”
• Let’s look at some photos and talk about
some of the elements of this “American
Way”
Consumer Culture as a kind of “soft
power” that sold America
What is consumer culture?
A mass-production and massmarketing system that imagines a
widespread abundance of goods
within a culture that emphasizes
purchasing, desire, glamour, and
flexible, consumption-driven identities.
Long before the Cold War
America’s “specialty” products
were known world-wide
for being
-cheap,
-practical,
-targeted to everyday
people rather than wealthy.
Let’s see some
examples
1920s
1923
1929
1926
1934 SEARS
CATALOG
GLORIA
SWANSON
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS
MARY PICKFORD
“Modern Girls” in China
during the 1920s
From: Beverley Jackson,
Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up (2007)
From: Beverley Jackson,
Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up (2007)
Dorothy Shaver
of Lord and Taylor
department store
Revolt from Paris
“American Fashions for Americans,”
Shouts revolution led by Miss Shaver
“Consumptionism is . . . The
greatest idea that America has to
give the world:
Pay them more, sell them more,
prosper more is the equation.”
- from Selling Mrs. Consumer, 1929
World War II: GIs bring many US products around world
America’s Consumer Culture’s Appeal
during the Early Cold War (1950s)
• How were consumer products used to represent
America as a nation?
– Against wartime devastation, US promoted practical
plans of recovery of production (Marshall Plan)
– But consumer products appealed to dreams of the
future as well
• Why might such products have had such appeal
in other countries?
Hiroshima, 1945
ERP-funded Italian Vespa plant
ERP-funded Italian auto plant
Dreams of
abundance
and progress. . .
Let’s look at
postwar projections
of the American
Way
“The American Look”
LIFE, 1945
“The American Look”
LIFE, 1945
“The American Look”
LIFE, 1945
“The American Look”
LIFE, 1945
“The American Look”
Women’s Wear Daily,
1945
GRACE KELLY
LAUREN BACALL
1
1944 Film
Song and Dance: “Put Me to the
Test” at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
UjrYtQ_iMGY
“The NYLON War”
• In 1951, American sociologist David Riesman
published a satiric essay entitled "The nylon
war", in which he envisioned an American aerial
offensive to bombard Soviet citizens with
consumer goods, ranging from "nylon hose" to
radios and jeeps.
• [full text can be found through Google-books]
Brussels Exposition, 1958
U.S. Pavilion in Brussels, 1958
Soviet
Pavilion,
Brussels
Interior of US Pavilion: Fashion Show with People Watching?
Brussels Exposition, 1958
Workers look through US mail order catalog
Practice for U.S. Fashion Show,
Brussels, 1958
Lee Canfield of Vogue, sister
of Jacqueline Kennedy, designed
the show
American Culture as a
Culture of Transformation
And “Self-fashioning”?
Kitchen in Soviet Pavilion
• Modern kitchens are one of the most important
weapons in the “psychological battle to win the
uncommitted nations to the free way of life. . . .It
is one of the wonders of the world that
Americans in every economic strata have
kitchens with labor-saving devices which free the
American woman from drudgery, which make
the kitchen the heart of the home.” – Katherine
Howard (2nd deputy commissioner of the
exhibition).
Snack Bar and Ice Cream Parlor
Russians try on “propeller beanies”
Children's Creative Center,
sponsored by the
Museum of Modern Art,
in the American Pavillion,
Brussels World's Fair.
American Exposition, Moscow
1959
Vogue magazine’s role
• A partner with US
Information Agency at
Cold War Expositions
in Brussels in 1958
and Moscow in 1959
Vogue Fashions in Moscow, 1959
Ranch-style U.S. House of the 1950s
American Exposition,
Moscow, 1959
V.P. Nixon and Khrushchev in
Kitchen Debate, 1959
Ida Rosenthal
• A Jewish Russian
immigrant, Rosenthal and
her husband designed bras
that took fashion away from
the “boyish” look of the
1920s: Maidenform Co.
• Carried out longest lasting
and most celebrated ad
campaign in history from
1949 on: “I Dreamed. . .”
“I Dreamed” Ads Spanned the
Globe during 1950s
“I Dreamed” Ads Spanned the
Globe
Ida’s Goodwill Trip to Moscow:
TIME Magazine, Aug., 1963
• Article called: “I DREAMED I WENT TO MOSCOW IN”
• Discusses the numbers of Americans traveling to
Moscow in 1953. Ends with:
“Obviously in a class by herself was Ida Rosenthal,
board chairman of the U.S.'s Maidenform brassiere
company, who appeared for a fashion survey. She
dreamed she went to Moscow in her.”
• See also
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=196
30627&id=zRErAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IZwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=63
31,5907562
• American “things” came to stand for a way of life that
was free, fun, leisured.
• “Americanization” had lots of critics, but consumer
culture gradually adapted to many cultures around the
world.
• Brad DeLong, a UCB economist, argues that cultural
power stems and economic were intertwined: See next
slide.
• Or longer version at:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/23/the_end
_of_influence?page=full
“Soft power -- not military might, not straight-out money, but the ability to inspire
acceptance and imitation -- was a vital component of American international dominance.
Money, of course, is power. Because America had the money -- had it solidly, rightfully, selfassuredly, and durably -- for about 100 years, people all over the world wanted to be like
Americans: successful, modern, loose-jointed, efficient, democratic, socially mobile, leggy,
clean, powerful, and, of course, rich. Money brings a nation power; it brings the power to
propagate, consciously or not, the ideas, concerns, fashions, norms, interests, amusements,
and ways of displaying and behaving that come out of its culture. These penetrate deep down
into other cultures as well as its own; they become part of daily life. This is luxuriant power:
It doesn't have to be exercised willfully or even consciously, and it doesn't even cost anything
extra. It was clearly the way to be.
As the United States emerged in the aftermath of World War I as the top power and giant
money master, American jazz swept through Europe, faster than Ford and Kodak. Later,
especially after World War II, Europeans eagerly welcomed the onslaught of American
movies. Most Europeans encountered America at the movies, but two generations of rather
privileged Europeans traveled to America to see for themselves (many sponsored by the State
Department), to behold the skyscrapers of New York, the George Washington and Golden
Gate bridges, and the houses of rather ordinary people with huge shiny cars, washing
machines, televisions, and the orthodontically-enhanced smiles on tall, milk- and meat-fed
women.”
Some Conclusions: “Soft Power”
• The Cold War is often cast as a story
of high politics: military and
diplomatic confrontation.
• But it was also waged by selling
America as the land of abundance,
fun, and the future.
• Maybe these “soft” appeals were
ultimately critical to winning the Cold
War.
• Does the U.S. still “sell” itself in the
world effectively? Does it still have
the economic power to do so?