Sandwiched between the war-ravaged 1940s and the explosive 1960s, the 1950s was a time of great growth and prosperity in many aspects. With many new additions, advertising was able to exponentially grow and did so through the use of the newspaper and television (technological . The 1950s were sometimes referred to as "the advertiser's dream decade." Demand for them must be elaborately contrived," he wrote. In the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a war economy followed, so it was almost 20 years before mass consumption resumed any role in economic life or in the way the economy was conceived. Consumerism increased after World War II, when the nation stopped prioritizing the military needs, consumer goods became popular as Americans established lives. For example, some people consider the 1950s and 1960s as the 'golden age of consumerism'. The fifties were the decade of reform to the better led by president Eisenhower. Firms began adding a few ethnic and racial minorities to their staffs. In the text book it talks about the specific effects the Great Depression had on all types of people. The two decades led to historical breakthroughs as well as setbacks; they are imperative to the history of the United States. The concept came about . Even if a shorter working day became an acceptable strategy during the Great Depression, the economic systems orientation toward profit and its bias toward growth made such a trajectory unpalatable to most captains of industry and the economists who theorised their successes. New needs would be created, with advertising brought into play to "augment and accelerate" the process. This decade became a major influential time that brought many cultural and societal changes. Each decade had its own unique style of advertising, but one period of time really stands in stark contrast to what we're accustomed to today. Industry insiders, journalists, and the public criticized the crass and manipulative aspects of advertising. he asks. Notions of meeting everyones needs with an adequate level of production did not feature. For instance, the development of the suburbs. Some memorable TV spots during this time period were for Alka-Seltzer, Ajax, and Frosted Flakes. It would be feasible to reduce hours of work and release workers for the pleasurable activities of free time with families and communities, but business did not support such a trajectory. It would not do if people were content because they felt they had enough. 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. Free shipping for many products! Though it is status that is being sold, it is endless material objects that are being consumed. Post-war consumerism reflected the traditional values promoted by politicians and popular culture. When it came to the fear of communism during the fifties the majority were in agreement. In both eras, borrowed money bought unprecedented quantities of material goods on time payment and (these days) credit cards. Driven by a thriving postwar economy, designers utilized bold styling to transform everyday objects into visually expressive items, and manufacturers unleashed an array of products to keep pace with demand. Notwithstanding the panic and pessimism, a consumer solution was simultaneously emerging. "Requiring no significant degree of literacy on the part of its audience, radio gave interested corporations unprecedented access to the inner sanctums of the public mind," Ewen writes. The first one was the mid to late 50s when rock 'n' roll was first sort of invented. Additionally, disagreements and rebellions. ", Galbraith quotes the Presidents Materials Policy Commission setting out its premise that economic growth is sacrosanct. Business and political leaders claimed consumerism was more than shopping: it defined the benefits of capitalism. US consumer credit rose to $7 billion in the 1920s, with banks engaged in reckless lending of all kinds. During the 50s, there was a deeply ingrained social stigma against divorce, and the divorce rate dropped. 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. 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.. Coontz describes that when one takes a closer look at the 1950s they will realize that comparing it to the 1990s or the 21st century is absurd. Electrification was crucial for the consumption of the new types of durable items, and the fraction of US households with electricity connected nearly doubled between 1921 and 1929, from 35 to 68%. Coontz discusses that jobs, marriage, birthrate and education were at very high points in the 1950s. Attempts to promote new fashions, harness the "propulsive power of envy," and boost sales multiplied in Britain in the late 18th Century. 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. Absolutely Ethical? . The 1950s ushered in an era of consumerism that has rolled on virtually unopposed to the present. 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. such as the early civil rights movement's demand for access to public accommodations in the 1940s and 1950s and the consumer and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s . You were disrupting the post-war peace. The economy was booming. 3. Also Political battles centred around communism and capitalism dominated the decade. Motor car registration rose from eight million in 1920 to more than 28 million by 1929. A steady-state economy capable of meeting the basic needs of all, foreshadowed by philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill as the stationary state, seemed well within reach and, in Mills words, likely to be an improvement on "the trampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each others heels the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress". The 1950s was an important year for fashion and for African Americans. Though the television sets that carried the advertising into peoples homes after World War II 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. The prospect of ever-extendable consumer desire, characterized as progress, promised a new way forward for modern manufacture, a means to perpetuate economic growth. Ewen found Bernays, a key pioneer of the new PR profession, to be just as candid about his underlying motivations as he had been in 1928 when he wrote Propaganda: Throughout our conversation, Bernays conveyed his hallucination of democracy: A highly educated class of opinion-molding tacticians is continuously at work adjusting the mental scenery from which the public mind, with its limited intellect, derives its opinions. Throughout the interview, he described PR as a response to a transhistoric concern: the requirement, for those people in power, to shape the attitudes of the general population. These changes would persuade consumers to buy the new model and that they needed to update their cars every couple of years and ultimately expanded purchasing growth in the 50s society. If profit and growth were lagging, the system needed new impetus. Demand for them must be elaborately contrived, he wrote. The 1950s was characterized as a prosperous and conformist for several reasons. Watch on. Consumerism is the theory that increased consumption of goods is beneficial for the economy. Advertising. The consumer movement shows that far from a nascent neo-liberal agenda, on offer was a negotiation with the market recognizing both its dynamism and iniquities and crafting . 771 Words4 Pages. In Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s, Traci Parker offers a historical link between the current struggles and the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century. While it was a lot less in gross terms than the burden of debt in the US in late 2008, the debt of the 1920s was very large, over 200% of the GDP of the time. See how consumerism flourished through advertising, higher. In the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a war economy followed, so it was almost 20 years before mass consumption resumed any role in economic life or in the way the economy was conceived. This was followed by a rapid proliferation of radios, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators. In 1960, more than 70 percent of families still looked much like the family of the 1950s, with a man who brought in the family 's sole income, children and a stay-at-home wife and mother. One of the most present and critiqued societal phenomena of the time was the rise of American consumerism. Some of features most common to the 20's and 50's were consumerism and the accompanying optimistic mindset, the extent to which new ideas entered society, and discrimination in terms of both sexism and racism. Raoul A. Cortez (19051971) thought media should serve the community and promote the common good. So, the stereotypical nuclear family of the 1950s consisted of an economically stable family made up of a father, mother, and two or three children. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there were several highly-publicized espionage trials that convicted leading scientists and government figures of espionage, culminating in the 1953 execution of scientist Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel for passing information about the atomic bomb to Russia. In the 1950s, advertising on TV compared with schools and churches with social influence. Key events across the decade and the world include the beginning of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the first ever Organ Transplant and the introduction of Coloured TV. Unless he 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 his classic 1928 book Propaganda, Edward Bernays, one of the pioneers of the public relations industry, put it this way: Mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintainedthat is if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity. Today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand [and] cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable. This era marked a high point of American productivity and a high standard of living. The average price of TV sets dropped from about $500 in 1949 to $200 in 1953. Credit: Frank Martin/ Getty Images She is the author of Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet, from which this article is adapted. In 1955, he opened KCOR-TV, expanding his broadcasting business and community-centered media vision to television. Quite the reverse: frugality and thrift were more appropriate to situations where survival rations were not guaranteed. The 1920s bonanza collapsed suddenly and catastrophically. Illuminating the bold ideas and voices that make up the MIT Press's expansive catalog. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. In Australia, the 1939 debt of AU$39 million doubled in the first two years after the war and, by 1960, had grown by a factor of 25, to more than AU$1 billion dollars. While the consumption of goods can drive economic growth, overconsumption can also have devastating effects on the environment, the financial situations and mental health of the general public. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff. WANN, a white-owned radio station in Annapolis, Maryland, cultivated African American consumers and demonstrated their buying power by connecting their audience to retailers and manufacturers who hoped to expand sales. examples of traditional American TV. People would be encouraged to give up thrift and husbandry, to value goods over free time. After World War II, consumer spending no longer meant just satisfying an indulgent material desire. 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. 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