Consumer Culture: Describes how radio, advertising, automobiles, and movies effected the consumer culture of the 1920's

Essay by jordanasheUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, February 2003

download word file, 4 pages 4.2 1 reviews

Downloaded 186 times

Consumer Culture

The Twenties was a time of great social change for America. Woman had been given the right to vote, selling alcoholic beverages was illegal, and agrarian people were moving to the cities. While these social changes were taking place, economic change also began to take hold. Increasingly, men were working in factories--in jobs that required little or no skill. Work was repetitious, boring, and unfulfilling for most Americans, yet because most were experiencing times of prosperity, families had more money. The times were right for another change, a cultural change, and thus began the era of consumer culture that is a staple of America even today.

Since one's work could no longer ensure satisfaction or contentment, people began to look for other avenues of gratification outside the workplace. Industry, too, was experiencing the stress of changing times because they had the means to produce many goods, yet the demand was simply not out there for many new products.

Advertising became the tool to create the demand American industries needed to sell mass quantities of goods. Paradoxically, advertisers picked up on American's yearning for some sort of relief from the monotony and drudgery of industrial life. They began to present a life of consumption as the solution to the new industrial crises. Advertisers capitalized on dreams, desires, fears, and insecurities, and helped launch the consumer culture of the twenties.

Radio also played an important role in launching the consumer culture. It was the medium through which advertising worked its magic. For the first time in history, one person, one ad, or one product could reach every corner of the American landscape. Furthermore, the radio itself was a product Americans began to find indispensable, and also contributed to the hysteria of consumption. It provided a form of entertainment and source...