Key Takeaways
1. Industrialization's Social Crisis Fueled Consumerism
Industrialization, then, was more than a question of producing more goods in a new way. It also entailed a process of socialization which aimed at stabilizing and inculcating fidelity among those whose labor was being conscripted.
Social control imperative. The early 20th century saw American industrialization create immense productive capacity but also widespread social unrest. Workers, many from non-industrial backgrounds, resisted the rigid discipline and monotonous rhythms of factory life, leading to strikes and calls for self-determination. This "social crisis" necessitated new methods of control beyond punitive enforcement.
Proletarianization's impact. The transformation of people into an industrial workforce, or "proletarianization," was particularly violent in the U.S., compounded by diverse immigrant groups each resisting factory conditions. Labor struggles often centered not just on wages, but on the quality of life within industry, defining "wage-slavery" as a lack of self-determination. This discontent threatened corporate power and demanded a new approach to social stability.
Affirmative discipline. Business leaders like Thomas Edison recognized the failure of traditional, cruel industrial order. They sought "human management" and "human engineering" to stabilize the workforce, moving beyond mere productive capacity to delve into workers' social and psychological beings. This shift aimed to redefine workers as "citizens" of a new industrial civilization, where commitment to the industrial process extended beyond the factory floor.
2. Advertising as a Tool for "Manufacturing Customers"
modern machinery . . . made it not only possible but imperative that the masses should live lives of comfort and leisure; that the future of business lay in its ability to manufacture customers as well as products.
Mass production's demand. The staggering increase in productive capacity, exemplified by Henry Ford's assembly line, created an urgent need for equally vast markets. Industry could no longer rely on limited, elite consumers; it required a "systematic, nationwide plan" to endow the masses with buying power and habituate them to constant consumption.
Efficiency in consumption. Advertising emerged as a direct response to this need, becoming a major industry focused on efficiently creating consumers. Ad men saw their role as making the "cultural milieu of capitalism as efficient as line management had made production," offering "business insurance" for profitable distribution. This involved organizing businesses around the creation of a buying public, not just goods.
Economic and psychic wages. To achieve mass consumption, workers needed both higher wages and shorter hours, but also a "psychic desire to consume." This "industrial democracy" was not about control over production, but freedom to "cultivate themselves" through consumption. The goal was to channel labor aspirations into profitable consumer demands, divesting protest of its anticapitalist content.
3. Psychological Manipulation Created "Fancied Needs"
The creation of “fancied need” was crucial to the modern advertiser.
Beyond utilitarian value. Traditional appeals based on product utility or mechanical quality were insufficient for the volume and rate required by mass production. Advertisers, embracing social psychology, sought universal notions of human instinct to induce buying. They aimed to effect a self-conscious change in the "psychic economy" of consumers.
Appealing to instincts. Psychologists like Walter Dill Scott and Floyd Henry Allport provided frameworks for understanding human behavior, particularly the idea of the "social self" constantly under scrutiny. Advertisers channeled instincts like "social prestige," "beauty," and "acquisition" into product sales. For example, an attractive girl with pearls would make others desire them to "enhance personal appearance."
Self-critical consumption. Advertising aimed to turn consumers' critical functions inward, away from the product and toward themselves. Ads bludgeoned readers with the idea that "decent people don't live the way he does," making them "emotionally uneasy" about perceived social failures. This self-consciousness, fueled by insecurity, was designed to be ameliorated through marketplace solutions, fostering continuous dissatisfaction to drive sales.
4. Commercial Culture Forged a "National Homogeneity"
To National Advertising... has recently been attributed most of the growth of a national homogeneity in our people, a uniformity of ideas which, despite the mixture of races, is found to be greater here than in European countries whose population is made up almost wholly of people of one race and would seem easier to nationalize in all respects.
"Civilizing" influence. Advertising was lauded as a "civilizing influence" comparable to great historical developments, producing a "homogeneous national character" based on common desires. This "American type" was defined not by ethnicity or class, but by mass responses to capitalist production, implicitly accepting industrial life's foundations.
Targeting resistance. Pockets of resistance, particularly among immigrant communities, were met with "antidote advertising" designed to make people ashamed of their origins and "alien" habits. For instance, the Sherwin Cody School of English ads implied that imperfect language skills justified social ostracism, promoting conformity to a fabricated national norm.
Replacing traditional culture. The enormous growth of advertising coincided with the decline of traditional artistic expression and localized cultures. Newspapers became commercialized and centralized, and the immigrant press was heavily controlled by advertising agencies like Louis N. Hammerling's, which supplied both ads and editorials. This commercialization aimed to replace diverse cultural distinctions with a unified "American point of view" centered on product consumption.
5. The Factory's Reality Was Deliberately Obscured
Because, you see, when you know the truth about anything, the real, inner truth—it is very hard to write the surface fluff which sells it.
Undermining consumer trust. The harsh realities of factory life—monotony, unsafe conditions, loss of skills—fueled anticapitalist sentiment and undermined the positive image of consumer culture. Business recognized the need to "eradicate the productive process from the ideology that surrounded the products."
Avoiding "bad copy." Advertising manuals explicitly warned against mentioning factory life, deeming it "bad copy" detrimental to sales. Instead, products were placed in environments tailored to consumer psychology and corporate priorities, detached from their origins. Helen Woodward, a leading copywriter, advised never to see the factory where a product was made to preserve the "surface fluff which sells it."
Conspicuous consumption for all. The ideology of consumption promoted the idea that products could circumvent industrial ills. Styles were designed to suggest that the owner "does not have to work for a living," democratizing Thorstein Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption. This aimed to "release people from the limitations of their own lives" by obscuring the class bases of dissatisfaction inherent in production.
6. Consumption Offered as a Substitute for Social Change
Mass production holds possibilities of accomplishing for mankind all of the good that theoretical reformers or irrational radicals hope to secure by revolutionary means.
Pacifying discontent. Business leaders explicitly positioned mass consumption as an alternative to "deeper changes" and "class revolution." Recognizing widespread frustration, they sought to channel these impulses into socially controllable contexts, such as buying new clothes instead of demanding fundamental societal shifts.
"Democratic" consumerism. Edward Filene argued that mass production demanded "the education of the masses" to "behave like human beings in a mass production world," where social change was limited to commodified answers. This "industrial democracy" meant electing "industrial government" (corporations) through purchasing, rather than questioning the social bases of production.
Combating "Bolshevism." Frances Kellor, director of the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, directly linked advertising to combating "Bolshevism" and promoting "Americanization." The idea was that if business failed to provide commercialized leisure, "socialization" (radical movements) would be the "only practical substitute." Consumption became a political act, unifying disparate groups through shared market participation.
7. The Family's Transformation: From Production to Consumption
The family was a unity, patterned around the tasks of production and consumption needs—spheres that were not discrete.
Erosion of traditional roles. Pre-industrial families were self-sustaining units where production and consumption were intertwined, and patriarchal authority was rooted in material necessity. Industrialization, however, steadily displaced home production with social production, formalizing labor outside the home and weakening the family's economic foundation.
Wage system's impact. The rise of the wage system meant survival was bought, not produced, individualizing labor and isolating people in their struggle. The family's internal authority became symbolic, unsupported by the new industrial priorities. Sociologists noted the "loss of the economic functions of the home" as a key factor in rising divorce rates and a widespread sense of rootlessness.
Home as consumption arena. Houses were redesigned to accommodate the influx of factory-wrought goods, with traditional spaces for home production shrinking. The home became primarily an arena of consumption, dependent on external wages. This created a dilemma for women, whose traditional role was home-bound, but whose families increasingly needed their wages to maintain a "modern" lifestyle.
8. Youth Emerged as the New Industrial Ideal
Now the rapidly changing society which passes its judgment upon the old is represented not by the father, but by the child. The child, not the father, stands for reality.
Devaluation of age and skill. Mechanized production prioritized "swiftness and endurance" over "training and skill," making youth a central qualification for employment. Older workers lamented being "on the shelf" by forty, as their accumulated productive know-how became obsolete. This shift created widespread anxiety over aging and economic relevance.
Youth as a cultural symbol. Advertising heavily idealized youth, presenting it as a symbol of renewal, honesty, and malleability. This cultural canonization of youth served as an ideological weapon against traditional, age-based authority in families and communities. It channeled anxieties about industrial displacement into a "safe solution": youth could be bought through consumer products.
Children as conduits. Advertisers targeted children directly, viewing their "blank slate" characters as more receptive to new values than their parents. Psychologists like J.B. Watson advocated for indoctrinating children into "behavioristic freedom" (industrial reality) to circumvent parental prejudices. Ads often spoke in the name of children, chiding non-consuming parents and positioning products as essential for a child's success and health in the modern world.
9. The Father's Authority Reduced to Wage-Earner
The father gives his kind command, The mother joins, approves; The children all attentive stand, Then each obedient moves.
Erosion of patriarchal power. The traditional patriarchal authority, where the father controlled the family's economic process, was undermined by industrialization. Sociologists noted the "perplexing situation" faced by men trying to fulfill older conceptions of competence, as their social power diminished.
Father as "provider." In the new industrial order, the father's role was largely reduced to that of a wage-earner, his authority founded on his money-earning capacity rather than social power. Life insurance ads, for instance, depicted the company as an "ample father substitute," ensuring family "survival" (consumption) even in his absence, thereby locating stability in corporate hands.
Commodified success. Men were encouraged to define their diligence and ensure job security through consumption. Products like pipe tobacco or specific cereal beverages were advertised as keys to success, helping men "think straight" or avoid "cracking up physically." Personal appearance and bought images became crucial in a labor market that devalued creative skills, linking consumption directly to job tenure and personal adequacy.
10. The "New Woman" as Home Manager and Primary Consumer
I affirm that the manufacturer’s real success is measured by the degree of thoroughness with which the owner or operator of the appliance has been able to adapt herself to a transformation from a hand and craft technique over into a machine process.
Co-opting feminism. While feminism advocated for women's social utility and an end to drudgery, advertising co-opted this language. Campaigns like the "torches of freedom" for women smoking publicly redefined liberation through product consumption. Hoover vacuum cleaner ads promised freedom from cleaning burdens, equating modern appliances with women's emancipation.
Industrializing the home. The home, though still women's domain, was transformed by industrial goods, making traditional crafts superfluous. Advertisers actively debunked old practices like bread baking, promoting factory-made consumables and instructing women to adapt to "machine processes." This "household revolution" often meant labor-changing rather than labor-saving, as women became "machine operatives" in their own homes.
Managerial consumerism. Women were increasingly seen as "administrators and enterprisers in the business of living," responsible for directing family consumption. This "managerial" role, however, was circumscribed by the marketplace, with women educated to "know her groceries" and "know her calories" through home economics and corporate-sponsored institutes. Their decision-making power was a euphemism for choices dictated at the corporate level.
11. Mass Culture Contained Desires for Liberation
The linking of the marketplace to utopian ideals, to political and social freedom, to material well-being, and to the realization of fantasy, represents the spectacle of liberation emanating from the bowels of domination and denial.
Diverting social struggle. The consumer culture presented itself as the realm of gratification and excitement, an alternative to radical, anti-authoritarian prescriptions. It aimed to divert the demand and struggle for "something real" into acceptable, commodified embodiments, defining genuine social change as subversive or folly.
Corporate patriarchy. As traditional family bonds eroded, the marketplace offered capitalism as a social mode for meaningful relationships, replacing patriarchal authority with corporate authority. The "new family" was a parody of the old, with Mom, Dad, and the Kids linked by their common involvement in the time-space dictates of business, their roles defined by corporate sources.
Spectacle of liberation. Mass culture, through advertising, offered a "deformed and internally contradicted corporate acceptance" of historically forbidden desires. It presented an "escape" from the monotony of work and the restrictions of daily life, a "spectacle of liberation" that paradoxically reinforced corporate domination. This cultural displacement provided a mode of perception that confronted human needs while simultaneously restricting their possibilities within the confines of the commodity system.
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