Radio Fever and the Start of a U.S. Consumer Economy in the 1920s
In the 1920s, new products made household chores easier and gave people more free time. Products that used to be too expensive became affordable. New types of loans allowed every family to spend more than they had. The loans let them buy things in stores now and pay for them later. Advertising used people's hopes and fears to sell more and more goods.
Washing Machines Save Hours of Work
By the end of the 1920s, household work was revolutionized. A typical work week for a housewife before the 1920s involved many tedious chores. To clean the carpet, she had to move all the furniture, roll up the carpet, and drag it outside to beat out the week's dirt and dust. There were no refrigerators or washing machines. This meant she had to change the ice in the icebox and scrub the clothes in a washing tub on a washboard. To smooth out wrinkles, an iron was heated on the stove. Women typically spent the summer months canning food for the long winter. Clothes were made at home, and bread was made from scratch.
Very few of these tasks were necessary by the end of the decade. Vacuum cleaners were used instead of the carpet beater. Electric refrigerators, washing machines and irons saved hours of extra work. Store-bought food became cheap and good enough so that women did not have to can produce themselves. Store-bought clothing became more and more widespread. Even large bakeries were supplying bread to the new supermarkets. The hours saved in household work were countless. But, some of these machines were very expensive when they first came out. Poorer families, and even many middle-class families, could not afford some of these new gadgets in the 1920s.
Debt Rises
An advertisement for a washing machine in the 1920s. Photo from Library of Congress. [click to enlarge]
"Buy now, pay later" became the slogan of many middle-class Americans. All of these new products were impossible for families to afford at once, but stores wanted consumers to have it all. Department stores let shoppers buy goods on credit and pay later. Over half of the nation's automobiles were sold on credit by the end of the decade. America's consumers could indeed have it all if they were willing to take on debt. Consumer debt more than doubled between 1920 and 1930.
Hollywood Stars Sell Products
New ways of advertising created a demand for new goods. One major trend was to convince Americans they needed the product. The classic example was the campaign for Listerine, a mouthwash. Using a seldom-heard term for bad breath — halitosis — Listerine convinced thousands of Americans to buy their product. Consumers might not have known what halitosis was, but they knew they did not want it.
Advertisers were no longer just responding to demand, and instead they created demand. Radio became an important new way to sell a product. Testimonials from Hollywood movie stars about how great products were sold products in record numbers.
The advertising business created demand for the gadgets and appliances manufactured by American factories.
Controlling the Airwaves
Commercial radio in America had humble beginnings. A man named Frank Conrad set up an amateur radio station above his garage in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suburb. Ever since the radio was developed by Guglielmo Marconi in the late 1800s, thousands of enthusiasts across the world experimented with the new toy. After World War I, Conrad began broadcasting a variety of programming from his "station." High school music groups performed, and he played phonograph records and read news and baseball scores. Conrad was convinced he could make a lot of money from his hobby.
On the night of November 2, 1920, Conrad announced that Warren G. Harding would become the next president. The message was heard as far north as New Hampshire and as far south as Louisiana. The federal government granted him the call letters KDKA, and a new industry was born. For nearly a year, KDKA monopolized the airwaves, but competition came fast and furious. By the end of 1922, there were over 500 radio stations across the United States. Stations fought over call letters and frequencies, and finally in 1927, Congress created the Federal Radio Commission to restore order and set rules to govern the airwaves.
Millions of Listeners Tune In
Radio was free for the listener. Stations made money by selling air time to advertisers. The possibility of reaching millions of listeners at once had advertising executives scrambling to take advantage. By the end of the decade, advertisers paid over $10,000 for an hour.
In 1926, the Radio Corporation of America created America's first radio network and called it the National Broadcasting Company. For the first time, citizens of California and New York could listen to the same programming simultaneously. Americans listened to the same sporting events and took up the same fads. Baseball games and boxing matches could now reach those far away from the stadiums and arenas.
Use the link below to post to Padlet in order to receive credit for class today:
