THE CHALLENGE OF ABUNDANCE: REACTIONS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONSUMER ECONOMY, 1890-1920.

摘要

In the years between 1890 and 1920 a consumer economy began to emerge in the United States, and America was forced to confront the challenge of material abundance. In these years there developed out of the tremendous increases in industrial production new means for the distribution and selling of goods. These increases in production, as well as the Depressions of the late nineteenth century, called into question the assumption that supply would always determine demand. American industrialists thus began to realize as never before the need to create demand through the stimulation of consumers' desires. During these years advertising increased significantly in volume and, more important, assumed many of its "modern" characteristics. In orther words, Americans did not wake up at the beginning of the 1920's, as many textbook writers are prone to have it, in the midst of a "consumer economy." Rather, in the generation before the "Prosperity Decade" Americans had become acutely aware of their own rising wealth, of their new role as consumers, of the importance of consumption to the prosperity of the nation, and of the increasing pressure put upon them to buy.; It was in the generation before the 1920's, therefore, that traditional economic assumptions were most severely challenged by these material changes. Many Americans were forced to accommodate old economic doctrines and moral values regarding wealth, spending, and saving with newer economic imperatives. In doing so, they often demonstrated an ambivalence towards wealth and a high "standard of living." Concerns about this budding consumer economy emerged in a variety of settings, from the work of novelists and economists, to the thrift campaigns at the turn of the century and the conservation boards of the First World War. Most observers, not surprisingly, welcomed a high level of consumption, for it represented prosperity and "progress." Yet, at the same time, increased consumption also seemed to result in "heedless extravagance," social unrest, and high prices. These fears, rooted in some traditional notions about the proper use of wealth, were also often reflected in the desire for the "social control" of consumption. Many Americans, in short, were fearful of too much spending and were also skeptical of the masses' ability to adjust to growing wealth.; Nonetheless, by the beginning of the 1920's, Americans had made some important adjustments to material abundance. In these years, for instance, many prominent business leaders began to accept the notion that labor's ability to consume was intimately tied to the well-being of society itself. Many individuals had also reconciled old economic virtues with the increasingly shrill and compelling calls to consume. Although the urge for "social control" of consumers' desires remained a quiet undercurrent in these years, the need to preserve old economic virtues while also recognizing the new imperatives to spend more often led to the embrace of the "efficient" expenditure of money. In other words, thrift was preserved by defining it not in terms of saving, but rather as proper spending. Ironically, however, the ideal of "efficient" consumption helped to reconcile Americans to an emerging consumer economy at the very time that new forms of "demand creation" were working to undermine the validity of this ideal.; This is a study, then, of the relationship between ideas and the material conditions which helped to support them. It is an examination of the ways economic abundance in the generation before the 1920's worked to erode part of the set of values commonly referred to as the "Protestant ethic." It is also a study, however, of the ways in which these values, themselves, in large part shaped the response of many Americans to these changes and in some ways made the acceptance of a consumer economy much easier.