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Material wealth defined who people were:

If you had a fancy sports car you were obviously wealthy. If you had a used station wagon then you were most likely a person who was less fortunate.

Consumerism in the 1950's - By Katie Hoffman

An Average Couple in the 1950's

First outdoor shopping mall: Shoppers World, Framingham MA.

“Advancement has come to mean the progressive accumulation of things as well as the increasing capacity to consume... If one manages to buy a new car, if each year sees a major addition to the household—a washing machine, a refrigerator, a new living-room suite, now probably a television set—then one is also getting ahead.”

This shows a middleclass car that average families usually had.

One of the newly constructed shopping centers

How it effected the average Family?

"The reason we have such a high standard of living," Robert Sarnoff, president of the National Broadcasting Company, said in 1956, "is because advertising has created an American frame of mind that makes people want more things, better things, and newer things."

Shopping

What Changed?

With all the change that was brought by the consumer nation the shopping center began to evolve. The first outdoor shopping center was built in 1951 in Framingham MA.

Consumerism was a part of family life as well. Shopping became a family affair. People thought that what they bought defined who they were. They began all trying to be the same. It was conformity. This became known as keeping up with the Jones.

The TV was a huge part of encouraging consumerism. Advertisements displayed many products available for purchase. Companies took full advantage of the TV, using the newly animated consumer-led economy advertisements were born. These new advertisements were the driving force behind consumerism.

A new shopping center.

TV's similar to this occupied 9 out of 10

American House holds

Coming out of World war II Americans had

money to spend and products to buy. However, there was a more sinister undertone to their spending. With the constant threat of nuclear war held over their heads they thought that they could be alive one day and die the next.

A Family on an Outing to the Mall

http://www.shoppersworldhistory.com/your-memories.php

http://www.youtube.com

http://www.manythings.org/voa/history/205.html

http://www.americanpopularculture.com/archive/style/orpheus.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tupperware-consumer/

http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/hernandez/1300.f10/coldwarathome.pdf

http://www.shmoop.com/1950s/economy.html

Consumerism

What it did to America

  • It began to define who American's were
  • What they wanted
  • Who our society was

They bought everything from poodleskirts

to houses. People began transitioning from buying for necessity to buying for luxury.

What is Consumerism?

Consumerism- a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services.

Consumerism is more than simply the economic state of the United States in the 1950's. It had become everything. Consumerism was what people were. It was in the media and in the magazines. Everything promoted Americans to spend.

The Good:

The Bad:

Workers at Joseph Sankey & Son's Ltd. Biliston, 1950's

Consumerism helped to advance the prosperity of new products. It built the middle-class of America and helped promote the advancement of many products such as the car and the TV.

Male and Female textile factory. 1950's

The American society was very vulnerable. Because of its dependence on the consuming of goods recessions decimated the society.

Fishing game at Shopper World, 1950's

Into the 1960's

Consumerism helped to promote the economy into the

sixties. It helped to advance to development of

automobiles and media. However during the sixties the

price of money began to inflate and the recessions in

1954 and in 1958 did not help the vulnerable economy.

Shoppers world in the 1960's

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