Consumerism Of The 1920s Essay

The decade of the 1920s is often characterized as years of economic growth and prosperity.
After World War I and the post-wartime recession, which had struck the United States when veterans returned home and defense contracts were terminated, the American community was ready to move forward and prospects seemed promising. Unemployment rates fell as low as 3 percent, prices remained stable, and the gross national product (GNP) increased by 43 percent from 1922 to 1929. Americans enjoyed their electrified homes, family cars, and new consumer goods; they bought a lot and looked ahead with optimism (698). Seizing the opportunity, the American people also invested heavily in the stock market (699) and made use of the abundantly available sales on credit (701). The consumerism of the so-called Golden Twenties was additionally fueled by the modern and inviting feel chain and department stores offered (700).

The implementation of assembly-line methods, methods that plants owned by Henry Ford, who coined the term “Fordism” as a synonym for the “industrial might” of the U.S. and assembly-line techniques, had made famous, increased productivity by around 40 percent. While the monotonous tasks took its toll on many workers and job satisfaction decreased, workers also profited from the booming economy (699) and employers, strong in their new-found belief that higher wages would increase efficiency and raise consumer purchasing power, supported the higher wages (700).
However, not all worker benefited equally and discriminatory practices remained. Women (701), recent immigrants, and other minorities were often forced into unskilled, low-paid jobs (700). Moreover, workers in the South earned considerably less than their counterparts in the North (699) and African Americans, who "last hired and first fired" found themselves at the bottom of the job market, were restricted to the most menial of jobs