Post WWII Consumerism and the American Household
The late 1940’s into the early 1950’s in America was a time remembered for its economic prosperity and peak of American consumerism. American citizens were exhausted by the end of WWII, between struggling through the Great Depression and cutting back at home for the war effort. Salaries were up, unemployment was down to 2%, and the public had money to spend. Americans made up just 6% of the world population, but they produced about half of the manufactured products for the planet. Industries such as automobiles and steel saw rapid growth. Between 1945 and 1949, Americans purchased 20 million refrigerators, 21.4 million cars, and 5.5 million stoves. Their strong desire to buy made American consumers easy targets for public advertisement. My object of analysis is a print advertisement (circa 1950) from International Harvester Company; it features their refrigerator and door handle accessories. The ad is very obviously geared toward their target audience, the female homemaker. The text exclaims, in curly pink script, that the rainbow colored door handles are “femineered” (a term used in many International Harvester advertisements), and are “as fashionable as they are
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At this point in American history, women did not have jobs outside of the domestic realm. They were expected to dedicate their time to caring for their children, their home, and their husband. The boom in production of appliances such as the refrigerator, washing and dryer machines, vacuums, toasters, and other tools that promised to make housework easier and more modernized, were very attractive to women of the era. The introduction of the credit card in 1950 and being able to borrow money on credit through department stores allowed the average American to obtain luxuries they wouldn’t have been able to afford