The American approach to consumerism. How its aged over 100 years.

It is nearly one hundred years since the pioneering home economist, author and consumer champion Christine Frederick defined the American Consumer approach. How have these ambitions aged in a world of too many products and a heating planet.

Christine Frederick published the book Selling Mrs. Consumer, in 1929. This challenged the widely held assumption of the male as the lone consumer, establishing the importance of women as informed consumers and encouraging them to buy more goods. She saw a clean break with the consumer habits of the old world Europeans and encouraged American consumers to reject the quality/longevity approach. In Frederick’s disapproving words, “In Europe people buy shoes, clothes, motor cars, etc., to last just as long possible. That is their idea of buying wisely. You buy once and of very substantial, everlasting materials and you never buy again if you can help it. It is not uncommon for English women of certain circles to wear on all formal occasions, the same evening gown for five or ten years.”⁠1

Frederick pushed for the purchase of goods on the basis of wanting the latest, newest, brightest and shiniest thing. “We have subscribed whole-heartedly to the consumer idea that goods should not be consumed up to the last ounce of their usability; but that in an industrial era Mrs. Consumer is happiest and best served if she consumes goods at the same approximate rate of change and improvement that science and art and machinery can make possible.”⁠2

She encouraged the American consumer to engage with the ‘Progressive Obsolescence’ she observed in her research into the American home. In her eyes the characteristics that most defined the American approach –

• First a suggestible state of mind, eager and willing to take hold of anything new.

• Second came an innate readiness to scrap or lay aside an article before its natural, useful life was completed in order to make way for a new and better thing.

• And third came a willingness to spend money, a very large share of one’s income, even if savings had to be cut back or even abandoned, in order to have new things and new experiences⁠.

Reading these three ambitions nearly a century later is pretty eye opening. Let’s reflect on them one by one.

“A suggestible state of mind.”

It notable that Frederick is inviting the consumer to be more open to advertising. Encouraging them to believe the product producers promises. The messages the average consumer at the time was receiving from advertising would have been less sophisticated by modern day standard. Far more trust would have been given to the produce. A hundred years later we are trying to do the opposite and close down the messages from advertising. As a consequence our modern adverts are placed in very deliberate contexts to help them be more acceptable.

“Innate readiness to scrap or lay aside an article before its natural.”

This would have been quite a hurdle to get over at the time. Many people would have prided themselves on the efficiency of using items to their maximum capability. Over the following decades we have become very comfortable at disposability. For a while embracing the trashcan as an all excepting end of product life vessel. Now at least we have some basic recycling in some regions. Requiring us to consider material types. Although many people around the world still have few options at good disposal routes.

Frederick also proposed a pace of consumption that seems familiar to any consumer electronics customer of today “…at the approximate rate of change and improvement that science and art and machinery can make possible.”

“A willingness to spend money, a very large share of one’s income, even if savings had to be cut back or even abandoned, in order to have new things and new experiences⁠.”

At the time of Frederick’s book there was no easy way to borrow money for many people. Especially women. Who were only permitted equal rights from banks in the US after the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed in 1974. Previously a married women would require their husbands permission to get a loan. Banks would often refuse loans to single women. Credit cards didn’t emerge until the late 1950s.

Frederick was recommending an incredible effort and risk to consumers at the time. The ease of access to credit now seems a world away.

What is very clear from looking at Fredericks book nearly a century after its publication is how far we have come along a path that initially provided benefits many people. While indulging over the following decades, we overlooked the side effects and downplayed the damage. Initially they were small. Issues that could have been adjusted and corrected. But we championed the commerce and consumption beyond conservation. The growth in all aspects of consumerism were, we thought, critical to increase. More money, more products, more growth, more convenience. We have gone beyond course correction. How far will we continue in to course chaos?

1 Strasser. S. (1999). Waste and Want.  pp. 197