Download More is Better: Mass Consumption, Gender, and Class

Lecture Paper on Shelley Nickles' Article - “More is Better: Mass Consumption, Gender, and
Class Identity in Postwar America”
Introduction
After World War II, Americans often associate the 1950s with a series of powerful
cultural symbols: the "American Dream", which meant a home in the suburbs, job security in a
large corporation, and a new car every few years. Although all historians characterized the postwar
Fifties as a period of booming economy, linked to growth of the middle class, some of them were
disapproval for the interpretation that this economic prosperity directly depending on business,
trade and employment resulted in the social consequence of the affluence. According to the
traditional ideas of the Fifties advanced by the so-called consensus school of historians, class
differences in American society were progressively eroded and Americans were enjoying a happy
life the modern consumer society brought. The ideas were disseminated nationwide through
advertisement and mass media, especially the radio and television, which were regarded as the
most important inventions of American consumer society.
In contrast, the social critics, such as Vance Packard, indicated in his million-selling
book "The Hidden Persuaders" that the advertisers used "buyer motivational research" and other
psychological techniques in order to manipulate expectations and induce desire for products. He
also argued that the manipulative techniques served for promoting politicians to the electorate in
the American postwar era.
Still, consumer society dominated the period of the 1950s in the United-States. However,
some historians believed that such a consumer society was unable to make American society
classless, that nation's leading industrialists dreamt of, because all Americans consumed, but not in
the same way.
Summery
The so-called "Kitchen Debate" became the heart of American consumer economy. That
can be seen in Shelley Nickles' article "More is better," which begins with the debate about the
social and cultural consequences of working-class prosperity in the decade following World War II
among the nation’s leading designers of appliances, automobiles, and other mass-produced goods.
Shelley Nickles foresees the failure of the taste-makers, if they managed to insist upon
their aesthetic of “less is more” instead of considering the taste - "more is better" of the
working-class families who moved to the suburbs, because they had a purchasing power
comparable to that of the middle-class families who preceded them there. According to the
arguments in her article, Shelley Nickles shows that these working-class families, who could earn
the middle wages, wanted to buy the goods embodying their social belonging linking to social
environments and the sense of acceptance by others, for instance, family, friends, co-workers, and
so on. Thus, they preferred large refrigerators, massive cars with tailfins and chrome, and generally
shiny colours rather than single-hue grey colour scheme or style of simplicity that upper-class
designers concentrated on promoting to the mass-market.
Shelley Nickles shows the fact that a large number of blue-collar families until then could
economically afford what was until then the privilege of the middle and upper classes did not bring
them to adapt their tastes to the norm of the socially dominant group. In contrast, since they formed
the bulk of the mass market, they in turn imposed their taste to the taste-makers, who had to admit
that if they wanted to sell their goods, they had to respect that aesthetic of “more is better”.
I. The shape of the future mass marketing in the 1950s
In the postwar period, the question was whether design standards would have to
accommodate blue-collar consumers' “more is better” idea about value or whether the working
class would be uplifted by their new prosperity to accept the upper-middle class “less is more”
style. During the postwar era, the working-class culture had an inevitable trend to enter
mainstream cultural domain existing long before in the United-States. Thus, the fact that the rate
of ownership of refrigerators throughout the US was doubled from 44% to about 90% thanks to
working-class buyers, whose purchasing power was largely increased, progressively became a
major part of consummation expenditure in the mass market. However, conservative
upper-middle-class taste-makers and designers, who had contested against "more is better"
aesthetic of household equipments, recognized that design standards should respond to the market
realities, in other words, the newly prosperous working-class would be the most prospective
customers after the war ended.
The idea of mass production, which was advanced by Ford Motor Company in 1920s,
demanded design standardization for the mass market, as called "Fordism." Before the postwar
period, the designers were used to favour the design standard of efficiency and simplicity in order
to satisfy the taste of more upper-middle-class consumers. Faced ongoing changed in the mass
market, designers hoped to understand the different taste of consumers depending on their social
class. Their consumer research revealed three characteristics of the taste of working-class buyers:
larger volume of household equipments, flashiness and multi-colouring goods.
Working-class women were considered as the head of householdship and made family
purchases and investments' decision relying on their preference of styling. In the 1940s and the
1950s, many of American women struggled for fair pay, equal access to the jobs, helped by their
unions. Before the 1960s, few working-class women became full-time workers, thus, as housewife,
they nearly spent whole day to care for their house located in the outskirts, especially the kitchen
and look after their children. Therefore, working-class women's favour of mass-produced goods
could not be negligent, which, in contrast, the tastemakers had to attach importance to.
Automobile industry, followed by the appliance industry, took the lead in echoing the
demand of this new culture of “more is better” and created a ladder of consumption, when the
bigger high-end car, General Motors Corporation's Cadillac, aimed at their target market from
upper-middle class to working-class consumers. The Cadillac was the premier representative
status symbol of the 1950s, with the tail fin and the “V” emblem; it embodied the rising prosperity
of working-class men and women. Immediately after war, the household appliance industry and
other goods also changed their marketing strategy more effective to enhance the competition
power in the mass market based on working-class consumer, Servel’s choice for new "glittering"
refrigerators replacing former design of austerity and refinement was an good example.
The Great Depression and a saturated market caused a decline in car sales. Alfred Sloan,
head of GM in the 1930s introduced the concepts of the upgrade and variety marketing, generally
so-called "Sloanism," according to which more could be produced, faster and cheaper. In order to
continue mass production, it was necessary that it was to be accompanied by mass consumption.
In brief, although the market was diversified and particular models were aimed at particular
classes of consumers, increasingly prosperous working-class women's persisting aesthetic of
"more is better" became mainstream culture in the mass market of the Fifties in the US.
II. “Middle-income group” and “middle-class”
In the United States, the concept of a working class remains dimly defined. During
postwar era, the workers provided a backbone for economic resurgence throughout the United
States, in which national economy was thriving in almost all trades and professions. The working
class, who was better paid, was put rapidly in middle-income group. The working class, according
to sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl, was the most populous in the United
States, while other sociologists such as William Thompson, James Henslin and Joseph Hickey
believed that the lower middle class was a little more populous. By these sociologists' very
different opinions, the upper-lower wage families comprises differently from 25% to 55% of the
American population. Many members of the working class, as defined by academic models, are
often identified in the US as members of the middle class, and thus there was remarkable
ambiguity over the term's meaning.
1. Motivation Research
Traditional market research had been primarily quantitative and put direct questions to
the consumers if they like the product or dislike it. In contrast, according to American
contemporary economist Laura Lake, "Motivation Research used to investigate the psychological
reasons why individuals buy specific types of merchandise, or why they respond to specific
advertising appeals, to determine the base of brand choices and product preferences." Thus,
"Motivation Research" appealed by sociologists became more effective method of studying
complex of mass market after the World War II. The mass media, such as True Story Magazine,
who could reach a very large working-class reader, appreciated this professional research to make
clear social class' distinction, so that they could sign advertising contract with automobile and
appliance industry that changed their marketing strategy to favour the working-class consumers.
2. Blue-collar and white-collar
"Motivation research" uncovered that white-collar and blue-collar women viewed their
kitchens and kitchen appliances in a different way, and these views shape their purchases' decision.
Furthermore, their living room furnishings could reveal what class they belonged to. In spite of
almost same income and in favour of household modernity, white-collar and blue-collar men and
women had many difference:
Blue-collar men/women
White-collar men/women
- Lacking educational attainment
- High educational attainment
- Employed in clerical, retail sales and low
skill manual labour occupations
- Professionals
- Economic and occupational insecurity
- High economic security
- Emphasize external values
- Pay attention to internal values
- Kitchen "as heart of room"
- The living room was more important
- Up-to-date, substantial, shiny appliances
- Be interested in minimizing the appliances
in their kitchen
- Substantial-looking furniture
- Plain, functional styling of furniture
Working-class men and women, according to some sociologists and tastemakers, made
disappear the "collar line” during the 1950 in the US, more precisely, the line between them and
lower-middle class consisting of semi-professionals.
Conclusion
During the American postwar era, working class' life was increasingly comfortable, but
still distinctive. Working-class men and women's taste and domestic lifestyle influenced design
standards of automobile, durable goods industry and other domains. Women’s outlook and work in
the home were influenced by their husbands’ prospects and their jobs with middle income, so that
these women were largely on their own to develop a new domestic culture. Moreover, aesthetic of
“more is better” changed traditional social class and gender hierarchy and became American
mainstream culture. The debate about taste among designers, motivation researchers and
sociologists not only focused on the new mass market, but on studying society and culture. The
older upper-middle class failed to preserve their own cultural privileges, and then a "statues
anxiety" of social class didn't control any more a mass consumption. The women in the suburbs
remained more prospective in the American mass market, because they reflected changes in the
economy and social structure. It should be understood that these higher standards of living was
considered as a symbol that women sought in order to preserve class identity and reformulate
social relations, but not to apt to traditional design standards of "less is more" the middle class and
tastemakers promoted.
Commentary on Shelley Nickles' article
In my opinion, Shelley Nickles' article seems to deliberately analyze the newly formed
mass market based on rising prosperity of the working class during the postwar era in the
United-States. The first major part in the article focuses on "Rosebud War," a very aggressive title,
from which the reader could understand that in the US of the Fifties, working-class women
persisted in their original taste, although their purchasing power has allowed them to buy the same
goods, which only the middle class could afford before.
The article emphasizes that the working-class women's culture of "more is better" in
the very period becomes mainstream culture in the US, this point of view helps the reader
understand how American consumer society changes from "above" to "below." Thus, the
manufacturers and industrialists have to cater to the taste of working class. If they ignore the
market realities, they would fail to compete in the mass market. The author convinces the reader,
through some illustrations about the success of marketing strategy, such as the Cadillac's tailfin
and Sevel's large flashy refrigerator, that the taste of the working class is not replaced by other
design standard.
Shelley Nickles introduces "Motivation Research" in this article, I agree with the MR's
opinion that American consumer society is not classless, because the working-class identity should
not only base on earnings, but also on their education, profession and behaviours.
However, according to me, the author doesn't explain the reasons for which the working
class become prosperous in this era, it might help us to see clearly why American working class
insist upon their class identity. Nevertheless, if it should be given precedence of consideration on
their middle income, I quote “around here, the working class is the middle class”