by Brutus

Created on: August 28, 2007   Last Updated: March 31, 2010

American History books represent the Roaring `20s as a time of prosperity for the economy and the consumer. Technological advances and innovative ideas, such as mass production, brought many higher quality and cheaper goods to the market.  The availability of these products led to mass consumerism, as people rushed to buy the newly affordable goods. Armed with wealth from growing employment opportunities in expanding cities and a booming stock market, they purchased household appliances, automobiles, beauty products and clothes. By the middle of the decade, Americans were able to buy many products that they did not even know existed a few years before.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the period of industrialization, urbanization dominated the 1920s and “cities became the main arenas for industrial growth.”[1] Drawn by the hope for a life with better economic opportunities, European immigrants and American farmers moved to industrial areas in order to work in factories. By 1920, the majority of Americans lived in cities.[2]

Because of the advantages of mass production, people developed a consumer-oriented culture, in which they produced as fast as they consumed goods. People bought more luxury products than they ever had before the 1920s. The history book A People and A Nation reports that by 1921, for example, “Americans ate 248 crates of oranges per 1,000 people and bought 217 million pairs of silk stockings.”[3] Ford’s first automobile, the Model T, was said to be affordable for almost everybody.[4]

This consumer-oriented culture also introduced credit buying. With slogans such as “Buy now, pay later” and “Enjoy while you pay,”[5] consumers were encouraged to buy everything “from vacuum cleaners to, literally, the kitchen sink.”[6] Loans and mortgages became widely available for everyone so that in addition to houses, people could afford to purchase more expensive goods such as radios and furniture.  Cohen reports, “Building and loan associations … flourished during the 1920s with Chicago’s boom in home building and the new stress on saving.”[7] She explains that “many workers began to buy homes and use commercial banks, in other words, to participate more centrally in American economic life.”[8]

As society started to enjoy a higher standard of living, people realized that education would bring better employment opportunities

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