Consumer Era - Highlights Guide

The Consumer Era, 1940s–1970s

The Consumer Era, 1940s–1970s

During the Consumer Era, production boomed and consumerism shaped the American market, which spread from cities to suburbs. Innovations in applied science, expansion of white-collar jobs, more credit, and new groups of consumers fueled prosperity. Business organisation and political leaders claimed consumerism was more shopping: it defined the benefits of commercialism. This era marked a loftier point of American productivity and a high standard of living. But it ended with many Americans questioning the promises of consumer capitalism. Every bit the economic engine slowed in the 1970s, productivity waned, wages flattened, and Americans faced an energy crisis that reshaped consumer expectations.

Franchising

Franchising increased later on 1950 and offered Americans the opportunity to own a pocket-sized business organization. Franchises were as well a expert deal for parent companies, shifting much of the hazard to proprietors while requiring them to attach to certain standards for branding and service.

Kentucky Fried Chicken weathervane, 1960s

Kentucky Fried Chicken weathervane, 1960s

In the mid-1950s, Kentucky Fried Craven founder Harland Sanders, and his first franchisee, Pete Harman, innovated cooking methods and insisted that local owners maintain service and stick to the "original recipe." Sanders succeeded through standardizing his product and making his make reliable. This weathervane used the iconic epitome of Colonel Sanders every bit the company'southward unifying brand.

Broadcasting

In the 1950s, consumers made television the centerpiece of the home, fueling competition amongst broadcasters. Scrappy upstarts challenged established networks, innovated programming, and catered to under-served audiences. As goggle box grew, Americans worried about its effect on children. A national conversation most television and the common good fostered public broadcasting.

DuMont Revere television, 1947

DuMont Revere boob tube, 1947

Tv sets mirrored popular furniture styles. The DuMont Visitor'due south Revere model wrapped modern technology in colonial revival cabinetry.

African American Markets

After Globe War II, African Americans challenged decades of racial segregation past demanding recognition by advertisers and equal access to appurtenances and services. Nationwide, manufacturer's efforts to expand consumption coincided civil rights activists' goal to desegregate business concern.

WANN banner, 1950s–1960s

WANN, a white-owned radio station in Annapolis, Maryland, cultivated African American consumers and demonstrated their buying ability by connecting their audience to retailers and manufacturers who hoped to aggrandize sales.

Raoul A. Cortez (1905–1971) idea media should serve the customs and promote the common skillful. After working in a Castilian-language newspaper, he founded a radio station, which became the vox of the Spanish-speaking community in San Antonio. In 1955, he opened KCOR-TV, expanding his broadcasting business and customs-centered media vision to television set. Observing her daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls, Ruth Handler (1916–2002) had the thought that dolls could be styled every bit adults. In 1959, she convinced her married man, co-owner of Mattel, to develop an adult mode doll, Barbie. Telly marketing made it the world's best-selling toy.

Barbie doll, about 1960

In 1959 the Mattel toy company introduced Barbie. Unlike most dolls at the time, Barbie was a grown-upwards—a teenage fashion model who could engagement, drive, and wearable fabulous clothes. While ofttimes criticized for her unrealistic physical proportions and for promoting gender stereotypes, Barbie has also evolved with the times to reverberate social and cultural changes in American culture. Since the 1980s she has taken on many new careers, from police officer to paleontologist to presidential candidate.

Madison Avenue, 1940s–1960s

Madison Avenue, 1940s–1960s

In this era of staid gray flannel suits, advertisers developed motivational inquiry, grappled with television, and cooperated with government to promote American enterprise. Manufacture insiders, journalists, and the public criticized the crass and manipulative aspects of advertising. Firms began adding a few ethnic and racial minorities to their staffs. A creative revolution transformed advertising from bourgeois to hip, hokey to ironic.

Advertising agencies and broadcasters wrestled for control of advertising fourth dimension and programming on television. In the early on years, advertisers sponsored whole shows, as they did with radio. Simply by 1959, they had lost control to networks, which sold advertising time in segments, creating a multi-sponsor format. TV ads evolved with the creative revolution and the civil rights movement, embracing hip consumerism and incorporating more than underrepresented consumers.