Despite the challenges workers faced in their new roles as wage earners, the rise of industry in the United States allowed people to access and consume goods as never before. The rise of big business had turned America into a culture of consumers desperate for time-saving and leisure commodities, where people could expect to find everything they wanted in shops or by mail order. The newly emergent middle-class was the most voracious consumer of these goods as they became status symbols. Gone were the days where the small general store was the only option for shoppers; at the end of the nineteenth century, people could take a train to the city and shop in large department stores like Macy’s in New York, Gimbel’s in Philadelphia, and Marshall Fields in Chicago. Chain stores, like A&P and Woolworth’s, both of which opened in the 1870s, offered options to those who lived farther from major urban areas and clearly catered to classes other than the wealthy elite.

Figure 1. This page from the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog illustrates how luxuries that previously would only accessible to wealthy city dwellers were now available by mail order to those all around the country.

Industrial advancements contributed to this proliferation, as new construction techniques permitted the building of stores with higher ceilings for larger displays, and the production of larger sheets of plate glass lent themselves to the development of larger store windows, glass countertops, and display cases where shoppers could observe a variety of goods at a glance. L. Frank Baum, of Wizard of Oz fame, later founded the National Association of Window Trimmers in 1898 and began publishing The Store Window journal to advise businesses on space usage and promotion.

Even families in rural America had new opportunities to purchase a greater variety of products than ever before, at ever-decreasing prices. Those far from chain stores could benefit from the newly developed business of mail-order catalogs, placing orders by telephone. Aaron Montgomery Ward established the first significant mail-order business in 1872, with Sears, Roebuck & Company following in 1886. Sears distributed over 300,000 catalogs annually by 1897 and later broke the one million annual mark in 1907. Sears in particular understood that farmers and rural Americans sought alternatives to the higher prices and credit purchases they were forced to endure at small-town country stores. By clearly stating the prices in his catalog, Richard Sears steadily built his catalog’s image as “the consumer’s bible.” In the process, Sears, Roebuck & Company supplied much of America’s hinterland with products ranging from farm supplies to bicycles, toilet paper to automobiles, as seen in Figure 1 in a page from the catalog.

Advertisements & Marketing

The tremendous variety of goods available for sale required businesses to compete for customers in ways they had never before imagined. Suddenly, instead of a single option for clothing or shoes, customers were faced with dozens, whether ordered by mail, found at the local chain store, or lined up in massive rows at department stores. This new level of competition made advertising and marketing a vital component of all businesses. By 1900, American businesses were spending almost $100 million annually on advertising. Competitors offered “new and improved” models as frequently as possible in order to generate interest. From toothpaste and mouthwash to books on entertaining guests, new goods were constantly offered. Newspapers accommodated the demand for advertising by shifting their production to include full-page advertisements, as opposed to the traditional column width advertisements that dominated mid-nineteenth century newspapers (similar to classified advertisements in today’s publications). Likewise, professional advertising agencies began to emerge in the 1880s, with experts in consumer demand bidding for accounts with major firms.

Buying on Credit

It may seem strange that, at a time when wages were so low, people began buying readily; however, the slow emergence of the middle class by the end of the century, combined with the growing practice of buying on credit, presented more opportunities to take part in the new consumer culture. Stores allowed people to open accounts and purchase on credit, thus securing business and allowing consumers to buy without ready cash. Then, as today, the risks of buying on credit led many into debt. As advertising expert Roland Marchand described in his Parable on the Democracy of Goods: in an era when access to products became more important than access to the means of production, Americans quickly accepted the notion that they could live a better lifestyle by purchasing the right clothes, the best hair cream, and the shiniest shoes, regardless of their class.

Advertising in the Industrial Age: Credit, Luxury, and the Advent of “New and Improved”

Figure 2. This typewriter advertisement, like others of the era, tried to lure customers by offering a new model.

Many of the elements used widely in nineteenth-century advertisements are familiar to us today. Companies sought to sell luxury, safety, and, as the ad for the typewriter in Figure 2 shows, the allure of the new-and-improved model. One advertising tactic that truly took off in this era was the option to purchase on credit. For the first time, mail order and mass production meant that the aspiring middle class could purchase items that could only be owned previously by the wealthy. While there was a societal stigma for buying everyday goods on credit, certain items, such as fine furniture or pianos, were considered an investment in the move toward entry into the middle class.

Additionally, farmers and housewives purchased farm equipment and sewing machines on credit, considering these items investments rather than luxuries. For women, the purchase of a sewing machine meant that a shirt could be made in one hour, instead of fourteen. The Singer Sewing Machine Company was one of the most aggressive at pushing purchases on credit. They advertised widely, and their “Dollar Down, Dollar a Week” campaign made them one of the fastest-growing companies in the country.

For workers earning lower wages, these easy credit terms meant that the middle-class lifestyle was within their reach. Of course, it also meant they were in debt, and changes in wages, illness, or other unexpected expenses could wreak havoc on a household’s tenuous finances. Still, the opportunity to own new and luxurious products was one that many Americans, aspiring to improve their place in society, could not resist.

To learn more about the history of credit, watch this video that explains how debt became common in America.

Consumer Culture & Social Normativity

Advertising to Middle-Class Women

Figure 3. The cover of a cookbook that only contained recipes that used Armour’s Beef Extract. Note the domestic, multi-generational scene that seems to imply that these recipes will bring your family together.

At the start of the 20th century, the new American middle-class was still finding its feet. The piety and sobriety of the Second Great Awakening were still engrained in their day-to-day culture, but the rise of consumer goods brought a new aspect of life: disposable income. Whereas before, disposable income might be saved or given to charity, many middle-class families began to spend their money (or use their credit accounts) on the latest innovations in technology, fashion, or home furnishings as a symbol of their position in the new industrial society.

Middle-class White women were especially taken in by this cultural shift, particularly by advertising. These were women who could afford not to work, but also had nannies, maids, or cooks for everyday duties. This left them largely responsible for “running the household,” which meant that their husband brought home a paycheck and they were in charge of managing the family’s finances. Women in middle and upper-class households were also responsible for maintaining their household’s social standing by giving and attending dinner parties (often with their husbands’ colleagues or bosses), fundraisers, or other events, and by presenting a good image in public. Frugality had been prized during the early decades of the middle-class era because it was a sign of Christian modesty and charity. However, as the rich got richer, the middle class felt like they needed to keep up.

These women suddenly became responsible not just for spending their family’s money responsibly, but also for spending on luxury items that would showcase their lifestyle. Cosmetics and fashionable clothing became more popular than ever before outside of wealthy circles and laser-focused marketing campaigns attempted to create a sense of identity around ownership and consumption. One of the most popular messages that middle-class women received from advertising campaigns was that certain products were necessary for them to keep their families happy and healthy, which was the mark of a true housewife.

The rise of the beauty industry also heavily targeted middle-class White women. Staying youthful, avoiding signs of aging or hard work, and keeping a good figure could help a young lady attract the attention of a suitable, wealthy husband, or so the advertisements claimed. Fashion magazines for middle-class women also became popular, offering them a glance at what they could look like if only they purchased the correct products.

link to learning: ivory soap & Social norms

Advertising and Gender

Ivory Soap is a perfect example of a Gilded Age product that was mass-produced, mass-marketed, and that used advertising as a way to reinforce social norms that helped to sell the product. Ivory Soap was created by Procter & Gamble, a household goods company that is still operating today, and marketed as a “special new formula,” even though it was created on accident when a factory worker left a machine on during his lunch break and was mostly made of air bubbles.

Ivory Soap was advertised for personal hygiene, laundry, housework, and a variety of other tasks and used the association between the pure white color of the soap bars and cleanliness to boost its advertising appeal. Some advertisements for Ivory Soap focused on middle-class women doing domestic chores such as bathing their children and doing laundry for their husbands, but also emphasized that Ivory Soap was so soft that it would not give them rough “dishpan” hands or ruin their fine china. Others emphasized that it was the perfect, inexpensive soap for working-class women who cleaned homes or did laundry for a living, or who had husbands or sons who worked in dirty factories. These advertisements catered to different classes of women while still sending the same message about gender roles and housework.^[1]

Figure 4. In this Ivory ad, “The delicate tints on fine china are not injured, a consideration appreciated especially by those who have pieces with gold decorations.”

Figure 5. An Ivory ad shows an upper-class woman interviewing a laundress and commending her for using Ivory Soap instead of washing detergents.

 

Advertising and Race

These advertisements also reflected attitudes about race that were prevalent at the time, sometimes showing crude racial stereotypes and using poetry to assert that Ivory Soap could make certain groups of people more “civilized.” The ad pictured below shows Uncle Sam giving out bars of Ivory Soap to Native Americans. The caption reads, in part, “I’ll give domestic arts to teach, a cake of Ivory Soap to each, before it flies the guilty stain, the grease and dirt no more remain; ’twill change their nature day by day, and wash their darkest blots away.”

Figure 6. This offensive Ivory soap ad shows Uncle Sam saying he will civilize Indian Americans with the soap.

 

Advertising was used in this way to reinforce social norms surrounding gender, race, and class. This reinforcement was necessary for businesses because if people believed in the social norms that were advertised, they would buy the products in order to keep themselves in line with those norms.

Ads for Ivory Soap were so pervasive in magazines and newspapers that the Smithsonian’s Ivory Soap Advertisement Collection takes up 10 cubic feet of space (almost 40 boxes) in its archives. You can view the rest of the collection here and look through some of the advertisements from later decades.

Middle-Class Men

Women were certainly not the only targets of advertising campaigns. The middle-class men who worked 40 hours a week and spent their weekends doing leisure activities were also included. Men’s fashion was geared toward the activity that they would be engaging in, whether it be work, golfing, sailing, horseback riding, or the newest and most technologically advanced hobby: driving. Cigarettes and tobacco were also heavily advertised to men using images of glamour or beautiful women, like the cigarette packs below which each came with a photo of a famous actress.

Figure 7. Cigarette packs with photographs of actresses in order to appeal to men.

Advertisements also appealed to men by using the language of business and masculinity, implying that their prospects would be better if they bought a certain product, that they would make more connections, be admired more by other men (or by women), or that the product could increase their investment return.