The ‘20s: Culture, Consumption, and Crash 135female, could buy canned or frozen foods and prepare meals more easily and
go to the store less often.
Many foods we still eat today came out in the 1920s. Planter’s Peanuts,
Wheaties, Kraft cheese products, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Oscar Mayer Wieners,
Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and Jell-O were all popular with consumers, who
were also drinking Hires Root Beer, 7-Up, Dr. Pepper, and, of course, Coca-
Cola. In 1920, Coke sold over 18.6 million gallons of its drink, and gener-
ated over $32 million in sales in the U.S. while marketing in Canada, Cuba,
the Philippines, Guam, Panama, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and through-
out Europe and Asia as well, with over 200,000 retailers in its growing global
empire. Consumption was obviously the key to economic growth as
Americans were being liberated from their thrifty past and encouraged to buy
more and more goods.
To some degree, the rise of credit contributed to this economic growth.
People had always borrowed money, but banks had to be more careful in who
they loaned to, especially after the creation of the Fed, and many people went
to Pawn shops or loan sharks for money. In the 1920s, however, bankers
began to offer the nation’s first home mortgage loans, and house ownership
rose accordingly. Manufacturers in most areas, especially automobiles [see
below] began to allow buyers to buy “on time,” meaning they would pay a
certain amount each week or month, with interest tagged on at the end.
About 60 percent of all furniture and 75 percent of radios were bought on
installment plans. Where the previous cultural norm was to save money and
avoid debt—“neither a borrower nor a lender be” as Shakespeare said—the
consumer’s culture advocated spending and borrowing!
Perhaps even more central to this new culture was the development of a
sophisticated advertising industry [the soft power referred to above]. Of course,
ads had always been around, but they basically consisted of text explaining
what a product did and why one should buy it. After the Great War, how-
ever, advertising became much more visual and much more sexy. Much of
the credit for the advertising revolution can be given to Edward Bernays.
Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, had studied psychology and had done
propaganda for the U.S. government during the war. He understood that the
anxiety and tragedy of the war had made an impact on people, so he wanted
them to loosen up and have fun, be liberated, and buy more goods! Bernays
believed that the basic ideas behind propaganda could be used in politics or,