Module 21: Mid-Century Consumerism and Suburbanization

Welcome to Module 21! And, welcome to Week 12. This week stands to be quite tiring (if it isn't already!). Please take care of yourselves, give yourselves a break from the election news and social media, and try to get as much sleep as possible. (Easier said than done...I know...😅)

This module is one of my favorites. The mid-twentieth-century holds a very specific place in American cultural memory (we have a very specific vision of the "fifties"). We get to dig into that vision this week!

In Module 19, we examined the strategy which emerged after WWII to reconstruct the nation’s economy and reaffirm democratic values through mass consumption. By playing a direct role in the nation’s economic recovery, the consumer became the “purchaser citizen.” Their personal material wants were “good for the country.” First, we'll delve a bit further into the nature of consumerism in the postwar period. We get to look at a lot of ads like the one pictured below. (I have found the blog Envisioning the American Dream, by collage artist and writer, Sally Edelstein, to be really great resource for these images.)

Mid-Century 7Up Ads (Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

Then we’ll examine a significant aspect of postwar consumerism: homeownership. To conclude this module, we’ll examine some of the key dynamics in gender roles and sexual expectations in the postwar period.

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Three questions will guide this module blog post:

1. How did consumption in the 1950s change American ideologies, lifestyles, and expectations of citizenship?

2. How did American citizens understand the values associated with homeownership? Who was able to access homeownership and why?

3. How did postwar expectations of family dynamics and gender roles affect American women and men?

Let's get started!

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Part I: Consumerism and Prosperity after World War II

Poll #1:

Starting with a poll: Does the ideology of "consumer citizenship" (or, consumption for the "good of the country") still exist today? Answer the embedded poll below, or access it here. Let me know in the annotations or comments how you see consumer citizenship manifesting today (if you answered yes!).

"Golden Age" of Capitalism

After WWII ended, the US entered what scholars refer to as the “golden age of capitalism”: economic expansion, stable prices, low unemployment, and a rising standard of living. Most Americans lived better than their parents and grandparents had.

GE Advertisements, 1958, "Live Better Electrically" (Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

New innovations like televisions, air-conditioners, automatic dishwashers, long-distance telephone calls, and air travel became part of the daily lives of Americans. The 1950s can be seen as the last decade of the industrial age in the US. Although industrial production in places like southern California and the Rocky Mountain states increased during the Cold War, since the 1950s, the American economy has shifted towards services, education, information, finance, and entertainment.

Employment in manufacturing declined, especially as manufacturing became more and more mechanized. In 1956, for the first time in American history, white-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar factory and manual laborers.

However, the age was not “golden” for everyone. As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued in his book, The Affluent Society, everyone assumed that the expanding economy brought not only “material improvements for the average man,” but also an “end to poverty and privation for all.” However, they were blind to “a self-perpetuating margin of poverty at the very base of the income pyramid” that “goes largely unnoticed, because it is the face of a voiceless minority.” Although his book was critically acclaimed, his warning remained largely unheeded, because of the faith that many put into the egalitarian nature of consumerism.

Crisis of Personal Identity

Mass consumption and economic expansion was represented as a positive phenomenon for all, but some critics saw modern mass consumption in society as the root of increased loneliness and anxiety among American people. Underneath the appearance of high living standards, happy nuclear families, shiny advertising, patriotism, and a feeling of national consensus one could also find a sense of alienation.

William Whyte, The Organization Man, 1956

For example, David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd (1950) focused on the “new social character” of the postwar period. Where Americans had previously been individuals, with autonomous goals and ethics, they were now becoming a nation of conformists.

Whereas before the war US society had been characterized by production, and the American personality driven by inner ideals and values, in the postwar period, consumption had become more important than production, and peer groups directed personal behavior rather than the individual.

William Whyte’s The Organization Man (1956) described an emerging group of Americans whom he called “organization men and women” who accepted a “belief in belongingness” as the ultimate need of the individual. They lived in the new suburbia, and were part of a rising class of middle-class junior executives, entrapped in bland corporate jobs. This new “social ethic” was encouraged by these bureaucratic corporations where organization men worked, where group identification was encouraged, individuality and difference were downplayed, and conformity was promoted. The model male employee was constantly worried about what others thought of him.

David Riseman, The Lonely Crowd (1950)

Critiques like these focused mainly on the effects of the new consumption ideology on men. Men who succumbed to this new conformity were represented as more feminine than masculine: worrying about opinions and feelings, being adaptable and avoiding conflict, being attuned to others. They were not “rugged” and “masculine” individuals, but rather, part of this new group mentality, which did not allow for the expansion of individualism.

Television

The 1950s witnessed a drastic change in the way Americans consumed news and information, including advertisements for consumer goods. By the end of the 1950s, nearly nine out of ten American families owned a TV set.

Television replaced newspapers as the most common source of information and TV watching became the nation’s leading leisure activity. TV also changed American eating habits (TV dinners went on sale in 1954), and provided Americans of all regions/backgrounds with a common cultural experience.

Are YOU Ready for Television? (Well...are you!!?!)

Poll #2:

In your opinion, did US citizens in the postwar period derive power from consumption? Answer the embedded poll below, or access it here.

The GI Bill

As we explore the transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy, we need to examine what happened to veterans of WWII. In August 1945, more than 12 million men returned home to their families.

Many took advantage of the benefits they received under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, or the “GI Bill of Rights,” passed in 1944. This piece of policy had a profound effect on postwar society. The GI Bill included unemployment pay, scholarships for further education, low-cost mortgage loans, pensions, and job training for returning veterans.

The GI Bill was aimed at rewarding veterans for their service, and preventing widespread unemployment and economic disruption like what had followed WWI. In addition, the GI Bill was designed to jump-start the postwar economy by expanding purchasing power, injecting new capital into existing institutions (such as colleges, banks, and the housing industry), and by creating higher-earning and home-owning consumers who would make secure credit risks for future buying.

"Victory! Peace! Then a home of their own!" 1944, (Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

By 1946, more than 1 million veterans were attending college under its provisions, making up half of college enrollment. More than half of eligible veterans took advantage of educational benefits. Almost 4 million would receive home mortgages. The GI Bill had a tremendous impact on postwar society. It has been called “one of the most significant pieces of social legislation ever passed by Congress,” and “legislation that helped to build a new kind of America.” [1]

That being said, the GI Bill did not benefit everybody. The bill favored certain Americans over others. Obviously, the bill favored veterans over non-veterans. Veterans of WWII achieved substantially higher median incomes, educational attainments, home ownership rates, and net worths than non-veterans of comparable age, or vets who failed to take advantage of GI Bill benefits. FDR and other New Deal liberals had initially favored a version of the bill that would include civilians as well as veterans. However, conservatives favored the veterans-only bill because veterans were viewed as a particularly “deserving” segment of society. [2]

The bill also favored men over women. Widows of veterans received fewer and poorer benefits than their husbands would have received. Even women who were themselves veterans (about 2% of WWII military personnel) took less advantage of the GI Bill than male counterparts. Female vets faced discrimination in obtaining their benefits. For example, in order to receive unemployment benefits they had to prove that they were independent from a male breadwinner. Some women stopped associating themselves with the title of “veteran,” when they returned home, because they weren’t greeted with the same kind of support as male veterans. In terms of education, because so many male veterans took advantage of their GI Bill educational benefits, many schools scaled back female admissions to permit male attendance to more than double. [3]

Veterans Administration Ad 1949

The bill also favored whites over Blacks. It was a national program for all veterans and contained no clauses directly or indirectly excluding Blacks or mandating racial discrimination. However, because accessing the benefits was done through local Veterans Administration (VA) offices, which were almost entirely staffed by white employees, or through local banks and schools, Blacks did face discrimination, especially in regions which wanted to preserve the racial color line. [4]

For example, due to discrimination in admissions, Black veterans used their higher education benefits in segregated schools. There were less historically Black colleges available for Black veterans than there were white colleges available for white veterans.

In addition, Blacks were funneled into “Black jobs” by job-placement officials, despite the skills and training they might have accumulated in the military.

For example, Reuben Thompson, a veteran from Georgia who was trained as a truck driver in the Army complained:

“I have been out of the Army for about five months. About a month ago I went to the US Employment Service office to apply for a job of truck driving but I couldn’t get one then they wanted to give me a job washing dishes but I didn’t because café jobs here don’t pay enough and I have a mother to support.” [5]

Word Cloud #1:

In your opinion, what would the US look like today if legislation like the GI Bill had been applied (equally) to all Americans, not just veterans?

Respond in the word cloud below, or access it here.

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Part II: Suburbanization

In Part II, we’ll examine a significant aspect of postwar consumerism: homeownership. During the 1950s, the number of houses in the US doubled. Home construction was one of the main engines of economic growth during this time. Homeownership rates jumped from 44% in 1940 to 62% in 1960. Annual consumer expenditures for housing and automobiles alone, without appliances and home furnishings, more than tripled between 1941 and 1961.

Nearly all of the new construction took place in suburbs which sprang up across the landscape.

1951 Suburban Home

Along with the growth of suburbs came the growth of automobile ownership, and the interstate highway system. More people owning cars meant that they could commute longer distances to work. Cars and highways also leading to the construction of motels, drive-in movie theaters, and roadside eating establishments. The first McDonald’s opened in 1954, and within ten years, 700 McDonald’s had been built. The interstate highway system began in 1956 and was completed in 1993.

Western states like California experienced extreme postwar suburban booms. Between WWII and 1975, more than 30 million Americans moved west of the Mississippi River. Western cities differed from eastern cities, which had downtown business districts linked to residential neighborhoods by public transportation. Western cities were more decentralized and united by highways.

The expansion of suburbia was seen as the best way to incorporate a wide range of Americans into a mass consumption-based middle class. An excerpt from Fortune magazine read: “Suburbia is the exemplification of the new and growing moneyed middle class…bound, sooner or later, to become the American market…socially and economically more uniform.”

(Check out this advertisement video made by Redbook Magazine in 1957, for a more detailed--and really interesting!--look at how suburban dwellers were understood as consumers.)

The GI Bill's Impact on Homeownership

One of the main forces driving the increase in homeownership and suburbanization was the GI Bill. Veterans were able to obtain low-cost loans to assist in the purchase of homes, farms, and businesses through the VA.

Loans to secure property were beneficial for veterans in two ways:

1. They helped a veteran secure property for him and his family and,

2. Because they would be paying off a mortgage, they were invited to incur more debt, a benefit in a world where credit had become so crucial for personal prosperity.

"Home Life in America" Campaign (Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

Between the end of WWII and 1966, one-fifth of all single-family residences built were financed by GI Bills (including the Korean GI Bill in 1952). In California, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) (another New Deal agency which provided mortgage insurance to lenders and developers) and the VA together insured more than one half of all new home mortgages. [6]

By 1956, 42% of WWII vets were homeowners, in contrast to 34% of non-veterans of comparable age. Thus, the federal government played a large role in the suburbanization of the United States, through the expansion of the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration, which provided more mortgages insured by the government.

Levittown

William Levitt created several suburban developments in the 1950s which were called “Levittowns.” In his first Levittown on Long Island, 17,400 houses accommodated 82,000 residents. The structures were mass produced and inexpensive. These homes had a specific floor plan: kitchens were near the front entrance, so mothers could keep an eye on their children as they cooked. Living rooms featured picture windows facing the backyard, also to facilitate the supervision of children. Appliances were included in the purchase price. In the early 1950s, suburban developments like Levittowns were integrated based on class (but not based on race). You could find blue-collar workers living alongside white-collar workers. (A main reason was that a wider array of white veterans were able to receive home loans.)

Aerial view of Levittown, PA, 1959

Homes in these new suburbs were constructed in a way which served to reinforce a particular kind of family life. Couples were incentivized to marry and have several children. Indeed, this is what a lot of people did. The “baby boom” lasted until the mid-1960s, and during the 1950s the American population rose by nearly 30 million (almost 20 percent). Men and women married younger, divorced less frequently, and had more children than they had in the past. The single-family home was supposedly the “refuge” against a chaotic world. In Part III, we’ll examine gender and sexual dynamics further.

Levitt on the cover of Time, 1950

Racial Discrimination in Housing

As the US became more suburbanized, the demographic make-up of cities also changed. Between 1950 and 1960, nine of the ten largest cities lost population, as three whites moved out for every two non-whites who moved in. Thus, suburbs were mostly white areas, where people owned homes, while cities became mostly non-white areas, where people rented.

Why did whites move? Racial prejudice accounts for a significant reason. Whites feared living near Blacks, whom they considered culturally different and assumed that they would bring more poverty and crime. But, homeowners also assumed that Black neighbors also threatened to depress property values and jeopardize peoples’ basic economic security.

Why didn’t nonwhites move out of cities? The FHA, VA, and private banks continued to use the HOLC residential security maps (like the one shown below), also known as “redlining,” to determine the best neighborhoods to grant home loans. Those communities who promised the least amount of defaults on mortgage loans were assumed to be segregated, white communities.

HOLC Map of Los Angeles (Source: Mapping Inequality)

It was very hard for Black families to secure loans to build even in segregated Black communities, due to redlining policies. Black neighborhoods were judged as poor investments. Black home buyers who could secure loans often couldn’t find homes to buy, purely on the basis of racial discrimination. As a result, many Blacks ended up renting or using public housing.

This week, you have the option of perusing the Mapping Inequality site and finding what the HOLC security map for your neighborhood in San Diego looks like.

Zoning laws also played a part. Certain areas were zoned for particular kinds of houses—so an area which prohibited multi-family dwellings and inexpensive housing could be kept whiter, and more middle-class than non-white and lower class. Prior to 1948, many made use of restrictive covenants, which restricted the sale of homes to non-whites and were included in the deed of sale of certain homes. These covenants were deemed unconstitutional in 1948. [7]

1955: White families in Teaneck, NJ resist realtors’ calls to sell. Source: Lizabeth Cohen

Urban renewal projects, which began in the late 1940s, were implemented in order to eliminate “blight” in cities. “Blighted” areas were said to be “dead” parts of cities, that needed to be reinvigorated. Blighted areas were thought to cost more, and have more crime and disease. Many blighted areas were removed, ostensibly to be replaced with better, more effective housing, but many urban renewal projects were not housing, but rather commercial areas, stadiums, and highways.

In many cases, communities were ordered to leave by the claim of “eminent domain,” which meant the government could take the land if it fulfilled a common good (building interstate highways, for example).

“Blockbusting” was another technique used by certain realtors which contributed to the segregation of housing in the postwar period. Blockbusters would go into city neighborhoods where whites owned homes and spread rumors of incoming Black neighbors, threatening them with the potential for decrease in their property values. Whites would sell their homes to blockbusters at low prices, who would then sell them back to Black home buyers at increased prices.

Saturday Evening Post, 1962

In other cases, realtors would “steer” Black home buyers towards certain neighborhoods and away from others, in order to preserve the color line. In the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ Code of Ethics, it read that:

“a realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individual whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood.” [8]

White homeowners also took it upon themselves to police their neighborhoods. The first Black family to move into the Levittown in Pennsylvania was greeted with cross burnings, Confederate flag waving, and rock throwing. Levitt himself refused to sell new homes to any Black homebuyers because he was convinced his white occupants would not want Black neighbors. In 1953, when the Levittown in Long Island reached a population of 70,000, it was the largest community in America with no Black population. White homeowners used the language of “democracy” to justify their racial discrimination, claiming that they had the right to “choose their neighbors.”

A would-be neighbor of the first Black family to move into Levittown was quoted in Life magazine:

“He’s probably a nice guy, but every time I look at him I see $2000 drop off the value of my house.” [9]

Page from "Confessions of a Block-Buster" Article in Saturday Evening Post

Poll #3:

In your opinion, which of the following was potentially more damaging for Black veterans in the 1950s? An inability to access VA home loans? Or the inability to fully access the education and employment benefits of the GI Bill? Answer the embedded poll below, or access it here.

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Part III: Sex and Gender in the Suburbs

Source: Envisioning the American Dream

Family Dynamics and Suburbanization

The suburban ideal was based on the now-familiar model of the male breadwinner wage-earner and the female homemaker. Many American families adopted this ideal—or tried to fit into it. Although it did not necessarily “work” for many people, very few questioned it. However, in order to support middle-class lifestyles and all of the purchases necessary to maintain it, many women worked outside the home, in part-time employment, to help pay for appliances and furnishings the family needed or desired.

But, historians note that even if they did work outside the home part-time, many women sought personal fulfillment through the home, through raising children and keeping up the home.

More and more consumer products were marketed towards women. However, although women had asserted some power as consumers during WWII and in the years immediately following, increasingly, they lost some of that power. The family economy was controlled by men. Men had access to career training, property ownership, and credit (such as through the GI Bill), as well as control over the family finances.

For example, store credit cards, national credit cards, and mortgage lenders all discriminated against women, insisting that a married woman’s husband be the legal holder of any credit account, regardless of whether she had possessed her own card when she was single, or if she currently earned income, or if her husband was financially dependent on her.

Women who were divorced, separated, or widowed faced particular challenges because all credit was in their husband’s name, leaving them with no credit of their own. [10]

This looks like me while doing housework! 😜(Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

Moms

We’ve discussed in previous modules the perceptions and understandings of motherhood in the 20th century. For example, motherhood was viewed by Progressive reformers as women’s “natural” role, something that could be honed and improved with the help of scientific teachings, but ultimately something to be celebrated and respected—especially because women were raising children to be future citizens.

In the postwar period, because so much of suburban life was centered around the success of the family, childrearing was a major preoccupation. Popular and scholarly books about mothers were less trusting and celebratory about women’s natural abilities as mothers however. While mothers had been idealized in the past, now they became scapegoats. Mothers were to blame for their children’s mistakes, because the psychological relationship mothers established with their children was defined as the key to their success. Mothers were accused of being too over-protective, especially of sons, which essentially created pathological and dependent men. [11]

Some of the popular literature, especially Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers, was explicitly misogynistic. Wylie argued that American moms were “domestic tyrants, voracious consumers, and tiresome meddlers in social and political affairs.”

Philip Wylie, Generation of Vipers

The fear that mothers would emasculate their sons, creating dependent and weak men, was rooted in the anxiety of the time. “Organization men” were already supposedly losing their individuality and autonomy, which were viewed as traditionally masculine traits. Overprotective mothers served as a kind of scapegoat for the anxieties and fears over the crisis of personal identity. [12]

Sex and Marriage in the 1950s

Along with the prescribed gender roles for women and men within the family (man as breadwinner, woman as homemaker/mother), postwar society was obsessed with proper sexual behavior of men and women.

Penn Mutual "Wife Insurance" Ad, 1946 (Source: Envisioning the American Dream)

Sex was not supposed to take place outside of marriage. Many believed that violating gender roles would weaken the moral fiber of the country. Men and women were getting married younger. Early marriage was one way to bring their behavior into conformity with the codes prohibiting premarital sex. [13]

Once couples married, attitudes about sex changed. Sex was supposed to fulfill both partners, and would presumably safeguard marriage against unhealthy developments that would weaken the family within. The family was at the center of everything—men provided for their family, women focused on creating a home for their family.

Source: Envisioning the American Dream

Across the board, the birthrate rose in the US. Along with the baby boom came the widespread endorsement of the positive value of having several children. Childlessness was considered deviant, selfish, and pitiable.

Along with this endorsement of the positive aspects of having children, came fears of anything that would cause mothers to shirk their maternal roles—working outside the home, and pursuing higher education were two main examples. In 1946, Newsweek published a report using the statistics from the 1940 Census that revealed that higher-educated wives brought down birth rates. Higher education in husbands did not play a role—it was only the wife’s education that would negatively impact birth rates. This sentiment persisted through the 1950s, although it wasn’t true that college-educated women were failing to keep up with the baby boom. Thus, the emphasis on women’s role as mothers impacted the popular sentiments surrounding their educational or career advancement. [14]

The Feminine Mystique

Historians of the postwar period have emphasized the impact of the domestic ideal, the sexual division of labor, and barriers to entering the public sphere on American women. This narrative has been most famously and significantly represented in Betty Friedan’s bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963. Friedan claimed that the ideal of the “happy housewife” trapped women in their suburban homes.

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

Friedan wrote,

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—‘Is this all?’”

Though she gave a name and a voice to the discontent that many women faced, some scholars have critiqued that The Feminine Mystique also homogenized American women, and reinforced a stereotype that all women in the postwar period were middle-class, domestic, and suburban.

Word Cloud #2:

What do think is missing from the Friedan's narrative of suburban housewives? Answer the embedded word cloud below, or access it here.

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Conclusion:

1. The rise in consumption in the postwar period integrated consumerism into the daily lives of American citizens as never before, even creating an understanding that participation in consumerism was a right and an obligation to citizenship.

2. The rise in homeownership led to demographic changes in American cities, and the rise of suburbanization. Racial discrimination on a personal and institutional level (most notably in the fulfillments of the GI Bill) impacted who could access the benefits of homeownership and the postwar economic boom.

3. The gendered and sexual expectations in marriages and families were restrictive for many American men and women. The family was at the center of every aspect of American life.

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Citations:

[1] Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5.

[2] Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 59.

[3] Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 140.

[4] Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 129-130. See also Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York; London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005).

[5] Quoted in Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White.

[6] Cohen, Consumers' Republic, 141.

[7] Cohen, Consumers' Republic, 228-240.

[8] Cohen, Consumers' Republic, 219.

[9] Cohen, Consumers' Republic, 217.

[10] Cohen, Consumers' Republic.

[11] Rebecca Jo Plant, Mom: The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 98-99.

[12] Plant, Mom, 20-21.

[13] Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 107.

[14] See May, Homeward Bound.