Consumer Durables

Emergence of the Consumer Society

Rising demand for consumer durables is not only a recent trend, European historians have traced a “remorselessly creeping demand for more and better consumer goods” (de Vries 1993, 101), notably kitchenware, tableware, furniture, and furnishings, since the early modern period (late-fifteenth to late-eighteenth centuries). Toward the latter stages of this period, in particular, there was a diffusion of new goods, increased quantities of familiar items, and more luxurious versions of others. Some of these changes led to reduced durability, as when glass and pottery replaced wooden and pewter tableware. There were also more frequent changes in fashion—and these were not limited to clothing but applied other goods such as china.

There is evidence that the price of clothing and many consumer durables fell substantially in this period, at least in Britain and America, which increased access to such items. As a consequence, the share of wealth accounted for by consumer durables, as revealed through probate inventories, did not change much. From the middle of the nineteenth century, however, new materials, such as plastic, vulcanized rubber, photographic film, and, early in the twentieth century, artificial fibers such as rayon and nylon, provided opportunities for new or improved products, and consumer demand was fueled by a growth in advertising and the emergence of department stores. In the period following World War I, there was a notable shift in family budgets, with the proportion of expenditure on food falling while that on consumer durables increased. Cars increased in popularity, labor-saving products transformed households, and televisions not only brought a new form of entertainment into people's homes but also, through advertising on commercial channels, stimulated demand for more consumer durables. Planned obsolescence, notably through periodical changes in style, led to shorter product life cycles. Such changes intensified after World War II, as consumerism encroached into new territories within society and attitudes changed to the use of credit.

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