I. THINGS AFFECTING WHAT PEOPLE CONSUME

Amount of Income.—The capacity of the consumer to avail himself of the goods offered him is affected directly by the amount of money at his disposal. In general, money income has increased in recent years. Estimates of the total national income vary considerably. According to the estimates of the National Industrial Conference Board, per capita income (1913 dollars) changed as follows between 1909 and 1929:44 The Conference Board Bulletin, February 20, 1932, no. 62, p. 499.

1909$333

1910349

1911343

1912354

1913356

1914336

1915360

1916$413

1917410

1918388

1919370

1920354

1921298

1922348

1923$401

1924394

1925417

1926416

1927414

1928429

1929437

This increasing national income has flowed unevenly throughout the population. Absolute yearly earnings of employed urban workers in different occupations and the shifts in the purchasing power of the average earnings in 1926 as compared with 1914 are shown in Table 1.

Occupation groupEarnings in dollars (1926)Index of real earnings (1914 = 100)Clerks (manufacturing)2,428106Postal2,128106Ministers1,826112Federal government employees in executive departments, Washington, D. C.1,80991Book and job printers1,730144Anthracite coal1,691170Iron and steel1,687128Steam railways1,613117Clerks (railway)1,604112Motor vehicles1,590114Street railways1,566122Foundry and machine shops1,530131Gas and electricity1,477131Electric machinery1,352125Women's clothing1,337141Furniture1,284132Teachers1,277130Glass1,263129Clay products1,257148Bituminous coal1,247132Telegraph1,21594Retail salespeople (Ohio only)1,194b110Men's clothing1,146132Telephone1,117135Lumber982113Boots and shoes1,086113Cotton792118

Table 1.—Average Dollar Earnings and Index of Change in Real Earningsin 1926 over 1914 of Employed Workers in Selected Occupationsa

a Douglas, Paul H., Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926, Boston, 1930, Chaps. XIV-XXI.b 1915 = 100.

These wage or salary figures do not take account of the varying proportions of families on different occupational levels in which more than 005860one worker contributes to the family income. They indicate the different relative purchasing powers of employed members of these occupational groups, including the relatively high status among these occupations of clerical workers in industry and of postal employees and the relatively low status of retail salespeople and teachers among the white collar workers; and the relatively more rapid rate of gain in recent years of all wage earning groups over salaried groups, with the exception of teachers.5 In interpreting these figures, the significance in the light of the family budgets presented at the close of the chapter of differences of even $100 in income below the $2,000 level for the potential range of family spending, and the social pressures on white collar employees to spend more on certain items such as rent, as also pointed out later, should be borne in mind.

5 For changes since 1927 see Chap. XVI.

We are still dependent upon the 1918 figures of the National Bureau of Economic Research for an estimate of the distribution of incomes of all sizes.6 Those figures showed that 29 percent of the total income went to the 55 percent of the gainfully employed earning less than $1,200 a year, 68 percent to the 92 percent earning less than $2,500, 76 percent to the 96 percent earning less than $3,600, and 81 percent to the 98 percent earning less than $5,000; this means that 19 percent of the total income went to the 2 percent of the gainfully employed receiving $5,000 and over.

6 National Bureau of Economic Research, Income in the United States, New York, 1921-1922, vol. I, pp. 134-5.

This concentration of income affects directly the productive activities of industry, since the consumption choices of the wealthy under our system of distribution influence all production except staples out of all proportion to the number of persons actually receiving these high incomes. This disproportionate influence of the commodities bought by the well to do has tended to increase in recent years with the high visibility which movies, radio, periodicals, greater travel and leisure and similar developments have given to the consumption habits of the wealthy. As a result, the past decade has witnessed increasingly the manufacture of luxury and quality goods in any necessary adulteration to reach low incomes. In so far as the consumption pattern on high income levels in such matters as women's clothing and elaborate beauty devices reflects the domination of individuals of relatively great leisure competing socially through their expenditures, the increasing visibility and diffusion of their habits has far reaching implications for current production and consumption.7

7 John H. Cover of the University of Chicago makes this interesting comment (in a letter, May 25, 1932): “I have frequently seen the statement that new goods are accepted by the highest income group and trickle down into the lower income levels. In a study of packaged foods I have come to the conclusion that it is the middle income group which seems to respond most rapidly and that the products spread upward and downward from this group; that the resistance is frequently as severe above as below and differs primarily in the exclusiveness of the higher income group and the lack of purchasing power of the lower income group.”

This suggests the necessity for distinguished between the consumption pace-setting role of the wealthy as regards different commodities: they would appear to set the pace more as regards automobiles, expensive clothing, housing, and other display and luxury goods, while new necessity and utility goods such as packaged staple foods, soap flakes and washing machines tend to secure volume acceptance first through the middle income groups.

006861

In addition to the differential distribution of income by occupations, the richness or poverty of a regional income undoubtedly influences the level of local possession of commodities and the resulting psychological pressure to buy. Following is the per capita income in 1919 in each of the nine geographical regions of the United States:88 Leven, Maurice, Income in the Various States, Its Sources and Distribution, 1919, 1920 and 1921, National Bureau of Economic Research, Publication no. 7, New York, 1925, p. 262.

Per capita current income 1919

New England$848

Middle Atlantic889

East north central734

West north central550

South Atlantic448

East south central$332

West south central478

Mountain647

Pacific889

Resulting differential per capita purchases of various classes of commodities in each of these regions are given later in this chapter in Table II.

The range and flexibility of buying power have been augmented by the growth in availability of consumer credit. In trying to stretch money incomes to meet all the demands of modern living, the American public runs up a substantial volume of short term obligations. Following is the estimated amount of such obligations outstanding at the end of 1931:9 Instalment debts $2,000,000,000; short term cash loans $2,620,000,000; open account debts or charge accounts $3,000,000,000;10 life insurance policy loans $4,000,000,000;11 making a total of $11,620,000,000 current9 Ryan, Franklin W. Family Finance in the United States during 1930 and 1931, Franklin Plan Economic Bulletin, January, 1932. These estimates represent only intelligent guesses and should be used with caution. They were prepared by Franklin W. Ryan, of the Franklin Plan Association, with assistance from Leon Henderson, of the Department of Remedial loans of the Russell Sage Foundation, and others. The reader should bear in mind that these estimates are for a depression year. No account is taken here of mortgages which are increasingly treated as overhead expense and paid like rent. It should be noted that the above obligations represent only the liability side of a balance sheet. The families will at the same time have assets in the form of accruing wages and salary and other items due.10 In the sampling study of 393 retail stores, January-June, 1931 and 410 retail stores July-December, 1931 (U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Domestic Commerce Series, no. 64, Retail Credit Survey, 1932), open credit accounts were paid off on the average in 77 days in 1931.11 Since these represent borrowing secured by past savings they should not be regarded as net debt.007862family obligations. In addition to these figures should be mentioned net loans of $1,247,000,000 by the United States Government and by banks, as of November 30, 1931, to World War veterans on adjusted service certificates.12

12 Most of these were perhaps not actually loans since there was no intention of repayment.

Instalment selling, applied many years earlier to sewing machines, books, pianos and furniture, rose heavily in volume when applied to the automobile, especially after 1921. Today, instalment sales comprise an estimated 12 to 15 percent of total retail sales, including at least 60 percent of furniture sales, 18 percent of jewelry sales, 50 percent of the sales of electrical households goods, 75 percent of sales of radio sets and 60 percent of automobile sales.13 In 1932 the instalment plan was even extended to European and domestic travel on a “pay after the trip is over” basis. Estimates of the total volume of sales on instalment are unsatisfactory. The best that can be said is that from a total of probably under a billions of dollars in 1925, increased slightly in 1926, fell slightly in 1927, increased to about $7,000,000,000 in 1929, and fell to $5,000,000,000 or less in 1931.14 Increased instalment sales of radios and refrigerators during this period have been largely offset by decreased instalment sales of pianos and phonographs. The large increase in 1929 is attributed chiefly to the unusually large number of automobile sales of that year, which alone accounted for over half the total volume of instalment sales.

13 Budget studies of 100 Ford Motor Company employee families in Detroit (1930), 400 families living in the Amalgamated Housing Corporation apartments in New York City (1930), and 506 families of federal employees in five cities (1928) showed that from a quarter to something over half of these families were buying one or more items on instalment. The smallest percentage of married federal employees buying on instalment (26 percent) was found in New York, with Boston 34, New Orleans 38, Chicago 51, and Baltimore 59. Fifty-nine out of 100 Ford families were buying on instalment, 25 of them paying on two or more commodities. In the Amalgamated study 124 out of 400 families were buying on instalment.14 For 1925, see Seligman's Economics of Instalment Selling and Milan V. Ayres’ Instalment Selling and Its Financing; for 1926-1927, see Copeland's section on “Marketing,” in Recent Economic Changes. Estimates for 1929 and 1931 are by Franklin W. Ryan.

Instalment facilities cover only a small area of family expenditures.15 For the remaining expenditures money to supplement or anticipate family income could, prior to 1915, be secured only from pawn shops, unlicensed lenders, a few remedial loan societies operating on a semi-philanthropic basis, or commercial banks lending only to persons personally known or having substantial security. Within the past decade and a half, a new type of credit has moved into this area with the rapid development of small loan facilities,16 as shown in Table 2.

15 Evans Clark (Financing the Consumer, p. 195, New York, 1930) sets the share of family expenditure not covered by instalment credit at 90 percent.16 On legislation concerning small loans, see Chap. XXVIII.008863Estimated annual volume of loans (in thousands of dollars)Lending agency191519201925192919301931Personal finance licensed companies35,000100,000425,000475,000b525,000Industrial banks (Morris Plan and others)c13,000dd360,000360,000320,000Credit unions6245,55829,74245,00060,00060,000Personal loan departments of commercial banks40,000270,000320,000Non-departmentized personal loans by commercial bankse200,000ddd1,000,0001,000,000Axias, remedial loan societies, share loans by building and loan associations, employers plansdddd380,000370,000Pawnbrokersdddd600,000550,000Unlicensed lenders of all kindsdddd750,0001,000,000Total3,895,0004,145,000

Table 2.—Estimated Volume of Short Time Personal Loans, 1915-1931a

a Estimates prepared by Franklin W. Ryan and Leon Henderson. Since such estimates are at best only cough approximations they should be used guardedly.b Although the total volume of loans by personal finance companies increased in 1930 and 1931 as new offices were opened, loans in offices in business prior to the depression are reported to have fallen off materially in 1930 and 1931.c Figures given is for 1916—none available for 1915.d No data.e Figure given is for 1914—none available for 1915.

Table 3 shows the trend since 1926 in the diffusion of licensed personal finance companies with the relatively more rapid increase in towns and cities under 50,000 and in cities of the 100,000-500,000 group; in 1926 there were no personal finance company offices in small southern towns and very few in small western towns; by 1931 there were scattered offices in such states as Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin and Oregon.

Size of townYearTotalUnder 10,00010,000-25,00025,000-50,00050,000-100,000100,000-500,000500,000 and over926:Number1,667231190181250425390Percent100.013.8611.4010.8815.0025.4923.39931:Number3,7225905954904041,012631Percent100.015.8515.9913.1710.8527.1916.95

Table 3.—Licensed Personal Finance Offices, Distributed by Number and Percent,According to the Size of the Town, in 1926 and 1931.a

a Compiled from 1931 Rosters of American Association of Personal Finance Companies.009864

The relation of instalment and small loan credit to consumption habits is probably most marked in the substitution which this new credit machinery makes possible of relatively expensive commodities, formerly beyond the spending horizons of millions of present purchasers, for a frittering array of smaller items. Thus the increased sale of expensive automatic refrigerators through the depression would have been impossible without the instalment “metered ice plan” whereby one may buy a refrigerator on a daily payment plan like the payment to an ice man. In so far as new credit has thus operated to divert small miscellaneous consumption into the purchase of substantial equipment, it has meant, whether wisely or not, primarily a qualitative change in current consumption rather than an increase in its total volume.

Family and Personality Factors.—Certain less tangible factors are scarcely less potent than the money and credit at th consumers's command in determining his response to the various goods offered to him Chief among these are his family situation and personality adjustment at any given time.

Size of family is one of the predominant factors affecting the balance among expenditures: the relative amounts spent for European trips or automobiles as against staple food and clothing, schooling, tonsillectomies and orthodontia. The chapter on the family17 reveals the declining size of the family unit, particularly in urban environments. This rural-urban difference is particularly important in view of the fact that between 1880 and 1930 the agricultural group in the working population has declined from 44 percent of the total to 22 percent. Meanwhile new standards have arisen as regards the volume and cost of commercial goods and services regarded as essential for modern child rearing.

17 Chap. XIII, pp. 681-684.

There is a constantly accelerating trend in our urbanized, mechanized culture towards regarding children as major economic outlays rather than as the relatively inexpensive potential economic assets of an earlier era. As increasingly optional expenditures children have come into direct competition with other consumption goods. The inroads upon other family expenditures of extra expenses at childbirth and during children's infancy and schooling vary the pattern of expenditures year by year.18

18 B. S. Rowntree has shown graphically the longitudinal curve in the lives of English urban working-class families above and below the primary proverty line—from a peak in adequacy of family income at marriage and prior to the coming of children, through a trough before the children begin to earn, up again for a time before earning children leave home and down again in the parents’ old age. (Proverty. London, 2nd ed. 1922, p. 171.)

Changing manners of living in regard to such matters as permanency of tenure and size of home unit affect directly certain types of consumption. In 1920 only 2.1 percent of the families in the Borough of Manhattan owned their homes (either free or encumbered) as against 30.7 percent in 010865New York State as a whole and 65.3 percent in North Dakota; the middle Atlantic states ranked lowest as a group with 37.2 percent, while the west north central group was highest with 56.4 percent. Increased building costs, coupled with the desire to invest in other things than spare rooms and space within the home, have operated in the direction of smaller living units.19 Reviewing current trends in Denver, the University of Denver Business Review for January, 1931, said:

19 On the trend toward multiple dwellings in metropolitan communities, see Chap. IX.

The smaller number of children per family, lessened interest in the home as a social center, ... the transfer of space-using kitchen and laundry activities to commercial enterprises, and the decreased portion of the family income available for home purchase and maintenance are typical changes which lead to the insistent demand for smaller and smaller living units.

Actual trends in new construction of different types and sizes of housing units in Denver are reflected by the percentages of dwelling of each type in the following summary from the same source:

Types of housing unitsPrior to 19011901-19151916-19251926-1930One-story, single houses29.284.570.558.8Two or more stories, single houses24.920.94.14.0Apartments:With no bedroom2.14.76.19.8With 1 bedroom4.69.84.818.6With 2 or more bedrooms1.62.21.62.0All othersa37.627.912.96.8a Include terraces, double houses, 2-family houses (chiefly remodelled 1-family houses), shacks (“houses now valued at less than $200 by the Tax Assessor”), and rebuilt apartment (chiefly large single houses made over); data on the last three indicate the period of original construction, not time of remodelling or of depreciation to the shack classification.

The increases in small apartments and in small houses indicated here are particularly significant. New apartments built in New York City in 1913 averaged 4.19 rooms; this figure had declined to 3.63 in 1925 and 3.34 in 1928.20

20 Adams, T. S., and Heydecker, W. D., “Housing Conditions in the New York Region,” Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs, New York, 1931, vol. VI, p. 238; cf. Lynd, P. S. and H. M., Middletown, New York, 1929, p. 94 for evidence as to the tendency for building lots to become smaller.

All of these tendencies have resulted in further changes in consumption habits. The book industry is lamenting the dwindling size of family libraries, notably in apartments. Furniture too, appears to feel the impact, according to officials of the National Furniture Warehousemen's Association:21

21 Letters from the Executive Secretary and Field Secretary, dated respectively May 15 and June 3, 1931; of furniture production indexes, Table 15.011866

Our impression would be that, while there are no figures available, there was considerably less goods in storage [in 1900], and also that there was a higher personal value placed on the household effects then than at the present time.

The tendency of storage lots is to become smaller, but there is an increase in the actual number of customers storing goods. The reason for the decrease in the size of lots is because the average household keeps up a much smaller home than formerly.

With smaller houses and the home competing with new expenditures outside, the family appears to be less of a consumption unit than ever before. A rising standard of living, coupled with new ideas as to equality of marital partners and in parent-child relationships, and an increased degree of mobility and independence among women and children have all operated apparently to distribute the family's spending money more generally through the several members of the family. Merchants testify that children are buying more things today unassisted by their parents.

Not least among these purchases by individual family members outside the home are those concerned with leisure. The growing margin of leisure in the American family,22 with the increasing variety and availability of leisure time activities adapted to the needs of separate age and sex groups, affects the consumption of a wide group of goods and services. Good times, especially those involved in spending money to go places and do things, have become an expected part of the routine week of family members, rather than a matter of special occasions. The steady secularization of Sunday has made it more than ever before in this country an occasion for spending money. The annual vacation habit is also spreading.23

22 See Chap. XVI, for trends in hours worked per week.23 For further treatment of leisure expenditure, see the discussion of miscellaneous items in family budget studies below.

From these and other changes in family and social habits there emerges a consideration frequently overlooked but none the less basic in determining the entire pattern of current consumption: the personality adjustment of the individual consumer as a factor determining his response to goods presented to him. We can no longer be content with the attempt to understand consumption habits by viewing the consumer simply as the rational, soberly constant being which classical economics and much current popular thinking find it convenient to assume him to be. It is probably nearer the truth to regard human beings as only partially rational bundles of impulses and habits shaped in response to an unsynchronized environment, with resulting tensions. The process of growing up and of effective adult living consists in adjusting one's individual tensions by weighting them with values sufficiently congruous with the accepted values of society and at the same time with the urgent personal needs of the individual to enable him to present some socially tolerable semblance of an integrated front in the business of living. Within each of 012867us this exciting drama is played out in our every waking and sleeping hour until the end of the picture.

Data are not available from which to establish conclusive trends in regard to the changing personality strains involved in contemporary society. We do know, however, that increasingly urbanized living, looser family organization, secularization of values and similar social changes set up new situations of tension which necessitate difficult personality adjustments. In the field of general social values touching consumption an individual must find his way among such changing sanctions as the following:

The lingering Puritan tradition of abstinence which makes play idleness and free spending sin; and the increasing secularization of spending and the growing pleasure basis of living.

The tradition that rigorous saving and paying cash are the marks of sound family economy and personal self-respect; and the new gospel which encourages liberal spending to make the wheels of industry turn as a duty of the citizen.

The deep rooted philosophy of hardship viewing this stern discipline as the inevitable lot of men; and the new attitude towards hardship as a thing to be avoided by living in the here and now, utilizing instalment credit and other devices to telescope the future into the present.

The tradition that the way to balance one's budget is to cut one's expenses to fit one's income; and the new American “solution” by increasing one's income to fit one's expenditures.

The increasingly baffling conflict between living and making money in order to buy a living; and the tendency, public and private, to simplify this issue by concentration on the making of money.24

24 The emphasis on these several alternatives may fluctuate with the phase of the business cycle and vary in different regions and with such factors as racial background. For instance, the emphasis upon increasing one's income to fit one's expenditures has been a noticeable characteristic of the last three decades which have been an era of arising prices; and there has been a marked reversion to the more traditional thrifty American policy of cutting down expenses with the depression commencing in 1929. the point to be borne in mind, however, is that we live as consumers in a shifting surrounding “weather” of values and ideas that tends to affect our behavior as consumers.

More specific forms of increasing personality unsteadiness are involved in job monotony and pressure in an era of increasing specialization, job impersonality in large offices and industrial units, the often attenuated unsupporting relationship of job and social status in the large city, the weakening of the marriage tie, the new complexities recognized in child rearing, the multiplication of new alternatives to traditional “right” ways and “wrong” ways of carrying on many homely processes, the weakening consolations of religion in a culture marked by a growing externalising of values in things bought in stores, and so on through a long list of current social changes.

During the past two decades the business of selling commercial products as substitutive reactions for more subtle forms of adjustment to 013868job insecurity, social insecurity, monotony, loneliness, failure to marry, and other situations of tension has advanced to an effective fine art. The tendency of contemporary merchandising is to elevate more and more commodities to the class of personality buffers. At each exposed point the alert merchandiser is ready with a panacea.

Availability of Goods.—In addition to amount to income and varying family and personality needs, the differing localities in which people live exert different pressures to consume. Climatic factors influence consumption in such matters as clothing, fuel, housing and automobiles. The climates of Minnesota and Florida make different demands upon family budgets.

Since standards of consumption are so largely social rather than private in character, the level of wealth and availability of goods in a given community exert powerful pressures on the consumer: a farmer is under less compulsion to dress up to a high standard than is a business man in a large city, and a family closely surrounded by multiple trading centers with elaborate shop windows and high standards of competitive spending tends to be under more pressure to buy many types of commodities than is a family in a western trading area of 59,000 square miles served by a

ItemNew EnglandMiddle AtlanticSouth AtlanticEast north centralWest north centralEast south centralWest south centralMountainPacificProportion of big city and rural population:Percent of population living in cities of over 100,000314815371912151241Percent of population living in rural places under 2,500b182162335772625832Size of trading areas:Percent under 2,000 square miles9085634329332886Percent over 10,000 square miles21172155817Number of principal trading centers per 10,000 square miles8.47.84.73.51.82.81.60.61.1Size of principal trading centers:Percent over 75,000 population27231418131215422Percent under 20,000 population353654316457537950

Table 4.—Isolation and Urbanization of Nine Sections of the United States, 1930a(As indicated by popular distribution, by size of trading areas and by size and frequency of tradingcenters)

a Based on The Trading Area System of Sales Control, International Magazine Co., New York, 1931. The data here involve a break up of the entire United States into 641 trading areas, each with a dominant city as its principal trading center. In the case of 24 of these trading areas the principal trading center is composed of two or more adjacent cities.b 369 communities under 2,500 population are not included as “rural” by the International Magazine Co., whose classification is here followed, because of proximity to larger communities or exceptional trading facilities.014869

single meager trading center.25 Table 4 suggests the differential situation of the nine regions of the country as regards certain of these factors.

25 On trading centers and trade areas, see Chap. IX.

Table 5 shows the distribution of retail stores of selected sorts in nine sections of the country. For instance, clothing stores vary from 143 per 100,000 population in the middle Atlantic states to 35 in the east south central states and from 373 per 1,000 square miles in the former to 3 in the mountain states.

Kind of storeNew EnglandMiddle AtlanticSouth AtlanticEast north centralWest north centralEast south centralWest south centralMountainPacificDepartment stores:Stores per 100,000 population3.12.73.84.65.32.34.06.46.0Store per 1,000 square miles4.17.02.14.81.41.21.1.21.6Percent of total retail sale of region8.89.06.79.98.96.16.18.49.9Apparel stores:Stores per 100,000 population122.8142.657.0101.180.734.744.768.6107.8Stores per 1,000 square miles162.3373.333.4104.021.019.012.73.027.9Percent of total retail sales of region9.311.07.29.06.36.05.65.27.9Furniture stores:Stores per 100,000 population18.824.017.615.026.616.421.638.422.8Stores per 1,000 square miles24.863.010.315.37.09.06.11.75.9Percent of total retail sales of region3.03.03.03.02.63.63.32.73.0Florists:Stores per 100,000 population11.612.34.28.75.02.73.36.010.1Stores per 1,000 square miles15.232.32.68.91.21.41.0.22.7Percent of total retail sales of region.4.4.3.3.2.2.2.2.3Radio and music stores:bStores per 100,000 population13.317.413.714.412.94.16.211.020.0Stores per 1,000 square miles17.745.88.014.93.32.21.84.85.1Percent of total retail sales of region.91.3.81.1.9.6.8.91.4Jewelry stores:Stores per 100,000 population19.019.211.217.419.47.710.917.324.3Stores per 1,000 square miles25.050.46.718.05.04.23.0.86.2Percent of total retail sales of region1.01.31.01.0.9.9.9.91.0

Table 5.—Ratio of Retail Outlets to Area and Population in Nine GeographicalRegions, 1929a

a U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, Census of Distribution, 1930 (preliminary figures).b Does not include musical instrument stores.

The automobile, paved roads, parcel post, motion pictures, radio, increased diffusion of metropolitan periodicals, the spread in distribution of nationally styled and branded commodities have all tended steadily to reduce the factor of geographical isolation and the accidental effects of the size of the city in which one lives. Were figures for 1900 available, they would afford an interesting contrast to the situation depicted in Table 4.

015870

Buying by mail is largely a phenomenon of the last three decades, reaching its peak relative to total retail sales between 1910 and 1915 and falling off since about 1925. The average number of Sears Roebuck catalogues (Montgomery Ward corresponds closely) distributed in each of the two seasons is as follows:

1900425,000

19102,804,000

19154,292,000

19205,133,150

19256,650,000

19297,151,000

The spread of chain stores is significant in relation to the availability of centrally purchased and relatively standardized goods. It is only since 1900 that chains may be said to have gained real momentum, while only since the World War have they emerged into a position of dominance in distribution. Beginning as poor man's stores, they have increasingly throughout the 1920's become accepted by all classes of the population, though grocery chains and 5-and-10-cent stores have entered the buying habits of high income groups relatively more than have, for example, women's ready-to-wear chains.

An estimate for 1914 places the number of parent companies operating chains of three or more units in the United States at approximately 2,030, with approximately 23,893 store units and aggregate annual sales of not over $1,000,000,000.26 The 1930 Census of Distribution, which followed a slightly more conservative procedure by not including independents operating two or three stores and small local branch systems supplied from stocks of central parent rather than from central warehouses, reports a total of 7,046 chain organizations operating 159,826 store units with total sales in 1929 aggregating $10,771,984,034.27

26 Estimate compiled for Printers’ Ink by M. M. Zimmerman and quoted by him in “The Rise of Chain Store Methods of Merchandising,” Printers’ Ink, October 2, 1920, vol. CLIII, pp. 17-20.27 For additional material on chain stores, see Chap. V.

A compelling aspect of this general question of the availability of goods is the pressure exerted upon popular consumption habits by the sheer fact of plant capacity. The relatively more rapid growth of productive output than of population since 1900 has been pointed out above. In a rough sense plant expansion follows consumer demand; actually however, guided by guesses and plans for capturing the volume market, expansion tends to leap ahead of actual demand; and it often outlasts demand. Once built, on the basis of whatever expectations, correct or inaccurate, expanded plant facilities increase overhead and become a compelling stimulus to sales pressure on the consumer. If the automobile industry guessed badly in the 1920's, the result is an intensification of the campaign on the consumer.

Agriculture is also beginning to exhibit clearly, at certain points where growers are in a position to pool their efforts, this tendency for 016871productive capacity to result in deliberately increased consumer pressure. Car lot movements of iceberg head lettuce rose from 2,078 in 1917 to 46,401 in 1928. In explaining the reason for the launching of a $250,000 advertising campaign behind this and other products of the Western Grower's Protective Association in 1930, the Managing Secretary of the Association said: “Naturally, increasing the consumption of iceberg head lettuce is an imperative matter in order to keep ahead of ever-increasing production. Inasmuch as there is no way to curb production, consumption must be increased.”28

28 Moore, C. B., “We Can't Curb Production—So We Are Increasing Consumption,” Printer's Ink, January 8, 1931, vol. CLIV, pp. 80-84.

A further aspect of productive industrial capacity as influencing consumer's habits is the tendency for quantity production, if and when achieved, to mean reduced prices. Without volume production the automobile, radio, electric light globes and scores of other consumer commodities which have exhibited rising quality and falling prices could never have secured their present place in the consumer's daily life.29

29 The state of industrial plant development has also operated over the past decade to encourage another increasing development largely irrelevant to consumer needs: “deliberate obsolescence.” By this merchandising device an automobile, for instance, that is mechanically sound and has never turned a wheel automatically loses twenty to thirty percent of its sales value when a new model appears.

The various differences noted above in availability of goods to different sections of the population all operate to increase or restrict the area of choice confronting consumers. It is probably true that a few isolated groups such as that cabin dwellers in the inner valleys of certain parts of the southern mountains, where roads are bad and money scarce, are subjected to but little greater consumption pressure than were their fathers. For the country as a whole, however, even in geographically remote and socially isolated or sluggish areas, the greater availability of goods today as compared with a generation ago is marked. While this availability is greatest in the metropolitan centers, one may hazard the guess that it is in the larger towns and smaller cities and on the more progressive farms that the recent expansion in variety and availability of commodities is changing consumer habits most rapidly.

Merchandising Practices.—More goods to sell necessitates the development to hitherto unexampled levels of such merchandising practices as advertising, branding, and styling.

Advertising.—Advertising goes hand in hand with volume of production and retail distribution. It operates to increase the availability of goods and to turn out quickly kiln-dried habits of consumer acceptance. Between 1909 and 1929 periodical advertising rose, according to the Census of manufactures, from $54,000,000 to $320,000,000 and newspaper advertising from $149,000,000 to $792,000,000. If we add the estimate of 017872$75,000,000 for radio advertising in 1929,30 and Copeland's 1927 estimates in Recent Economic Changes31 (probably all of them conservative for 1929) of $400,000,000 for direct advertising, $20,000,000 for street car advertising, $75,000,000 for outdoor advertising, $75,000,000 for business papers, and $25,000,000 for premiums, programs and directories, we get a total of $1,782,000,000 for 1929. I current advertising we are therefore viewing commercial consumer stimulation on the greatest scale yet attempted, totaling in 1929 about 2 percent of the national income or nearly $15 per capita.

30 Estimate by National Association of Broadcasters.31 New York, 1929. vol. I, p. 402.

It was not until 1916 that an advertiser first spent a million dollars in a single year in advertising in the 30 leading periodicals checked by the Crowell Publishing Company, and the number spending a million dollars or more in these increased to 2032 in 1930. The largest advertiser in these 30 leading periodicals in 1915 spent in these media only $738,000, while the largest advertiser in the 30 leading periodicals in 1930 spent $3,789,000.

32 Crowell Publishing Co., National Markets and National Advertising, 1930. Denney Publishing Co., National Advertising Records, January, 1930 which combines appropriations of subsidiaries with parent companies, shows a total of 28 for the 890-odd national periodicals which it checks.

The trend of periodical and newspaper advertising during the depression may be seen from the following tabulation of expenditures and lineage in certain publications:

PeriodicalsaNewspapersbYearAdvertising expendituresPercent of change from preceding yearAdvertising lineagePercent of change from preceding year1928$185,204,588$1,802,481,7421929203,776,077+10.01,897,213,018+ 5.31930201,854,510- 0.91,654,246,249-12.81931166,555,864-17.51,464,867,677-11.4a Denney Publishing Co., National Advertising Records, January issues for successive years. Advertising income totals are for 80-odd national magazines.b Media Records, New York totals for all English language papers i 52 leading cities. The Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association estimates the decline in all newspaper advertising from 1931 at 10.8 percent.

In addition to the growth in advertising appropriations prior to the depression mounting advertising expenditures also reflect an increased number of individual advertisers. Then Standard Advertising Register listed approximately 5,000 national advertisers in 1925 and 8,500 in 1930.

018873

Table 6 shows the relative volumes of periodical, newspaper and radio advertising behind leading commodity groups33 and the trend as exhibited by periodical advertising since 1915.

33 It is not intended to suggest in the treatment of advertising in this chapter that advertising is an accurate index of consumption. Quite the opposite conclusion may be drawn, namely its erratic variations in pressure from commodity to commodity. Large advertising campaigns tend to be concentrated behind certain goods sold directly to ultimate consumers at retail. Advertising volume may be relative to a given stage of consumer acceptance of a specified commodity and in the case of certain commodities like coal it may be largely non-existent, while other goods like wood, flour, certain textiles, etc. increasingly bought by the ultimate consumer in fabricated form as a house, baker's bread, or a cotton dress, may have relatively little consumer advertising.

The irregularity of pressure on the consumer for various items within a single commodity group is suggested by the fact that foods aggregating only 5 percent of the total food bill of the United States took up 77 percent of the total food advertising space in the January 1931 issue of five women's magazines. (Dr. E. L. Rhoades, editor of the New Era in Food Distribution, in an address before the National Wholesale Grocers’ Association, quoted in New York Journal of Commerce, January 24, 1932.)

A significant trend from the standpoint of the consumer is the “truth in advertising” movement. In 1911 the advertising trade paper Printers’ Ink put forth a Model Statute which made it a misdemeanor for any advertisement to contain “any assertion, representation or statement of fact which is untrue, deceptive or misleading.” Twenty-four states have passed this statute and fourteen others have passed substitutes. Actual prosecutions under these statutes are extremely rare, the courts in general taking the attitude that “puffing” is so normal a part of advertising that prudent people have no redress when deceived by exaggerated claims.34 In 1912 the motto “Truth in Advertising” was adopted and widely endorsed by local advertising clubs and similar bodies. It is also supported by the National Better Business Bureau and its fifty-one local branches. Particularly in the larger cities and more prominent national magazines, the trend towards cleaner advertising is notable. In the case of national commodities with advertising appropriations running into the hundreds of thousands, the consumer profits by the stake which the manufacturer has in maintaining national good will. Speaking of the 1870's ad 1880's, These Merchandising Changes, issued in 1929 by the Crowell Publishing Company, says, “At least 75 percent of the advertising carried in the magazines of that period would not be accepted by the reputable magazines of today.” And yet, truth in advertising must operate within the exigent general aims of advertising “To break down consumer resistance; to create consumer acceptance; to create consumer demand.” As the merchandising pace quickened during the 1920's advertising encountered protest from various quarters, including warnings in the trade papers to “Restrain your advertising or it will be restrained for you,” “cease and desist” actions by the Federal Trade Commission against testimonial34 See Milton Handler, “False and Misleading Advertising,” Yale Law Journal, November, 1929, vol. XXXIX, pp. 22-51.019874advertising, bills and before Congress and the state legislatures for the censoring of advertising.

Branding.—When in 1899 the National Biscuit Company put its five-cent box of Uneedas into grocery stores it not only banished the cracker barrel but incited a powerful movement away from bulk merchandise and selling by weight in many commodity lines. Since then, specialization of commodities, heightened competition of manufacturers

National periodicalsa19151923192915-year total, 1915-1929Commodity groupAmount in thousands of dollarsRankAmount in thousands of dollarsRankAmount in thousands of dollarsRankAmount in thousands of dollarsRankAutomotive5,007114,674122,9183223,4541Food and beverage4,023212,842323,8222210,0352Drug and toilet2,543313,996224,9821195,5033Clothing and dry goods2,41048,40757,371595,8465Tobacco1,6715753208,4931226,29614Furniture and furnishings1,629610,329415,8184138,1144Travel and amusementb99973,34784,414841,7539Book and stationery96582,89894,1291141,57710Building material94594,89375,865765,2816Jewelry and silverware925102,786114,2281038,00811Radio, phonograph and musical instruments835112,796104,402947,9858Soap and housekeepers’ supplies790125,06567,046661,6517Shoe, shoe furnishings611132,078132,6011728,34613Confectionary and soft drink475141,511163,1091425,16215Paint and hardware473152,767122,4291836,14312Sporting goods44616338211,461199,30119Office equipmentc370171,880142,6021623,08516Lubricating and petroleum products162181,351173,4731321,26617Machinery and mechanical supplies160191,339181,3442018,84018Garden712017022353223,06220School, camp and correspondence coursesde1,16719e95321dFinancial and insuranced1,518152,62815dMiscellaneousf9981,7925,68064,400Total, all classes26,50998,607155,1221,418,717

Table 6.—Advertising by Commodities and Media, 1915-1929

a Crowell Publishing Company, National Markets and National Advertising, 1930. Periodicals checked numbered 30 in 1915 and 1929, 31 in 1928, and in the thirteen years 1916-1988 varied from 30 to 36.b Includes trunks, bags and novelties. Breakdown not available except in 1929, when trunks, bags and novelties constituted 12.8 percent of total travel and amusement.c Includes office and stores equipment.d Included in miscellaneouse Includes correspondence schools only.f Including department, mail order, and chain stores.020875NewspapersgRadiohTotal local and national advertising in 69 cities, 1929Columbia and National Broadcasting Systems, 1929Commodity groupAmount in thousands of linesRankAmount in thousands of dollarsRankAutomotive190,23531,7214Food and beverage140,53362,0252Drug and toilet146,32151,9413Clothing and dry goods345,746131514Tobacco48,89691,3495Furniture and furnishings253,084258111Travel and amusement153,60848679Book and stationery22,751148868Building material35,6181123416Jewelry and silverware36,443104120Radio, phonograph and musical instruments104,13283,7411Soap and housekeepers’ supplies23,2971323815Shoe, shoe furnishings, trunks and bags32,4681236713Confectionary and soft drinki56412Paint and hardwarej14317Sporting goods7,156157618Office equipment4,618174419Lubricating and petroleum productsk9616Machinery and mechanical suppliesj59310Gardenj121School, camp and correspondence courses5,63616lFinancial and insurance108,17979237Miscellaneousm356,9301,119Total, all classes2,015,20118,730g Media Records summary (not available in dollars).h Denney Publishing Company, National Advertising Records, January, 1930.i Included in food and beverage.j Included in miscellaneous.k Included in automotive.l None.m Including real estate, professional, and department stores (minus clothing, furniture, jewelry, toilet, books and radio).

and chain stores in their efforts to create national markets, the growth of national advertising and distribution and increased confidence in canned and packaged foods on the part of the consumer have all facilitated the spread of packaged and branded goods.35 The value of a brand name has mounted steadily: five times annual earnings was but a few years ago an established sale price for a business involving the good will from a brand

35 A study of comparative retail prices of 11 foods in bulk and packaged showed an average excess of 54 percent for the packaged foods, ranging from 4 percent in the case of oatmeal to 156 percent for macaroni. (American Food Journal, November, 1917, vol. XII, p. 606, quoted by Henry Harap in The Education of the Consumer, New York, 1924, p. 52.)021876

name; this has recently jumped to ten and in exceptional cases sixteen times annual earnings. The Maxwell House Coffee habit of the American people was bought in 1928 for $42,000,000 and the Jell-O habit in 1925 for $35,000,000.

The number of brands of selected commodities used in Milwaukee homes is shown in Table 7. The trend still appears to be upward, from a total of 1,124 brands in 1924 to 1,247 in 1930 for those commodities on which figures are given for the same commodity in both years.

Number of brandsItem192419271930Breakfast foods437187Flourb524946Prepared cake flourb71019Baking powder413537Wheat bread3636Rye bread3534Package bacon2224Package cheese253236Package noodles3867Package soda crackers921Package macaroni6260Package butter7693Package lard20Canned soup1421Canned milk4022Mayonnaise462638Catsup537054Canned sauerkraut3036Package tea656470Package coffeeb10292101Decaffeinned coffee12Ginger aleb465265Toilet soap948165Tooth brushesb214256Tooth paste8310276Mouth wash68Shaving cream7373Soap flakes384241Cleansing powders and softenersb426377Scouring cleansers372839Steel wool3136Fly and bug killer4161Lacquer, enamel and varnish98Electric washing machines82127110Fountain pens164Automobile tires68Automobile gasoline35Automobile oil51

Table 7.—Numbers of Brands of Selected Items Purchased by Families in GreaterMilwaukee, 1924-1930a

a Milwaukee Journal, Consumer Analysis, annual reports, based in each year on questionnaires mailed to 30 percent of Milwaukee families selected systematically from the city directory. A small premium was offered to those who would bring in their relies. Some 5,000 families, or 5 percent of the city's a total families, returned questionnaires. Blanks in the table indicate no data.b Figure for 1924 not available. Figure given is for 1925.

The growing use of packaged and branded goods is further apparent in the percentages of families using selected packaged goods in Milwaukee, shown in the tabular statement on page 877.36

36 For source see footnote a, Table 7. The figure for cheese in the column headed “1922” is for 1923 and the figures for soup and milk in the column headed “1927” are for 1928.

While national brands unquestionably make for greater uniformity of quality, an important aspect of the consumer's use of branded goods is the increasing technical complexity of fabricated commodities such as foods, textiles, mechanical equipment and toilet goods. This tends to remove further the complex of characteristics blanketed by a brand name from 022877the sorts of empirical comparisons that were more often possible a generation ago when there were fewer brands and more commodities were produced in the home. Again, there is a tendency in the ceaseless quest for what advertising men call “million dollar merchandising ideas” (e.g. “halitosis” as applied to Listerine) to disguise commodities still further by identifying them with cryptic characteristics. Along with this goes the tendency to drive goods under their real names off the retail market.

Percent of families usingItem192219271930Package bacon2744Package cheese224754Package soda crackers5178Package macaroni6574Package butter8181Package lard59Canned soup8987Canned milk473746Canned sauerkraut5465Prepared mayonnaise544555Package tea504147Package coffeea625470Package soap flakes617678a Meanwhile bulk coffee dropped from 49 percent in 1922 to 32 percent in 1930.

Meanwhile, the consumer is reported to be shifting at an accelerating rate from brand to brand and retailers are lamenting that “customer loyalty isn't what it used to be.” Even in such matter as men's clothing and in such a conservative region as New England, “In the opinion of many clothing merchants, nationally advertised brands mean less to the average consumer than they did some years ago.”37 A study of the Appleton, Wisconsin, market in 1931,38 which showed 96 different makes of radios owned throughout the city, found that “Only 13.6 percent of all replacement sales in Appleton have been of the same make as previously owned ... In 1931 all radio purchases in Appleton by people with incomes of $5,000 were replacements and not on replaced the same make. The replacement market, therefore, is a free for all.”

37 U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Edward F. Gerish, Commercial Structure of New England, Domestic Commerce Series no. 26, 1929, p. 137.38 Time, Inc., Markets by Incomes, New York, 1932, p. 37.

In the face of the conflicting trends in regard to branding, making for greater uniformity in quality and ease of selection in the case of a specific branded article on the one hand, and, on the other, for a multiplication of brands of varying complex qualities and an increasing “battle of the brands,” the question may fairly be raised whether the dominant tendency is in the direction of greater simplification or confusion.

Style.—A speeding up of the tempo of style change as well as a broadening in the scope of fashion influence to new commodities and through 023878new sections of the population occurred during the 1920's as an accompaniment of increasing prosperity and wide diffusion of wealth. On the consumer's side it was apparently stimulated by war time mobility, by a philosophy of youth bred of post-war emotional exuberance stressing change and resiliency in living, and by increased leisure. Mechanical changes increasing speed of transmission of ideas and of goods were likewise facilitating factors. To merchants style and fashion offered an opportunity to extricate merchandising from the profit-wasting traditional emphasis upon competitive prices, and to this end entire industries pooled their attack to make the consumer “style-conscious.” The furniture industry, distracted by price warfare, reasoned thus: “The old idea of keeping up with the Joneses, we believe, is just as prevalent in home furnishings as it is in ready-to-wear or motor car styles, but folks haven't taken that seriously enough so that they will go out and spend their money on it; in other words, bet their dollars on it.”39 And so the National Retail Furniture Association set out in 1928 to raise a war chest of a million dollars a year for four years to change consumer habits from price to style.

39 Statement made by Roscoe R. Rau, Secretary, National Retail Furniture Association in American Trade Association Executives, Proceedings & Addresses, New York, 1930, p.84.

This increased emphasis on style was encouraged by advertising and editorial content in periodicals and newspapers. The Ladies’ Home Journal, for example, after devoting but 16 percent of its non-fiction editorial content to fashion in 1918 and in 1920, raised this to 28 percent in 1921 and to 30 in 1922-1923, while popular magazines have increasingly taken over high style artists formerly used only by exclusive style journals such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. During the 1920's the style expert began to be supplemented by the style forecaster as exemplified in the great increase up to 1927 in trade reasearch bureaus, forecasting and coordinating agencies and other devices for finding out quickly in advance what the public will accept.

Formerly there were definite seasonal changes in style of women's apparel. Now many New York stores report that there are no seasons, but a change in merchandise from month. Fifteen years ago a manufacturer was safe in preparing for volume sale models that were fashionable in Fifth Avenue shops the year before. Today it is frequently less than a week after a model has been shown in the window of one of the exclusive couturiers of 57th Street or Fifth Avenue that it appears at $6.95 or $3.95 in the 14th Street serve-yourself stores.

Color harmony plays a leading part in the new style emphasis, with colors multiplied to an astonishing total, many of them masked under private brand names. Regarding the resulting confusion, the 1930 Buyers's Manual of the National Retail Dry Goods Association said:

024879

—there are few department stores in which 40 out of 100 customers are able to substantially complete the ensembles they have started in their respective stores ... The manufacturers of each [item of clothing] are, quite naturally, selfishly interested in promoting certain fabrics and colors ... This may have been satisfactory in the past, when a hat was a hat, and a bag was a bag, but now that a hat is only one link in an ensemble, and the bag another link, it is very unsatisfactory. It defeats 30,000,000 women, all over the United States in their attempts to match their hats to their bags, or their bags to their shoes, or their dresses to their hats.40

40 New York, 1930, pp. 249, 251.

An article in Retailing in the summer of 1931 was headed: “Five Million Accessories Will Be Wrong.”41 A counter-movement has begun under the National Retail Dry Goods Association to standardize colors and some of the larger stores are attempting storewide color coordination.

41 Retailing, Modern Methods of Distribution, weekly edition of Women's Wear Daily, New York, July 18, 1931. Another article in Retailing, January 3, 1931, suggested that by proper exploitation of the ensembling idea the nation's apparel bill can be raised by a billion dollars annually.

Along with increased styling and color goes a speeding up of obsolescence. The Department of Commerce notes color obsolescence as “one of the principal factors slowing down turnover” in the women's silk and rayon hosiery field.42 The Holeproof Hosiery Company carried 480 items in 1920 and 6,006 in 1927. Leverett S. Lyon reports that a leading Chicago retailer of shoes increased the number of styles on men's shoes carried from

42 U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Problems of Wholesale Dry Goods Distribution, Distribution Cost Studies no. 7, 1930, pp. 41-2.Age of stock (percent of department's total stock)Department stores and kind of stockUnder 6 months6 to 12 months12 to 18 monthsOver 18 monthsWith annual volume over $10,000,000:Men's clothing61.322.810.84.9Men's hats and caps64.623.57.64.3Millinery82.36.25.06.5Women's dresses92.16.71.1.1Women's coats92.55.91.3.3With annual of $250,000 to $1,000,000:Men's clothing39.544.116.4cMen's hats and capsb44.928.926.2aMillineryb86.618.4aWomen's dresses81.015.88.8cWomen's coats86.611.18.0c

Table 8.—Age of Stock of Selected Commodities by Size of Store, 1929a

a N.R.D.G.A., controllers’ Congress, Merchandizing Statistics, New York, 1929b Men's hats and caps and millinery not given for 1929. Figures taken from 1930 report for stores in $500,000-$1,000,000 group.c In this group of stores “18 months and over” was not separated from 12 months and over, and hence is included in the previous column.025880

175 in 1920 to 375 in 1928 and in women's shoes from 500 in 1920 to 1,000 in 1928.43 A large middle western wholesale dry goods house estimates that 20 percent of all items become obsolete before they can be sold.44

43 Hand-to-Mouth Buying, Brookings Institution, Washington, 1929, p. 453.44 Problems of Wholesale Dry Goods Distribution, op. cit., p.5.

Table 8 shows the median ages of stock of selected items in both men's and women's wear on hand in 1929 in a representative sample of member department stores of the National Retail Dry Goods Association.

Another kind of style progression, the geographical spread of fashion from New York, has likewise shown marked speeding up. Twenty years ago women's clothing fashions on the Pacific coast were a year behind those in New York. All over the country high style merchandise was available the first season only in expensive garments. Today California is second only to New York in swiftness and thoroughness of clothing style acceptance, most large cities are little if any behind them, and it is only the small towns of the west and south that lag somewhat behind.

Chain stores, formerly believed suited only to staple merchandise, have operated with increasing success in the past ten years in the field of volume fashion merchandise. Such stores reproduce the most favored numbers rapidly and broadcast them over the country.

Mail order houses, also, have altered their procedures in step with the new mass consciousness of fashion: under the old twice-a-year catalogue method, four-color pages had to be made up at least five months in advance of the actual appearance of the catalogue, while buying had to be done some weeks earlier—all of which handicapped he fashion correctness of merchandise and resulted in steadily declining clothing sales through the 1920's. In 1931 Montgomery Ward eliminated women's hats, dresses, coats and sports clothes from its big catalogues and inaugurated a monthly style magazine and catalogue, Today's New York Fashions, which brings “you fashions direct from the New York openings,” so that “you can choose with the same assurance that you would feel in shopping in New York personally.” After two issues this was in turn abandoned and in 1932 only the cheapest house dresses were reinserted in the big catalogue, while all hats, dresses, coats and suits were carried only in the retail stores.

Style, price, quality, convenience shuttle in and out of the picture as millions of citizens make daily purchases. Men in New England “generally look first for what they consider quality in the cloth, price coming second, and tailoring and the general finish ... last,” while with women “the first requirement is style, the price, with quality or durability coming third,”45 and these generalizations tend to hold throughout the country.

45 U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, E. F. Gerish, Commercial Structure of New England, Domestic Commerce Series no. 26, 1929 pp. 137, 208.026881

Consumer Literacy.46—The increase in new kinds of goods and services, the decline in home handicraft knowledge, the increased complexity of mechanical devices and fabricated commodities, new pressures on the consumer to buy, and new tensions within the consumers, all make new demands for consumer literacy. This problem of literacy involves two things: knowledge of commodities and of what one can afford.

46 “Literacy” is used here to denote the ability to understand and use the complicated symbols and formulae of technologically processed commodities and to make needed discriminations among such processed, advertised, branded, and priced goods. For an elaboration of the implications of consumer literacy see Harap, The Education of the Consumer, op. cit.

Consumer literacy is complicated by the ragged state of development of fundamental scientific work touching the various types of commodities, and by the related uneven acceptance of reliable standards by the industries concerned. Our knowledge of the food requirements of individuals of different age, sex and occupation has advanced far beyond what we know of the requirements of the body for sunlight and for protection from cold and noise. Likewise, the reliability of standards and the degree of compliance with them by industry, both relatively high in the case of machinery such as turbines and machine tools for intermediate consumers, and of the services provided by such a public service agency as the Bell Telephone Company and its subsidiaries, drop away in descending order through automobiles, certain foods such as sugar and cereals, medicines used in prescriptions, electrical appliances, certain building materials such as brick and cement and certain kinds of lumber, typewriters, furniture and kitchen utensils, with preserves, men's clothing, other building materials such as wallboard and paint, cosmetics, textiles and women's clothing crowding toward the bottom of the list in point of standardized reliability.

These factors render it necessary to consider trends in the agencies affecting consumer literacy other than those already discussed.

Public School Education.47—Public schools are increasingly extending their teaching to problems of diet, health and clothing. For the country as a whole the Office of Education in Washington records a rise in home economics enrollments from 4.1 percent of all high school enrollments (boys and girls) in 1910 to 12.7 percent in 1915, 13.8 percent in 1922 14.3 percent in 1928. The number of public and private high schools offering home economics increased meanwhile from 3,747 in 1915 to 8,464 in 1928. It is general practice to require home economics work of girls in the seventh and eighth grades and in many cities in the sixth grade, and limited courses are available to boys. Actually, however, most home economics teaching still concerns not so much consumption as home production, though some schools are beginning to include the buying of47 See aso Chap. VII.027882ready made clothing and other commodities. In this study of buying a living, however, even the more adventurous school systems encounter at least two difficulties; the lack of adequate technical data for appraisal of products and the tactical difficulty of using such data, even when available, in local community living by competitive merchandising. The intricacy of modern technology renders rigorously specific work by school units impossibly elaborate at many points.48 Obviously schools need to be fortified by governmental and other tests if they are to function effectively.

48 Cf. the elaborate test of no less than 130 brands of wide cotton sheeting reported in the Journal of Home Economics for June, 1928, as an example of the complexity of comparative testing of the many brands of everyday commodities.

Government.—The growing cooperation of government with industry and the mounting volume of printed and radio material issued by it to consumers render its role outstandingly significant in the consideration of consumer habits.49

49 On governmental activities relating to the promotion and regulation of commerce, see Chap. XXV.

The Department of Commerce, not founded until 1903, has risen to a commanding position in Washington. In 1930 it was the largest customer of the government printer. It aims to be “a department of service to the American business man,” just as its subsidiary, the Bureau of Standards, aims to be “the agency of the Department of Commerce for research and testing for the industries.”50 The Federal Specifications Board, set up in 1921, has established several hundred specifications, and the government is reported to save some millions of dollars annually through purchasing by these specifications. The great majority of the specifications, however, cover producers’ or intermediate consumers’ goods and the remainder applying to consumers’ goods are of little direct assistance to the non-technical consumer, as he must buy primarily by brand name and the government does not allow the issuance of any statements regarding current brands which meet its specifications. The consumer undoubtedly profits indirectly, however, by the standardization of quality resulting from the setting up of such standards. A similar situation obtains for the simplification, standardization and certification work increasingly encouraged since 1921. While this work is optional with an industry and still very limited in its actual operation; while, again, most of even the few commodities on which labeling is used are not small consumers’ goods and, where they are, the labeling procedure may in some cases be somewhat misleading;51 and while machinery for enforcement is weak; nevertheless,50 U.S. Bureau of Standards, Research Associates at the Bureau of Standards, Circular no. 296, 1926.51 How confusing to the consumer certain of the commercial standards set up by the Bureau of Standards in cooperation with an industry can be is shown by the five standard grades of mirrors announced in 1931: the official grades are “AA,” “A,” “1,” “2,” and “3.” A consumer may be told by a retailer that he is looking at a Government-standardized official grade “1” mirror and shown the blue label carried by such mirrors; and there is no reason for suspecting and no ready way of knowing that this is really a third grade mirror. Brooms are graded: “Super-grade,” “Fancy grade,” and “service grade.” Similar difficulties are experienced with the meat grades of the federal inspection service.028883the small consumer will probably gain increasingly as these practices spread under the active encouragement of the Department of Commerce.

A number of excellent consumer publications have grown out of the work of the Department of Commerce with various industries, of which the series put out by the National Committee on Wood Utilization, including Furniture, Its Selection and Use and How to Judge a House, is a notable example.

Among the federal agencies operating in part to further consumer literacy is the Federal Trade Commission, set up in 1915 with the aim, among others, of helping to referee competitive commerce.52 Originally intended only to prevent unfair competition between corporations, and functioning usually only where a competitor complains, its cases often have direct bearing on consumer deception. It has had before it, for instance, a number of cases involving the improper use of labeling based on federal specifications. In 1929 a special board was set up to deal with misleading advertising by competing manufacturers and dealers, and over five hundred proceedings were begun in the first year. Certain limitations on the capacity of the Trade Commission appeared in the reversal of its stand by the Supreme Court in the Marmola case in 1931.53 The Court, while stating that “Findings, supported by evidence, warrant the conclusion that the preparation is one which cannot be used generally with safety to physical health except under medical direction and advice,” held that the Commission had no power to ban these anti-fat pills on the ground of their harmfulness to the health of consumers, inasmuch as the Commission's duties do not concern unfair competition against the health of citizen's but rather unfair competition among business competitors.

52 For a discussion of the work of this commission, see Chap. XXVIII.53 Federal Trade Commission v. Raladam Company, 283 U.S. 643.

The Public Health Service was an innovator in the use of the radio for public education, inaugurating fortnightly broadcasts in 1921.54 Following its lead, 15 state health departments were in 1931 issuing broadcasts at regular intervals, as were likewise the departments in 18 of the largest cities and 42 county medical societies. This work, notably the federal broadcasts, reflects a high professional tone and a direct concern for the consumer. Limitations on its activity, however, appear in the censorship imposed in the summer of 1931. The Public Health Service broadcast the advice to eat less meat during hot weather. In response to54 On this and other official health agencies, see Chap. XXI.029884protest from livestock associations and meat packers, the Secretary of the Treasury, under whose Department in the accidents of our governmental evolution the Public Health Service finds itself, ordered that all future broadcasts by the Public Health Service be submitted to the Treasury Department for censorship.55

55 New York World-Telegram, June 9, 1931.

The Department of Agriculture has carried on an increasing volume of effective education for the consumers in print, by radio and through home demonstration work and 4-H clubs, under state and county extensions agents and through other channels. In the main the work concerns the traditional fundamentals of neat, thrifty homes and home life, dietetics, clothing construction and purchase, and child care, avoiding more controversial consumer problems. Through field agents, the Department is now acquainting upwards of 10,000 persons a year with the rudiments of family budgeting. The Bureau of Home Economics is beginning to push cautiously for consumer specifications, within the limitations imposed upon all governmental agencies by the need not to interfere with business, but this development is still largely in the stage of stating in the Bureau's reports the need for such work.56

56 General specifications (not mentioning brands) for refrigerators were completed and a study of the wear of bed sheets inaugurated in 1931 and a booklet on Household Purchasing: Suggestions for Club Programs issued. (Yearbook of Agriculture, in 1931, pp. 487-9 and 513-6.)

The Bureau of Animal Industry, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Agriculture have been increasingly active during the last decade in promulgating standards for the meat, agricultural, canning and food industries. Here again the consumer profits by this quality standardization and by such legislation as the act passed in 1930 forbidding slack filled or deceptively shaped packages and requiring the plain marking of substandard grades.57 As the volume of this work has grown, its administrative supervision has become more difficult. W. G. Campbell, Director of Regulatory Work, pointed out the loopholes in the Pure Food Law in 1931, saying, “In the face of legal restrictions, administrative resourcefulness will not suffice for the protection of the public.”58 Thus, while the food and Drug Act empowers the confiscation of goods whose carton, label or enclosed circulars make false statements as to remedial or curative powers, and while the Chief of Drug Control is able in his national radio broadcast to deny flatly nationally advertised claims (always, however, in line with government policy, without mentioning specific brands), the Food57 McNary-Mapes Amendment to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, U.S. Statutes at Large, vol. 46-1, Public Laws, ch. 874, pp. 1019-20.58 Address at annual convention of the Association of Dairy, Food and Drug Officials, West Baden, Indiana, September 4, 1931.030885and Drug Administration has no jurisdiction over newspaper or periodical display advertising claims, however misleading.

In appraising trends in the government's activities touching the consumer, it is significant to note the increasing organization of business and the relatively stationary disorganization of consumers. When the Department of Commerce went into St. Louis in 1931 to make an elaborate efficiency study of retail drug store procedures and costs it had the active urging and cooperation of thirty trade associations in the drug and allied fields.

Of the many organized groups maintaining offices in the capital, there are no interest more fully, more comprehensively, and more efficiently represented than those of American industry. Business maintains its embassies and mans them with an able train of “ambassadors,” “ministers,” and numerous functionaries ... there is not an industry in the country that is not represented directly or indirectly. [This] gives clarity and force to the opinion of business and simplicity and directness to its relations with the Government.59

59 Herring, E. P., Group Representation Before Congress, Institute for Government Research of the Brooking Institution, Washington, 1929, pp. 78, 81.

It is variously estimated, according to definition of the term, that there are from 1,000 to 1,800 trade associations, and this large total is a matter of comparatively recent growth. As President Hoover has pointed out, “We are, almost unnoticed, in the midst of a great revolution, or perhaps a better word, a transformation in the whole super-organization of our economic life. We are passing from a period of extremely individualistic action into a period of associational activities.” In the face of this formidable body of associated pressure groups it is pertinent to note that, “The public has no lobby.”60 The consumer has no organized group in Washington looking out for his interest. All of this raises the question as to whether there does not exist a definite social trend whereby the pressure for consumer interests in Washington is being increasingly outstripped by the massed pressure of industry.

60 Ibid., p. 263.

Professional, Technical, and Cooperative Agencies.—In addition to schools and governmental bureaus, certain professional and non-profit agencies have emerged to buttress the consumer. The American Medical Association carries on an expanding consumer education program through its Bureaus of Investigation and of Health and Public Instruction. The Bureau of Investigation, according to the Association “is doing a work that is done by practically no other agency, a work that theoretically belongs to the state, using the word ‘state’ in its broadest sense. Unfortunately, the existence of national politics make it impossible for federal agencies to tell unpleasant truths when these involve huge vested 031886interests.”61 The Association furnishes most of the information regarding questionable food and drugs now being sent to the publishers of the country by the National Better Business Bureau. Following the pattern of its Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry dealing with patent medicines, the Association set up a Committee on Foods in 1929. This move was in direct response to the emergence of new social problems caused by our new knowledge of the complexity of foods and their swift commercial exploitation. The total number of products submitted to the Committee on Foods during its first two years was 792, and of these 295 were accepted. It is pertinent to note that scarcely a product was submitted which did not require modifications in advertising claims or changes in labels in order to enable the product to state in its advertising to consumers, “Accepted by the Committee on Foods of the American Medical Association.”

61 The Bureau of Investigation of the American Medical Association, Leaflet of American Medical Association Chicago (undated).

The American Standards Association, a federation of 45 national technical societies, trade associations and federal department, while operating primarily in the engineering field, has encouraged standards in a few consumers’ goods such as dry cells and gas using utensils.

The American Home Economics Association carries on a modest program of research, consumer education, and agitation for standards and labeling in such matters as the weighting of silk and the marketing of bed sheeting, refrigerators and other commodities.

Consumers’ Research, incorporated as a private, non-profit venture in New York in 1929; aims to be a testing and educational service in the interest of the consumer. In June 1932 its memberships reached 40,000. As a positive agency seeking to make available to consumers the tested performance of competing branded commodities, Consumers’ Research performs a service not available from the government, schools, periodicals, or any other source.

The National Consumers’ League is a consumer education agency affiliating some 17 local and state branches and with a contributing membership of 2,500 in 1932. Organized in 1899, the Leagues’ principal concern has been to bring consumers’ interest and pressure to bear on unsanitary and sweated conditions under which certain goods are made and distributed.

Consumer cooperatives play a very minor rôle in the United States. Total sales of the more than one-third of the societies reported by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1929 aggregate less than 65 million dollars62 or only about 01. percent of total retail sales reported by the Census of Distribution in that year. Following sporadic developments62 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Florence E. Parker, Consumers’ Credit and Productive Cooperative Societies, 1929, Miscellaneous Series, Bulletin no. 531, 1931.032887during the 19th century, the World War encouraged the formation of many new societies between 1917 ad 1920, especially among farmers in the north central states. Inexperienced management, the depression of 1921, the unfavorable condition of agriculture, unemployment, competition from chain stores, and over-extension of credit by cooperatives have operated in varying degrees to hamper the movement since the war. It is estimated that there were 3,00063 societies in 1920. This number decreased to 1,800 by 193264 although the total number of members of cooperatives increased slightly.

63 Estimated by Albert Sonnichsen, for a number of years a member of the Board of Directors of the Cooperative League of the U. S., and closely associated with the movement until his death in 1931.64 Estimated by Oscar Cooley, General Secretary of the Cooperative League of the U.S., New York City. Not included in the total of 1,800 societies are building and loan societies, labor banks, credit unions, cooperative insurance societies, burial associations (found especially among southern Negroes) and telephone associations.

Commercial Agencies—Progressive trade association activities have developed in the work of such bodies as the American Gas Association and the Fire Underwriters’ Laboratories in standardizing commercial appliances. Such trade associations as the National Dairy Council and the National Association of Soap and Glycerine Producers, the latter through its Cleanliness Institute, exemplify new types of trade association consumer stimulation. In the main, however, the trend in trade association activities has not passed beyond the encouragement of “firm prices,” “trading up,” making the public “conscious” of its products, and otherwise enhancing profits for an industry.

Among individual businesses, the wide health education program of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is outstanding. In the eight years 1923-1930, Swift & Company utilized extensive advertising space in women's magazines and distributed over 2,000,000 charts and receipe books identifying by picture and name the various retail cuts of meat. As large groups of staple branded foods have been drawn together in the past decade under central merchandising administration, they have tended increasingly to be accompanied by active consumer educational work. Such corporations as General Foods, Standard Brands, and the Kellogg Company have set up home economics laboratories and demonstration kitchens, and their staff field lectures, radio programs, pamphlets and systematic news releases reach homemakers and teachers in schools and colleges. Chain stores have also gone into this field recently.

A growing number of agencies are attempting consumer education in the matter of budgeting family income. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company issues a printed account book available to its policy holders, as do some of the small loan agencies. An elaborate “Thrift Hand Book” issued to its employees by the Western Electric Company contains information 033888on a variety of problems such as how to save, life insurance, home ownership, financing the education of children, “the high cost of instalment buying,” making a will, and the like. A number of banks, especially savings banks, carry on a thrift consultation and education service. A few department stores are encouraging budgeting in connection with their instalment sales.

Editorial Content of Periodicals.65—Table 9 shows clearly the heavier coverage of upper income families with such consumer information as twenty leading women's magazines provide.

65 For further details on circulations of magazines, see Chap. VIII.Families in income groupIncome groupNumber (in thousands)Percent of all familiesAverage circulation of 20 magazines. Jan.-June, 1930 (in thousands)Circulation per family$10,000 and over4201.49342.22$5,000-$9,9992,2207.43,2101.45$3,000-$4,9996,00020.05,937.99$2,000-$2,99911,10037.08,005.72$1,000-$1,9998,70029.06,334.730-$9991,5605.2585.37

Table 9.—Circulation of Twenty Women's Magazines by Income of Subscribers,1930a

a Starch, Daniel, Magazines Circulations: Qualitative Analysis by Income of Readers. American Association of Advertising Agencies, New York, 1930.

A few publications have developed “institutes” to test and recommend commodities. Their gradings are usually passing rather than ranking grades, and are made on samples submitted by the manufacturers rather than bought in the open market. While the best of these institutes undoubtedly perform a useful, if limited, service, it is no secret that—with two-thirds of their revenue derived from advertising and only one-third from subscribers—they are not run with an eye single to the consumer.

In concluding section I of this chapter attention should be called to such additional trends as the increasing average age of the population; changing occupations, including the recreational demands of more sedentary workers, as seen for instance in increased interest in sports; and changes from outdoor to indoor work, from walking to riding to work, and the more uniform heating of living and working quarters as affecting such matters as the sale of heavy underwear and high shoes. Other chapters of the report deal with the increased role of governmental units in supplying goods and services such as playgrounds with swimming pools, golf courses and other equipment, health services with school clinics and 034889elaborate hospital facilities, schools, libraries, museums, etc. Likewise, other sections treat of the increasing provision of medical care and recreation and of security services in the form of insurance by industry.

II. WHAT PEOPLE CONSUME

The preceding analysis has been concerned with specific factors influencing current consumption. None of these factors can be isolated as an antecedent cause of consumer behavior. It is because they are all so inextricably part of the complex phenomena we measure in family budget expenditures or in a census of distribution, however, that they have been set down in some detail as an aid to the understanding of the following analysis of trends in the quantities of things consumed.

As Shown by National Expenditures for Specific Goods and Services. Any attempt to explain how the entire national income—some 85 to 90 billion dollars in 1920—is spent necessarily involves considerable rough estimation. Table 10 presents such rough estimates of the total of individual expenditures, aggregating some eighty-odd percent of the national income. Collective national expenditures made by federal and local governmental agencies for such items as roads, schools, military upkeep, and the like, except insofar as they are included in the item of taxes, have been excluded from consideration, as somewhat outside the scope of this chapter.66

66 See Chaps. XXV and XXVI.ItemExpenditureFoodb17.0Clothingc8.0Rent on Homesd8.0Home furnishinge4.0Fuel and lightf4.8Life insuranceg3.5Religionh.9Automobile (purchase and use)i6.5Travel (recreation, other than automobile)j2.0Motion pictures, concerts, etc.j2.0Clubs, lodges, etc.j.4Indoor and outdoor games, sportsj0.9Newspapersk0.4Radio and musical instrumentsl.6Jewelry and silverwarem.6Flowers (from florists)n.2Cosmetics, beauty parlorso.7Medicine (patent and prescription)p.7Physiciansq1.0Dentistsq.4Other medical costs, excluding hospitals and public health workq.2Tobaccor1.6Laundry, cleaning and dyeings1.5Taxes, local, state and federalt6.4

Table 10.—Estimate Total National Expenditure for Selected Items, 1920a(In billions of dollars)

a These estimates are subject to considerable margins of error and should be used guardedly.b U. S. Census of Distribution, 1930, op. cit. checked by trade sources: Food Group plus Restaurants and Other Eating Places total $13.4 billions. To this were added estimated food sales in Drug and Cigar Stores, Filling Stations, Department, Drygoods and General Stores and Country General Stores; hotel receipts from sale of meals; an estimated $.9 billion for hucksters’ and farmers’ miscellaneous sales; and an estimated $2 billion for food produced and consumed at home. A rough estimate of about the three quarters of a billion dollars for tobacco sold through restaurant and food stores was subtracted. Although a number of earlier estimates of food expenditures have been considerably higher, the first Census of Distribution (1929) and trade sources do not appear to justify a higher figure.c Ibid., Apparel Group totals $4.3 billions. To this were added estimated apparel sales in Department Stores, Drygoods, General and Variety Stores, Country General Stores, All Other Stores.d This figure is unfortunately very rough. W. I. King estimates the rental value of owned urban homes in 1927 as $1.7 billion and rent paid for leased urban homes in 1927 as $2.6 billion. (The National Income and Its Purchasing Power, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1930, p. 379.) The value of farm dwellings reported by the 1930 census is $7 billion and the practice of the Department of Agriculture is to assign 10 percent of this as the rental value, or $.7 billion. These three figures total $5 billion. This figure is generally regarded as considerably too low. A round figure of $8 billion has accordingly been used, approximately closely Paul H. Nystrom's estimate of $8.1 billion in 1927. (Economic Principles of Consumption, New York, 1929, p. 378.) This would make an annual average rent of some $265 for each of the 30,000,000 families in the United States, including contract rent and imputed rent on owned homes.e To U. S. Census of Distribution total for Furniture and Household Group ($2.3 billions) were added estimated sales of home furnishing in Department, Drygoods, General and Variety Stores, Country General Stores and All Other Stores.f Nystrom estimate for 1927. The wholesale price index remained practically stationary from 1927 to 1929.g Dublin, May, The Amount of Life Insurance in the U. S., Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, Miscellaneous Contributions no. 11, Jan. 1931.h Based on estimate of $840,000,000 in 1926 by C. Luther Fry, The U.S. Looks at Its Churches, Institute of Social and Religious Research, New York, 1930, p. 88.i U. S. Census of Distribution, op. cit., Automotive Group, with subtractions for estimated volume of trucks, buses and taxis and non-automotive sales, less estimated trade-ins.j J. F. Steiner's estimates in Chap. XVIII of this report.k U. S. Bureau of the Census, Biennial Census of Manufacturers, 1929, figures for average circulation of daily and Sunday newspapers, with an estimated average price of 2 1/3 cents for daily papers and 6 cents for Sunday papers.l U. S. Census of Distribution, op. cit. Radio and Music Stores (excluding estimated general electrical sales) $.4 billions, plus an approximate $.2 billion for radios and musical instruments sold in other stores.m U. S. Biennial Census of Manufacture, op. cit., figure for jewelry, plated ware, silver smithing and silverware plus net import plus estimated retail markup.n U. S. Census of Distribution, op. cit.o U. S. Biennial Census of Manufactures, op. cit., figure for perfumes, cosmetics and other toilet preparations, plus estimated retail markup, plus estimated beauty shop revenue.p U. S. Biennial Census of Manufactures figure for druggists’ preparations and patent and proprietary medicines, plus an estimated markup. Confirmed by preliminary estimate of Committee on the Costs of Medical Care.q Preliminary estimates of Committee on the Costs of Medical Care.r Based on figures from U. S. Bureau of Internal Revenue on amount of cigars, cigarettes and tobacco taxed, assuming a rough average price of 16 cents per package of 20 for cigarettes, 7½ cents each for cigars, 90 cents lb. for other tobacco.s U. S. Biennial Census of Manufactures figures are $.54 billion for payment to power laundries by customers and $.20 billion for payments to dying and cleaning establishments. These estimates fail to include all types of household laundry work, “hand” laundries, or tailor and pressing shops. The editors of the National Cleaner and Dyer and of Laundry Age, trade journals, regard double the census total of $.74 billion as still a conservative figure.t The National Industries Conference Board gives total tax collections in 1929 as $9,792,000,000 (Cost of Government, 1928-1929, p. 66). The U. S. Treasury Department gives taxes paid by corporations as $3,415,848,000 (Statistics of Income, 1929, p 267). Subtracting the latter from the former, the figure in the table representing taxes paid by individual is secured.035890

The additional 15 or so billions of national income include: savings; insurance other than life; hospital and funeral expenses; books and periodicals; private educational expenditures; private charity; telephone, telegraph, postage; drugstore items other than cosmetics and patent medicines; servants; and other miscellaneous expenses.

A view of the disposition of as much of the national income as is expended through retail stores is afforded by Table 11. This table shows per capita expenditures for each of the nine geographic of the United States.

036891RegionTotal salesFood (including restaurantApparelFurniture and householdAutomotiveGeneral merchandisebCountry general storesAll otherUnited States$408$109$35$19$78$58$16$93New England463142432180617109Middle Atlantic500154552774669115South Atlantic26967201251462152East north central452125412088649106West north central408863115905724106East south central22148131043382841West south central30866171373492465Mountain4251002317100642596Pacific55014543251277411124

Table 11.—Per Capita Sales Classified According to the Kind of Store, for U. S.and for Regional Divisions, 1929a(To the nearest dollar)

a U. S. Census of Distribution, op. cit., 1930, preliminary figures.b The General Merchandise Group includes department, drygoods, general and variety stores. Their considerable percentage of apparel and furniture sales should be borne in mind. For this analysis only the total of $50,033,850,792 of sales through retail stores included in the retail census was used. The Census Bureau estimates that an additional $8,170,000,000 could be added including actual or estimated amounts for meals taken in hotels, direct retail sales by manufacturers and wholesalers, direct sales of milk and dairy products, laundries and other strictly service businesses. The census makes no accounting of goods sold directly by farmers and bucksters.

As Shown by Family Budget Studies.67—The ways in which individual families allocate their total incomes are shown to some extent by budget studies. Most of these scattered studies, however, have not been in terms of personality and living needs, but rather in terms of minima in an old fashioned subsistence sense. They have covered chiefly working class families, at or near the poverty level, and, concerning themselves chiefly with food, rent, clothing, and fuel and light, have frequently lumped all other expenditures under “miscellaneous.” Because of changes in price level, variation in geographical location, in types of families selected, and in classification of expenditures used, these studies are unfortunately comparable to only a limited extent for measuring trends.68

67 For further studies of family budgets, see Chap. XIII.68 On the relation of budget studies to the adequacy of wages, see Chap. XVI.

Table 12 shows the proportions of total expenditure by urban families going to the five conventional categories of expenditure employed in four representative studies for the years 1891, 1903, 1918-1919, and 1929. These and similar studies suggest a slight trend downward in the proportion of expenditures for food and upward for miscellaneous items since 1890, the other three categories remaining roughly constant. Among the different income levels covered in each of the first three studies, much the same tendencies appear: as the income of the working class family

037892Study and dateFoodRentClothingFuel and lightFurniture and furnishingsbMiscellaneousTotal1891 U.S. Commissioner of Labor:2,562 families of workers in cotton, woolen and glass industries—Lowest income group (Under $200)49.615.512.88.114.0100.0Highest income group ($1,200 and over)28.612.615.73.040.1100.0Average of all income groups41.015.115.35.922.7100.01903 U.S. Commissioner of Labor:11,156 families of wage earning or small salaried workers—Lowest income group (Under $200)50.816.98.78.015.6100.00Highest income group ($1,200 and over)36.517.415.75.025.4100.0Average of all income groups43.118.113.05.720.1100.01918-1919 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:12,096 families of wage earning or small salaried workers—Lowest income group (Under $900)44.114.513.26.83.617.8100.0Highest income group ($2,500 and over)34.910.620.44.15.424.7100.0Average of all income groups38.213.0c16.65.25.121.3100.01929 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:100 families of Ford Motor Co. employees (average income $1,720—Average of 100 families32.322.612.26.05.221.7100.0

Table 12.—Urban Family Expenditures, 1891-1930a(Percentages of total family expenditure, by commodity groups, as shown by family budget studies)

a These four studies were selected as the most representative of the studies of urban family expenditures during the past thirty years. 1891: U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Seventh Annual Report, 1892; 1903: U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Eighteenth Annual Report, 1904; 1918-1919: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Retail and Cost of Living Series, Bulletin no. 357, 1924; 1929: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Standard of Living of Ford Employees in Detroit,” Monthly Labor Review, June 1930.b In the 1891 and 1903 studies Furniture and Furnishings were combined with Miscellaneous.c Rents lagged behind other prices in 1918-1919, making this percent abnormally low.

increases, the percentage spent for food declines steadily; the percentage spent for rent drops a smaller absolute distance, but at very nearly the same rate as that spent for food; the percentage spent for clothing (contrary to the law attributed to Ernst Engel) increases substantially; while the “miscellaneous” expenditures tend to increase as soon as the income permits.

Satisfactory comparable farm studies for a corresponding period are not available. Table 13 gives the varying expenditures of available income by three groups of farm families studied since 1922.

It is difficult to compare such studies closely, and especially to compare them with the urban studies in Table 12 because of the uncertain estimation of the value of food furnished by the farm and the less definite figure for housing. As would be expected, the margin available for miscellaneous expenditures is low in the backward farm areas and with the

038893FoodStudy, date and incomeTotalFurnishedPurchasedHousingbClothingOperatingcFurniture and furnishingsMiscellaneousTotalI. 203 Kentucky mountain families, 1928:dLowest income group (91 families under $600)68.148.519.66.510.37.01.46.7100Highest income group (12 families, $1,200 and over)51.635.915.76.619.76.91.713.5100Average (203 families, $689)61.244.616.66.513.66.82.19.8100II. 300 Ohio Marginal, Hill families, 1926:eLowest income group (49 families under $600)58.138.519.68.411.710.82.18.9100Highest income group (56 families, $1,200 and over)43.531.312.26.019.99.84.616.2100Average (300 families, $933)49.034.514.57.216.710.53.313.3100III. 2,866 families in 11 states, 1922-1924:fLowest income group (58 families under $600)54.437.516.912.511.613.21.56.8100Highest income group (136 families, $3,000 and over)30.719.411.310.916.412.52.926.6100Average (2,886 families, $1,598)41.227.613.612.514.713.52.515.8100

Table 13.—Rural Family Expendituresa(Percentages of total family expenditures, including money value of goods and services furnished by the farm,by commodity groups, as shown by family budget studies, for white families only)

a These studies made by the survey method. It is experience of students in this field that studies made by this method tend to over-emphasize the value of food furnished by the farm.b Rental value of house occupied calculated on the basis of 10 percent of the value of the house.c “Operating” expenses in studies I and II include any expenses for: fuel and light, soap and cleaning, domestic help, laundry sent out, telephone and a share of all automobile expenses (including all operating costs and depreciation) property chargeable to household service as over against recreation. Study III includes the same items as I and II and adds ice and water, insurance on furnishings and equipment, postage, stationery, expenses for freight or express and travel other than by automobile for household purposes.d Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station Cost of Living and Population Trends in Laurel County, Kentucky, 1928. Bulletin 301, Lexington, 1930.e U. S. Bureau of Agriculture Economics, Sources and Uses of Income Among 300 Farm Families of Vinton, Jackson, and Meigs Counties, Ohio, 1926, (Preliminary Report), Washington, 1928.f U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, E. L. Kirkpatrick, The Farmer's Standard of Living, 1922-1924, Departmental Bulletin 1946, 1929.

exception of the families with relatively high incomes, the rural miscellaneous expenditures are generally lower than those of the urban families. Clothing and furniture expenditures in the rural areas also appear to run behind corresponding expenditures by urban families.

Although the data regarding higher income urban groups are scanty, interesting possibilities are suggested by the few studies available. Judging from studies of the University of California faculty in 1922,69 of married Federal Reserve Bank employees in New York City in 1920,70 and of residents of the Amalgamated Apartments in New York City in 193071 (the higher income group in each study being, respectively, $10,00069 Peixotto Jessica B., Getting and Spending at the Professional Standard of Living. A Study of the Costs of Living an Academic Life, New York, 1927.70 U. S. Federal Reserve Board, “Adjusting Salaries of Bank Employees to meet Changes in the Cost of Living,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, December, 1920, vol. VI, pp. 1293-5.71 New York, State Board of Housing, Report, Standard of Living of 400 Families in a Model Housing Project, July 20, 1931.039894and over, $3,900 and over, and $5,000 and over), the behavior of percentage expenditures changes somewhat after the $3,000 income level is reached. The percentage spent for clothing increases steadily up to about the $2,500 income level, and thereafter declines. The percentage spent for food declines with increased income, falling particularly, in the study of the University of California faculty, after an income of $7,000 is reached; in the $9,000-$10,000 bracelet it is only 9 percent. The percentage allotted for rent decreases with increased income up to about the $3,000 level, then appears to remain the same or increase slightly, and after about the $4,000 income level falls, but data for the over $3,000 level are meager. As regards miscellaneous expenditures, there is some evidence that, after the rapid increase up to about the $2,500 level, they slow down up to $3,300, marking apparently a tendency toward an all around raising of the standard of living, and then spurt again, increasingly after the $6,500 level, when they begin to take 50 percent or more of the total.

A significant difference between social classes is suggested by the 1920 study of New York City Federal Reserve Bank employees as contrasted with the same income levels among New York City working class families covered in the 1918-1919 study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage spent for rent is much greater in the two lower income groups of clerical workers than in working men's families of identical income. In every income level the percentage spent for rent by the bank employees was greater than that spent by the workers in the 1918-1919 study and the percentage spent for miscellaneous items was less. This contrast points clearly to the greater social necessity for presentable living quarters among clerical workers, with resulting sacrifice of food and miscellaneous items for housing in the low income groups.72

72 Similar conclusions are borne out by a study of rent paid by heads of families in salaried positions on downtown Pittsburgh. The percentage going for rent is high in the low income groups, and although it declines in the higher income levels, it remains somewhat higher than a comparable figure for a working class group. Pittsburgh Business Review, University of Pittsburgh, Bureau of Business Research, March 28, 1931.

Further differences are indicated in three studies made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data are not strictly comparable but are nevertheless suggestive. Ninety percent of the 12,096 working class families studied in 1918-1919 carried life and accident insurance, paying an average of $48 per year therefor; 87 percent of the 100 Ford families studied for 1929 carried life insurance, with average premiums of $68 per year; and 94 percent of the 506 government employees studied for 1927-1928 held life, accident and health insurance policies on which they paid an average of $102 per year. In 1918-1919, 26 percent of the working class families had vacation, costing on an average $28.97; in 1929 only 7 percent of the Ford families had vacations out of the city, averaging $37.00; and 30 percent of the government employees in 1928 averaged $79.37 040895on vacations. A cross section of the differences among three occupational groups appears in the estimates73 of annual expenditures for various income and social levels in the San Francisco Bay region, November 1931:

73 Made by the Heller Committee, University of California, under Dr. Jessica B. Peixotto. Available in blue-print form.ItemWage earner, family of fiveClerk, family of fiveProfessional, family of fourTotal$1,631.81$2,175.19$6,085.36Food507.84677.64891.12Clothing225.87339.97672.19Husband61.2295.32194.64Wife64.37111.36320.73Boy, 11 years45.1354.2179.42Girl, 5 years29.4343.1977.40Boy, 2 years25.7235.89Rent336.00396.001,380.94House operation199.30202.69923.84Fuel, light, heata80.4290.86192.00Replacement, furniture52.6879.21229.15Other items66.2092.62502.69Miscellaneous362.80498.892,217.27a Fuel percentages are somewhat low in comparison with most other sections of this country.

The details of the miscellaneous expenditures for the three levels are:

ItemWage earner, family of fiveClerk, family of fiveProfessional, family of fourSavings$360.00Life insurance$65.00$130.00260.00Medical and dental care75.0075.00275.00Church and charity18.0018.00110.00Gifts22.5022.50112.50Organization dues86.00Entertaining guests at home22.5222.60116.00Theatre and concerts6.0012.0084.00Movies22.5622.5611.28Other commercial amusements10.0010.0020.00Radio upkeep6.007.008.00Excursions15.00Vacation52.88125.00Automobile416.27Carfare45.0060.0040.00School supplies5.005.005.00Daily paper9.009.0013.00Periodicals and books2.004.0022.00Music lessons96.00Tobacco13.0018.0054.00Haircut and shaving23.6827.4636.12Cosmetics2.543.395.70Incidentals60.00041896

The contrasts in adequacy of varying sized incomes to meet personality needs are indicated in the differences shown above in allowance for savings and insurance, medical and dental care, club and lodge dues, entertainment, vacations, automobile, books and periodicals, music lessons and incidentals. The ownership of an automobile by many wage earning and clerical families forces sizeable readjustments among the above allocations of expenditures in those cases.

Though not properly a family budget study, the data in Table 14 throw further light on specific purchases by occupational and income level. It may be assumed that such data reflect a general direction of change in so far as the aim of each lower income group is to acquire eventually as many as possible of the possessions of the groups above. These figures present a cross section of consumption by income in a sample of every twentieth family in Pittsburgh in 1931.

Type of family and expendituresItemClass A families (including 94.2 percent native born white)Class B families (including 81.9 percent native born white)Class C families (including 58.3 percent native born white)Average monthly rent paid$100.71$48.65$27.95Average insurance per family$20,029.26$5,488.80$2,343.43House over 5 years oldpercent80.589.096.5Have running hot waterdo98.285.455.1Have telephonedo95.676.137.7Own:Automobiledo83.247.617.3Radiodo91.879.348.9Vacuum cleanerdo90.473.336.6Pianodo59.244.125.7Phonographdo41.036.834.9Electric washerdo75.269.550.7Electric refrigeratordo57.518.92.9Most usual price paid for:Dresses$15-$25$7-$15Under $7Women's winter coatsOver $100Under $70Under $30Women's hats$4-$10Under $4Under $4Women's shoes$7-$15$5-$7Under $5Women's hose$1-$2$1-$1.50Under $1Men's suitsOver $35Under $35Under $25Men's shoes$7-$15$5-$7Under $5

Table 14.—Consumption by Pittsburgh Families in Three Income Groups, 1931a

a Pittsburgh and the Surrounding Trade Area. The study was made by R. L. Polk & Co. for the Sun-Telegraph. Every twentieth family was interviewed. The 218,980 families in the Pittsburgh market area were classified as 5.2 percent “A” families (upper business and professional), 45.7 percent “B” families (skilled workers, clerical, and small merchants), and 49.2 percent “C” families (labor, clerical, domestic).

As Shown by National Productive Output.74—A further approach to what people consume may be through an analysis of the net production

74 For additional material on the output of industry, see Chap. V.042897Index of net per capita output (1925 = 100.00)Index of net per capita output or percentage changebCommodity and 1929 per capita output19191921192319251927192919301931I. Staple foods:Grain products (214 lb.)108.097.296.5100.095.998.8-9-13Potatoes (195 lb.)119.0136.9100.0125.2109.7105.8Milk (55 gal. in 1925)78.589.596.8100.0Dairy products in terms of whole milk (1,018 lb.)84.990.997.1100.0101.8101.398.2+1Meats (137 lb.)90.592.8103.7100.097.295.291.692.7II. Canned and prepared foods:Canning an preserving (6.33 $)62.988.4100.091.2117.6Canned fish (4 lb.)100.955.395.5100.0100.9136.3117.5Canned fruit (12 lb.)63.372.181.9100.0102.0112.2Canned vegetable and canned soup (33 lb.)70.7100.089.7110.7Condensed and evaporated milk (17 lb.)82.776.789.1100.095.4111.5-8+7Bakery products (12.52 $d)77.099.595.8100.0112.7120.3Breakfast foods, prepared flour and coffee substitutes (1.38 $)81.891.0100.0102.8113.9Miscell, prepared foods (1.41 $d)75.289.9100.097.895.4Flavoring extracts (1.15 $d)55.477.752.8100.0104.3141.4III. Fresh fruits and vegetables:Apples (40 lb.)99.0124.3100.063.168.8-17-4All fresh fruits, except apples (99 lb.)74.796.6100.095.698.8Citrus fruits (26 lb.)68.8109.5100.085.586.8129.2All fresh vegetables except potatoes (63 lb.)91.4100.0104.4111.5109.1-11Lettuce (8 hd.)90.7100.0117.2119.1115.5-11IV. Confectionery:Sugar (108 lb.)79.578.689.0100.095.9100.692.491.6Ice cream (3 gal.)88.981.495.7100.0101.8107.1100.7Confectionery (3.23 $)88.6100.0100.0100.798.9-14-31Chocolate and cocoa products (4 lb.)60.336.1100.095.798.2-26-18Soda water apparatus (.20 $)74.785.3100.0105.8106.1V. Beverages, tobacco and gum:Coffee (12 lb.)108.9110.1113.2100.0109.6110.7116.7+9Tea (.7 lb.)88.781.0107.7100.083.184.479.680.4Cigarettes (935)67.869.288.0100.0103.8142.9149.2147.3Cigars (51)120.1110.0109.9100.097.094.089.880.5Chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff, (3 lb.)113.198.8104.7100.096.189.287.884.2Chewing gum (.48 $)88.688.9100.0128.1121.6All non-alcoholic beverages (2.22 $)106.899.6100.099.4108.4Carbonated beverages only (1.72 $)69.188.0100.0105.5119.5-5VI. Men's clothing:All wearing apparel (men's and women's) (51.46 $d)89.9102.6105.6100.0115.1119.0All men's youths’ and boys’ suits and coats (7.56 $d)114.0100.0108.3102.3-8Men's suits (3.77 $d)112.5100.0115.4103.2-25-32Separate trousers (.57 $d)101.9100.070.273.7-21-24Men's hosiery—silk, rayon and mixtures thereof (.23 dz.)47.443.077.2100.0137.1205.8043898Men's hosiery—cotton (.13 dz.)119.996.6115.3100.097.263.0Men's leather boots and shoes (.8 pr.)121.585.8119.9100.0104.7111.0-18-19Men's fur felt hats (.014 dz.)134.1108.3117.6100.0111.095.6Men's wool felt hats (.002 dz.)101.3100.0127.9153.0Man's and boy's hats and caps (.29 $)92.3103.4100.093.879.9Collars (.07 $)114.6100.0100.046.830.2Neckties (.72 $)100.0117.5116.2VII. Women's and children's clothing:Women's and children's coats, suits and underwear (7.30 $d)122.5100.0133.8129.6Women's and children's dresses (7.67 $d)93.7100.0119.5165.0-13Women's and children's hosiery—silk, rayon and mixtures (.34 dz.)48.170.072.9100.0124.6149.2Women's and children's hosiery—cotton (.12 dz.)128.0135.2140.2100.073.054.7Women's leather boots and shoes (1.1 pr.)110.6103.5108.3100.0114.7123.7-14-14Corsets and allied garments (.61 $)105.1105.1100.097.695.0+2VIII. Fur goods:All fur goods (2.30 $)57.179.8100.0113.7101.1-47-54Fur and fur-lined coats and overcoats (1.10 $)100.031.166.1Fur neck pieces (.18 $)100.0134.0202.4Fur trimmings and miscellanies (.81 $)100.0298.8303.2IX. Silk, rayon, cotton:Silk manufactures (7.68 $d)69.776.680.2100.0108.5112.7-6-4Rayon manufactures (1 lb.)17.633.668.4100.0169.6217.3-20+13Cotton manufactures (12.57 $d)94.886.9109.7100.099.091.2-21-17Ginghams, lawns, nainsooks, cambrica (3 sq. yd.)127.5145.5142.3100.080.452.2All silk and rayon hosiery (.59 dz.)45.658.172.4100.0123.9163.5All cotton hosiery (.59 dz.)126.1115.3121.0100.084.562.9All silk and rayon underwear (.014 dz.)83.347.441.9100.097.9102.2All cotton underwear (.1 dz.)122.0100.6109.8100.077.164.2X. Clothing, miscellaneous:Jewelry )1.50 $)81.3108.4100.097.7103.3-26Pocketbooks and purses (.53 $d)28.828.177.9100.0133.2146.9Feathers and plumes (.01 $)286.5205.8100.036.826.0Hooks and eyes (.001 gt. gr.)297.0102.397.2100.066.662.4Sewing machines (.26 $d)172.383.3102.4100.0100.4107.9-20-46XI. Bedroom, dining room, kitchen furniture:Bedroom furniture (1.29 $)100.090.879.9-27Bedroom suites (.62 $)100.0100.197.9Beds (.21 $d)c100.073.1-20Mattresses and bedsprings (1.01 $)72.1100.5100.087.0106.1Dressers and chiffoniers (.27 $d)100.097.175.5Dining room furniture (.73 $)100.095.979.4-25Dining room suites (.36 $)100.0102.485.6Buffets and china closets (.08 $d)100.085.261.8Mirrors (.26 $)d51.299.1100.087.686.8044899Plated ware (.45 $)64.9102.4100.0101.997.3Silverware (.25 $)87.886.5100.091.989.2-8Miscellaneous housefurnishing goods (.95 $d)66.674.088.9100.0123.8183.0-19Kitchen furniture (.19 $)100.088.881.9-20Metal household furniture (.25 $)146.7105.3100.088.965.6XII. Living room, etc., furniture:Living room and library furniture (2.80 $)100.0109.1127.6-29Living room and library suites (1.14 $)100.0107.197.0Davenports, daybeds, sofas and couches (.32 $d)100.093.9211.9Curtains and draperies (.40 $d)100.0151.3226.1-12Bookcases (.02 $)115.4100.084.976.6Household desks (.60 $)113.2100.0108.2106.6Wool carpets and rugs (.5 sq. yd.)82.879.6120.6100.090.090.0-15Mirror and picture frames (16.$)86.1100.6100.099.095.6-18American manufactured statuary and art goods (.08 $)76.483.7100.0109.2102.6Imported art (.67 $)e48.065.1100.0125.6167.0131.576.9XIII. Electrical and other household equipment:All electrical household appliances for cooking and heating, plus vacuum cleaners (.09)39.182.6100.0109.8128.5-9-23Electric grills (.002)91.6100.091.8120.0-22-57Electric toasters (.013)67.1100.0169.0209.0-18-47Percolators (.006)62.0100.0177.8155.7-34-62Waffle irons (.007)42.9100.0201.6253.4-11-47Washing and ironing machines for households (.65 $)46.474.9100.0104.9108.8-17-18Electric flatirons (.003)53.141.785.8100.097.4101.7-25-44Vacuum cleaners (.01)97.571.4115.8100.099.2115.3-23-48Brooms (.16 $)85.0125.1100.082.784.1Mechanical refrigerators (1.21 $)31.238.538.6100.0191.7308.0+23+59Refrigerators, not mechanical (.60 $d)48.456.489.8100.0100.6120.3Manufactured ice (.4 tn.)77.083.591.1100.097.7105.6XIV. Heating and cooking equipment:Coal and wood cooking stoves (.006)100.078.066.1Coal and wood heating stoves (.007)100.098.161.3Electric air and water heaters (.005)47.561.2100.062.599.3-20-64Electric household water heaters (.0006)72.527.8100.060.6136.4Electric cooking stoves and ranges (.0070100.0119.0258.5+ 2-41Gas cooking stoves and ranges (.013)100.0108.1108.6Gas room and water heaters (.016)100.0109.9118.8Kerosene and gasoline cooking stoves and ranges (.10 $)100.096.369.1Kerosene room and water heaters (.002)100.043.738.6XV. Health:Drug industries (5.08 $)74.292.2100.0118.8129.4Druggists’ preparation and patent and proprietary medicines (4.91 $d)90.782.398.3100.0124.3172.8Surgical appliances (.58 $)57.380.9100.0101.3123.5045900Dental goods (.88 $ 1927)72.588.6100.0106.8Dentifrices (.24 $)100.0116.6125.1XVI. Cleanliness:Toilet soap (2.7 lb.)72.977.591.3100.0102.9113.6Tooth and toilet brushes (.09 $)114.5100.0137.8145.3All razors and blades (.29 $)62.890.5100.0105.5112.9Plain razors (.005 $)100.088.994.2Safety razors and blades (.29 $)100.0105.8113.2Bathtubs (.008)f67.592.2115.9100.094.597.8102.198.8Cleaning and polishing preparations (.40 $)73.3109.7100.0120.0145.4Household brushes (.06 $)199.8100.0117.6134.5Paints and varnishes (4.85 $d)60.180.895.8100.0128.8136.3-20-37Power laundries (4.44 $)100.0122.1142.4Dyeing and cleaning establishments (1.65 $)100.0135.9187.4XVII. Beauty:Perfumes, cosmetics and toilet preparations (1.56 $)49.661.880.2100.0121.6142.3+2Creams and rouges (.36 $)100.0110.0121.5Face and talcum powders (.25 $)100.0155.2150.5Hair dyes (.03 $)100.0117.6122.8Hair tonics (.08 $)100.0113.598.7Perfumes and toilet waters (.23 $)100.0112.5123.9Curling irons (.01)15.826.6100.086.182.8Hairpins (.04 lb.)100.0122.0133.6XVIII. Funerals:Caskets, coffins, and morticians’ goods (.72$)g84.693.3100.0107.1118.0XIX. Music, radio, motion, pictures:Pianos (.001)125.879.4119.0100.068.241.2Organs (.00002)471.4154.0137.3100.061.844.6Band and orchestral instruments (.09 $)64.079.6100.080.760.6Sheet music (.14 $)108.1103.7100.0118.2110.6Motion picture films (1.45 $)89.299.9100.0145.7198.1Radio industry (3.19 $)4.76.130.9100.0109.1219.2Radio receiving tube sets (.04)8.2100.080.4198.1-38Phonographs (.004)426.1106.5171.9100.0156.480.4XX. Sports and games:Toys and games (.68 $)75.4112.3100.0112.2126.8- 7Billiards pool, and bowling (.07 $)142.8115.0100.0125.3153.0Playing cards (.4 pk.)97.6113.0140.4100.0151.5153.1132.4149.0Sporting and athletic goods (.48 $)77.1102.5100.0103.2128.7- 9Athletic and golf hose (.009 dz.)100.0161.5183.8Sweaters and jerseys (.04 dz.)63.579.1124.1100.099.2123.4Bathing suits (.008 dz.)47.9189.8144.7100.0103.7140.0XXI. Personal accessories:Fountain pens (.27 $)59.391.2100.093.2135.8Watches (including wrist watches) (.13)100.0110.8112.1-21Clocks, watches and parts (.86 $)75.699.2100.0104.6109.4046901XXII. Travel:Automobiles (.033)49.944.2102.2100.074.5115.4-38-56Shock absorbers (.1)100.0134.6443.6Aircraft (.00005)100.0100.0542.42,217.7810.8661.6Carriages, buggies, sulkies (.00003)1,108.0177.0283.7100.034.515.9Trunks, suitcases, bags(.40 $d)89.270.4105.6100.094.296.4-23XXIII. Reading:Newspaper subscriptions and sales (2.26 $)92.698.699.9100.0106.8114.0Average daily newspaper circulation (.84)97.792.398.1100.0107.7107.1Average Sunday newspaper circulation (.24)83.683.999.0100.0105.3107.9Periodical subscriptions and sales (1.51 $)56.273.785.3100.0102.6104.8Juvenile books(.3)h100.0119.9139.4Fiction books (.38)h88.075.2101.5100.0108.5143.0Sociology and economics books (.0093)h100.0144.3178.1

Table 15.—Index of Net per Capita Output of Selected Commodities, 1919-1931,and per Capita Output for 1929a

a Quantity units were used where possible; otherwise dollar values (at point of production) were used, and, where a price index was available, were deflated to dollar values at the 1925 price level. The following symbols accordingly appear with the figure for per capita consumption in column 1: $ = wholesale dollar value of product, undeflated; $d = wholesale dollar value of product, deflated by wholesale price indexes of U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the given commodity or a very closely related one; pr. = pairs; dz. = dozens; gt. grs. = great gross; gal. = gallons; sq. yd. = square yards; pk. = packs; lb. = pounds; hd. = heads, tn. = tons. Where no symbol appears are based on units of the commodity.

Where the index is based on dollar value of product, uncorrected for price changes ($) the reader should recall that the all-commodity index of wholesale prices of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was very high in 1919, fell sharply in 1921, then rose irregularly to 1923 and remained fairly until 1929. (On a 1926 base: 1919—138.6; 1921—97.6; 1925—100.6; 1925—103.5; 1927—95.4; 1929—95.3; 1930—66.4; 1931—73.0.)

Correction were made for exports and imports in all years only in those cases where either amounted to 2 percent or more of domestic output.

Certain minor qualifications of the figures need have been omitted because of lack of space.

b Only when data for 1930 and 1931 are from the same continued source as data for 1929 and proceeding years are index numbers used for these two years, and only in these cases are correction made for population and price changes and for imports and exports. In all cases where plus and minus figures are used data were gathered from the best available sources: Controller's Congress of the National Retail Dry Goods Association or luggage, toys and games, sporting goods, silverware, mirrors and pictures, curtains, cosmetics, umbrellas, corsets, dresses, and men's, youths’ and boys’ clothing; U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Survey of Current Business for all other clothing, food, automobile, paints, total furniture, books and advertising; Arthur Fertig ad Co., N.Y.C., for specific items of furniture, watches and jewelry; Electrical Merchandising, a trade journal, for electric appliances; Textile Organon, a trade journal, for rayon; Department of Agriculture for meats and dairy products; and E.G. Montgomery and C.H. Kardell, of the Department of Commerce, for carbonated beverage. Plus and minus figures for 1930 and 1931 both refer as a base, except in those substances where index numbers are given for 1930 and plus or minus figures for 1931; in the latter cases plus and minus figure refer to 1930 as base year. This necessarily unsatisfactory procedure was followed because of the desirability of affording the best available clues to the direction of consumption in the critical year 1930 - 1931.c In-a-door beds not included. Data not available.d Two-thirds of total product estimated used by stores, hotels, etc.e Ninety percent of total product estimated used by museums, hotels, etc.f Corrected for square feet of residential construction of for population.g Corrected for number of deaths instead of population growth.h Book figure compiled by the census are notably uneven and only certain items are here included which how trends roughly corroborated by trade experience.047902

of various consumers’ goods. Table 1575 presents such an analysis of 167, selected consumer commodity classifications, based on the U.S. Biennial Census of Manufactures and U.S. Department of Agriculture data for 1919-1929, with corrections for imports and exports, for population, and where possible, for price changes. Wherever available, supplementary data for 1930 and 1931 were added, thus tracing these commodities through one and well into a second major business cycle. The reader's attention is particularly called to the paragraph in the footnote to the Table regarding these figures for 1930-1931. It should be borne in mind that the table is not based on retail sales but on output at point production. This apparently overlooks the factor of inventories of stocks on hand from year to year, but it seems justifiable to assume that the carry over tends with most items to be about the same from year to year. The United States Survey of Current Business for 1930 shows that the inventory of stocks on hand at the end of 1929, after the depression had already begun, was very little than in other years.

75 Prepared for this study by Alfred Cahen of The College of the City of New York.

Certain general tendencies are suggested by these indexes of per capita output:

I. Staple Foods.—Staple foods are, for obvious reasons, less susceptible of violent changes in volume of consumption than many other commodities, though diversification of diet and new emphases on scientific diet have affected some of these staples. The decline of grain products and increases in milk and dairy products are the principal changes observable here. Declines in cornmeal and wheat flour have been principally responsible for the fall in cereal foods. Per capita consumption of cereal products declined more than 30 percent (from 350 to 230 pounds) between 1889 and 1927.76

76 U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Domestic Commerce, October 10, 1930, vol. VI, p. 109.

Increases in milk and dairy products reflect in part the pressure of health agencies throughout the decade for more milk consumption and possibly the heavy spread of family refrigeration noted in Section XIII of the table. Although national figures are not available, it is noteworthy that a slight decline in milk consumption was reported in 1930 and 1931. Along with the branding and advertising of cheese in the 1920's went an increase from 3.50 pounds per capita consumption in 1920 to 4.62 in 1929.77

77 U. S. Department of Agriculture press release, November 14, 1930.

II. Canned and Prepared Foods.—Sharp upward trends in these foods accompany decreases in size of dwellings, including kitchens and storage space, an increasing margin of leisure for women, and the increasing confidence of consumers in the non-harmful character of canned foods. 048903The sharp rise in flavoring extracts reflects in part the heavy swing towards eating at soda fountains.78

78 “From an unimportant drug store sideline, the soda fountain has grown to the point where it attracts 7,000,000 persons for at least one meal a day. More than $2,000,000,000 worth of beverages, foods, ice-cream and candy pass over the country's marble counters each year ... More than 300 different types of store now have fountains.” (New York Evening Post, May 19, 1930.)

III. Fresh Fruits and Vegetables.—Earlier dietary emphases on rough-age and calories have been surpassed during the 1920's by the vogue of the vitamin and, as the emphasis on heavy energy producing foods such as porridge has waned in an urban, steam heated culture, fresh fruits and vegetables have ridden into high favor on this new tide. Car lot shipments of carrots rose from 1,630 in 1920 to 12,028 in 1929, of lettuce from 13,788 to 53,234, of string beans from 1,473 to 9,560. Improved shipping and refrigeration, the growth of the fruit juice and tomato juice habits, and mass advertising79 have all aided this development.

79 The advertising budget of the California Fruit Grower's Exchange for 1931 was $2,400,000, while the budget of the Florida Citrus Exchange for the same purpose was $400,000.

IV. Confectionery.—The American “sweet tooth” is notably illustrated by sharp increases in thee consumption of sweets in the 1920's. Per capita consumption of commercially manufactured ice cream has increased from 1.04 gallons in 1910 to 3 gallons in 1929.80

80 U. S. Department of Agriculture press release, November 14, 1930.

V. Beverages, Tobacco and Gum.—Tea, cigars and all tobacco except snuff recorded declines, coffee increased irregularly and cigarettes and carbonated beverages advanced heavily. The cigarette industry is enviously pointed to by other trades for its aggressive policy of “liberal advertising and general forcing into consumption.”81 The first very tentative advertisements depicting a woman holding a cigarette appeared in 1919 and so steadily did the habit spread that Moody's estimated women's consumption as 12 percent of the total in 1929, or about 14 billion cigarettes.82 Four leading tobacco companies spent approximately $50,000,000 for advertising in 1931, the bulk of it for cigarettes.

81 See statement by the President of The American Institute of Food Distribution, Facts in Food Distribution, November 7, 1931, vol. IV, p. 1.82 Moody's Investors’ Service, Business and Industries Guide, I-80.

VI. Men's Clothing.—Men's clothing generally declined. The precipitous drop in output of collars, while a somewhat rough figure since it is based on output as measured in undeflated dollars, reflects a heavy increment of male comfort. Neckties, and silk and rayon hosiery appear to be the two items to which men have turned to “spruce up.”

VII. Women's and Children's Clothing.—The speeding up of the style cycle and decline in unit cost throughout the decade of the 1920's has operated to heighten the demand for dresses probably more than any other single item. Silk and rayon hosiery also recorded marked increases. 049904Increased sales of dresses accompanied “a great decline in the consumption of piece goods for making up garments at home.”83

83 U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Wroe Alderson and N. A. Miller, Problems of Wholesale Dry Goods Distribution, Distribution Cost Studies, no. 7, 1930.

VIII. Fur Goods.—Fur apparel, worn chiefly by women, has shown a general upward trends, with the exception of fur coats. The fur trimmed coat has apparently made heavy inroads on the all-fur coat.

IX. Silk, Rayon, Cotton.—The shift from cotton to silk and rayon fabrics reflects the popular trend toward luxuries in the 1920's. Women's underwear shifted from heavily cotton in 1919 to predominantly silk and rayon by the late 1920's. Single women apparently discarded cotton for silk and rayon more extensively than married women during the decade, and women in places of 5,000 and over more extensively than farm women, while, with the exception of hosiery, men's habits changed very much less than women's in this respect.84

84 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Edna L. Clark, The Changing Uses of Textile Fibers in Clothing and Household Article, Miscellaneous Publications no. 31, 1928.

X. Clothing, Miscellaneous.—The notable rise in purses reflects the habit of “ensembling,” while the decline in feathers and plumes and hooks and eyes are evidences of the trend toward simplicity in women's wear. Jewelry manufacturers report that the 1920's witnessed a decline from the high post-war demand, including an emphasis upon frankly inexpensive novelty items. “Money which was formerly spent for jewelry is now going into automobiles, radios, and movies.” 85 Changing demand for jewelry is sharply reflected in the decline in space given to it in mail order catalogs: from 77 pages (4.7 percent of total pages in the catalog) in the Sears Roebuck catalog in 1915 to 34 pages (2.9 percent) in 1930, while scarf pins fell from 207 different pins to 17.

85 U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, C. E. Artman, Industrial Structure of New England, Domestic Commerce Series no. 28, 1930, p. 263.

XI-XII. Furniture.—In line with the trend toward apartment houses and small homes with many built in features and more dressing up of the living room as the most socially conspicuous part of the house, the furniture output declined for every room in the house except the living room, where the increase counterbalanced the decline in all the rest. The sharp rise in styling and ensembling by the industry during the 1920's is reflected both in the index for living room and library furniture and in that for curtains and draperies. The rise in expenditures for mattresses and bedsprings reflects a new standard of comfort, popularized in part by heavy advertising by a leading manufacturer.

XIII. Electrical Household Equipment.—The amazing barrage of electrical equipment indicates an advance in the ease of housework. Electric household clock sales totaled but 90,000 in 1926, rose to 350,000 in 1929 and to 1,200,000 in 1930.

050905

XIV. Heating and Cooking Equipment.—Here again the trend toward cleaner, more convenient housework is apparent.

XV. Health.—Better care of teeth and a doubling of expenditures for medication are both indicated.

XVI. Cleanliness.—Heavy increases in this department suggest more frequent personal washing, substitution of cleaning and polishing aids for more laborious manual scrubbing, a much heavier use of paint and varnish, the marked trend, despite the sale of electric home laundry machines, from home laundry to commercial power laundries, and a notable extension of the habit of keeping clothing cleaned and pressed. Meanwhile, the advertising of soap and housekeepers’ supplies, as noted in Table 6, rose from twelfth in dollar volume among commodities advertised in thirty leading national magazines in 1915 to sixth in 1923 and 1929, with a dollar rise in expenditure in these thirty media from $790,000 in 1915 to over $7,000,000 in 1929.

XVII. Beauty.—At the turn of the country perfume, rice powder and antichap for the hands constituted almost the entire paraphernalia of a woman's boudoir table. Today that table is a miniature chemist's shop. The relation of changing personality factors to the spectacular rise of perfumes, cosmetics and toilet preparations has already been suggested. Drug and toilet advertising in thirty leading periodicals (mainly cosmetics and toilet articles) rose, as shown in Table 6, from third in volume among all commodities in 1915 to first in 1929, when the billion dollar drug and toilet industry was spending approximately the same total for periodical, newspaper and radio advertising as the $17,000,000,000 food industry an the $6,500,000,000 automotive industry.

XVIII. Funerals.—The increased cost of dying, including the styling of shrouds and elaborateness of coffins, is apparent.

XIX. Music, Radio, Motion Pictures.—Old fashioned means of active musical participation have declined in this busy decade of mechanical enjoyments. The 67 percent decline in pianos to a manufacturing output of approximately 4 per 1,000 families is of poignant interest to music lovers. The Department of Commerce estimates on the basis of the Census that 40.3 percent of all American families had radio sets in April 1930. The motion picture index is for cost of films at point of production and gives no direct indication of attendance. According to the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors’ Association, average weekly motion picture attendance in the United States increased from 40,000,000 in 1922 to 95,000,000 in 1929 and an estimated 115,000,000 in 1930.86

86 New York Times, November 9, 1930. See also Chap. IV

XX. Sports and Games.87—The trends in sport and play equipment are irregular. Playing cards show the effect of Mah Jong in 1925. Billiards,87 For further details, see Chap. XVIII.051906pool and bowling showed a post-war boom, declining to 1925, then increasing again to 1929. Toys and games followed the same trend in a less extreme way. Sporting and athletic goods show a steady upward trend, with bathing suits irregular, probably because of their fill-in role in the knit goods industry.

XXI. Personal Accessories.—Such new necessities as the fountain pen and the mechanical pencil have established themselves solidly in consumer habits. Parenthetically, it may be added that the volume of retail sales of greeting cards rose from $10,000,000 in 1913 to approximately $45,000,000 in 1922 and around $60,000,000 in 1925.88

88 Calloway, C. J., Can Proper Merchandising Increase Sales of Textiles?, address delivered at First Annual Southern Manufacturers’ Sales Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, November 22, 1928. Published by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

XXII. Travel.—Increases in the amount, speed and comfort of travel are clearly indicated.

XXIII. Reading.—The marked increase in the number and circulation of periodicals with their heavy volume of consumer advertising is noteworthy. The circulation, on an average, of a Sunday paper to virtually every family in the country suggests the final attenuation of the earlier prejudice against the Sunday newspaper. The drop in bookcases from an index of 115.4 in 1923 to 76.6 in 1929, while partly accounted for by the vogue of built-in shelves, probably signifies also some decline in the family library habit.

Depression Consumption.—The effect of the depression commencing in 1929 was more severe in the case of the automobile than in any other of the items for which data are available in Table 15. Men's clothing is apparently more responsive to business declines than women's. Declines in the consumption of sweets in 1930-1931 are noteworthy, likewise in sewing machines, furniture (according to trade sources for 1931, no index or percentage being given in the table for that year), all types of electrical

Items surpassing in 1930 their 1929 outputItems surpassing in 1931 both their 1929 and 1930 outputItems surpassing in 1921 their 1919 output and also surpassing in 1930 or 1931 their 1929 outputCoffee.Coffee.Coffee.Mechanical refrigerators.Mechanical refrigerators.Mechanical refrigerators.Perfumes, cosmetics and toilet preparations.Condensed and evaporated milk.Perfumes, cosmetics and toilet preparations.Bathtubs.Rayon.Rayon.Cigarettes.Citrus fruits.Corsets.Electric cooking stoves and ranges.052907

equipment except refrigerators, paints and varnishes, radio and aviation. On the other hand, some consumer items actually increased in net output during the depression periods. These items are listed in the tabular statement on the opposite page.

In addition to the evidence of depression consumption afforded by the preceding analysis of changes as measured by manufacturing output, certain other aspects have appeared in the depression beginning in 1929.

New business done by life insurance companies decreased $369,445,701 in 1930 as compared with 1929, this being the first year since 1921 to show a decrease. On the other hand loans on life insurance policies are estimated to have increased from $2.5 billion at the close of 1930 to $4.0 billion at the close of 1931.89 Deposits in savings banks increased phenomenally in 1930 and 1931, not so much as a result of savings of surplus earnings as of the holding of investment funds in a liquid state. Small loans from unlicensed lenders are estimated to have increased in volume, although those from banks and other legitimate agencies showed no substantial increase traceable to general economic conditions. The Retail Credit Survey of the Department of Commerce,90 with the better type of stores reporting, indicates that the percentage of instalment sales to total sales continued relatively unchanged through 1930 and the first six months of 1931. Savings in Christmas Clubs fell on an average of 25 percent per member between 1929 and 1931: in 1989 approximately $600,000,000 was divided among some 9,000,000 persons; in 1930 about $632,000,000 among 11,000,000 members; while in 1931 about $600,000,000 was distributed among about 12,000,000 members.91

89 Ryan, Family Finance in the United States, op. cit.90 U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Retail Credit Survey, Domestic Commerce Series no. 42, 1930, and Domestic Commerce Series no's. 46 and 53, 1931.91 New York Times, November 12, 1931.

There has been an increase in secondary school attendance during the depression. Attendance at New York City public high schools in the second semester of 1931 was the largest up to that time in the city's history, while the increase of 22,882 (more than 11 percent) in senior high school enrollment in September, 1932, over September, 1931, marked the largest annual increase ever experienced.

American housewives sought to economize during the depression by buying commodities in less fully processed forms to which they could add value by their own labor. Home canning attained such proportions that glass jar demands were unofficially reported92 as markedly greater in 1931 than at any time in the past eleven years, and bottle and jar plants were operating at capacity in the fall of that year. Meanwhile, wholesalers and retailers were experiencing lessened sales of canned goods.

92 Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1931.053908

The shifts in consumption of Milwaukee families in 1930.93 as reported by the Milwaukee Journals’ Consumer Analysis, confirm these generalizations. While an increase occurred in the consumption of wheat bread, with a rise from 195 loaves average yearly consumption per family in 1929 to 241 in 1930, probably related to the substitution of bread for other foods, flour consumption rose from 171 pounds per family in 1929 to 256 pounds in 1930, and baking powder from 68 to 79 ounces per family; canned milk was used by 5 percent more families in 1930 than in 1929, with an increase from 86 to 97 cans used per family; increase in home cooking is probably indicated by a decline from 90 to 87 percent of families using canned soups and a decrease from 75 to 57 cans per family per year; the number of pounds of bulk cookies purchased per family decreased from 83 to 45 in 1930; package butter decreased from 114 pounds per family per year in 1928 to 85 in 1930; and ginger ale from 119 bottles in 1928 to 71 in 1930. The amount of ice cream purchased in bulk per family during 1930, as compared with 1928, declined some 40 percent;94 use of scouring cleansers and package soap flakes remained about the same, while the relatively expensive steel wool decreased from 32.6 packages per family per year in 1928 to 17.3 in 1930.

93 See pp. 876-877.94 This decline in Milwaukee is considerably greater than that suggested for the country as a whole in Table 15.

While important allowances must be made for price changes in a year like 1931, it is significant that while net dollar sales by Pittsburgh shoe stores fell 11 percent in 1931 as compared with 1930, drug stores 16 percent, and furniture, dry goods, men's furnishings, women's clothing and hardware stores from 21 to 30 percent each, grocery store sales fell but 2 percent.95 The relatively more stable position of food products during the depression is revealed by the fact that the fifteen companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange reporting the largest profits available for dividends in 1931 included four food companies, three each of tobacco and chemical and one of soap, drug, motor, electrical equipment and 5-and-10-cent store chain. No food, soap, or drug company was among the fifteen leaders in 1929. In 1931 the net profits of 39 food products companies declined 27.7 percent from 1930 and 41.3 percent from 1929, while the net profits of 1,302 miscellaneous companies showed declines of 62.9 and 79.6 percent respectively.96

95 University of Pittsburgh, Bureau of Business Research, Pittsburgh Business Review, January 28, 1932.96 New York Times, May 29, 1932.

In the furniture field, 1931 was marked by increasing resistance from the consumer. “Merchandise of a necessitous nature was the only kind to sell in any volume. Such items as beds and bedding” and needed kitchen equipment sold far better than articles in other major departments such 054909as dining room furniture.97 According to the Milwaukee Journal's Consumer Analysis, of the total Milwaukee families owning electric washing machines on January 15, 1931, only 9.1 percent had purchased their machines in 1930, as against 15.4 percent in 1929, 15.7 in 1928, 19.6 in 1927 and 22.3 in 1926.

97 Arthur Fertig & Co., Bulletin, November, 1931.

Deferring of plans for permanent home is indicated in the Milwaukee study. The percentage of Greater Milwaukee families indicating in January an intention to buy or build a home during the current year was 4.1 in 1927, 5.1 in 1929 in 1931.

Automobiles in use in 1931 totaled 20,327,000, as against 21,185,000 in 1929; the number of cars under two years old decreased 36.3 percent, while those two years or older increased 11.9 percent. Following are the numbers of cars in use in the two years of the indicated ages:98

98 Compiled by John K. Scoville, statistician of Chrysler Motor Corporation.Age of car19291931Under 1 year3,866,0001,900,0001 to 2 years3,145,0002,566,0002 to 3 years2,528,0003,529,0003 to 8 years10,252,00010,321,000Over 8 years1,394,0002,011,000

Transatlantic passengers to and from the United States and Canada fell off by 29.6 percent in 1931 as compared with 1930.99

99 Transatlantic Passenger Conference, New York Times, January 11, 1932. See, in connection with transatlantic travel, Chap. IV.1st class2nd cabin2d.Tourist3d.Destination1930193119301931193019311930193119301931To United States (North Atlantic)79959361137771538710708001754922To United States (Mediterranean)9279111052405262To Canada3131224112.6.1311198818206

Table 16.—Westbound Transatlantic Passengers from Europe to United Statesand Canada, 1930-1931(In hundreds)

Football receipts of the “Big Ten” in 1931 dropped below $2,000,000 for the first time since 1925. According to the Motion Picture Herald, of the 20,100 motion picture theaters in the United States, 5,350 were closed on January 1, 1932, and average adult admissions were ten cents lower than a year previous. Interest in less expensive forms of amusement and home entertainment resulted in a revival of popularity of indoor games—chess, checkers, dominoes, backgammon, quoits and ping pong.

Among other consumption areas affected by the depression the following may be noted: The Christmas greeting card business declined notably 055910in 1931, with cheaper cards finding favor. Church and missionary budgets were curtailed in 1930 and 1931 as a result of lessened contributions. Doctors’ incomes have suffered, though it is reported that proprietary articles were less affected as forced economy drove the masses to more self-medication. An evidence of the lengths to which home makeshifts go in such times is the appearance of sole leather and other materials for home shoe repairing in windows of the 10-cent stores in New York City in January, 1932.

The Commissioner for the Casket Manufacturers’ Association of America estimates that the number of indigent deaths, i.e. deaths necessitating burial at public expense, doubled in 1931 over 1929, reaching a ratio of about 1 in 10 and the number of home made coffins increased in rural districts.

III. CONCLUSION

From this necessarily compressed summary certain dominant trends emerge: the increase in national income and in the purchasing power of a large section of the population; an increase in the availability of consumer credit; a sharp increment both in volume and variety of consumer's goods available, necessitating choices among more kinds of ways of carrying on familiar processes than any previous generation has faced, and also acute choices between expenditures for familiar activities and for the new kinds of activities made possible by invention and technology; rising standards and adequacy and comfort in living, in the former case creating many new consumption necessities as in matters of diet and child care; changes in availability of goods related to developments in transportation, communication and merchandising, and also substantial differences in the pressure to consume many types of commodities owing to regional differences; a multiplication in the influences playing upon the consumer and shaping his habits, with an apparently growing sense of conflict in our urbanized, secularized culture at many points under these rival urgings; and a resulting seemingly greater susceptibility to change as indicated by swifter fashion changes and the reported rise in consumer fickleness.

While shopping is still a pleasure to some consumers, there is evidence that, with the multiplication of alternative activities, there is a mounting distaste on the part of both men and women for the labor of buying things, a desire to simplify and to expedite the process as much as possible. While, happily, human being will reveal interesting differences in their practice of the art of spending money until the end of the picture, the growing variety and technical complexity of things that may be bought suggest the need for far more reliable techniques for the handling of many consumption choices that are at present needlessly aggravating and uncertain. A number of agencies are addressing themselves 056911to the problem of educating the consumer; change in diet and health habits, in part in response to educational propaganda by the government, schools and other agencies, is an outstanding example of such work. Advertising views its efforts as “consumer education.” In the main, however, it is an open question whether factors making for consumer confusion in our rapidly changing culture are not actually outstripping the forces making for more effective consumption. Society is content to allow the buying of all living to remain, like health in the Middle Ages, largely an area of private chaos.

Other chapters of the report show developments in recent years in health child welfare and other aspects of living. May it not be that consumption, conditioning as it does all of these other factors, is a next area to which governmental and private agencies and to turn their attention? A coherent and active policy as regards the consumer does not exist throughout the government bureaus in Washington at the present time. Historically this has its roots in a long tradition of focusing attention upon the reproductive forces of the nation, of identifying consumer welfare with business prosperity, and of over-dependence upon the rational adequacy of the consumer's unaided choices. Whether something resembling a Department of the Consumer in Washington, coordinate in budget and power with the strongest of the present departments, is indicated is a secondary question. Certainly a reappraisal of the focus and adequacy of the present balance and stage of development of the several federal agencies is in order as a part of the reorientation of administrative adequacy to current needs. The primary concern, however, is whether the government is prepared to give to the spending of the national income the same degree of concern that it at present bestows upon the earning of that income. Such coherent leadership is needed if schools and other agencies are to educate to individual consumer in the practice of the fine art of spending money.