CA Blog: Innovation for mass consumption

The innovation boom in the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century began to change the culture of many Americans as the transition from the Victorian Era to the Modern Era took shape. Regina Lee Blaszezyk the author of American Consumer Society illustrates, “Between the 1890s and the 1930s, Americans began their love affair with technologies that altered time, sound, light, and distance. Technology allowed people to join a wider community while simultaneously creating their own personal space” (Pg. 137). The development of new consumer goods such as the bicycle and the personal camera created a new excitement for many consumers at the latter part of the nineteenth century. In addition, the residential use of electricity yielded to new domestic products; iron, lamp, phonograph, and mainly the radio hit mainstream consumers at their most cherished place, their homes.

The power of the radio drastically increased, in 1924, 11 percent of American homes had a radio; by 1940, more than 81 percent owned one. Blaszezyk states, “As it became ubiquitous, consumers incorporated radio into their daily rituals. They could listen attentively, dance to the music, or simply treat it as background noise while performing a task” (Pg. 149). By the late 1930s radio listening was the nation’s favorite pastime. The innovation of the radio brought families, friends, and neighbors together as listeners tuned in for news, sports, and commercial broadcasts such as, “Amos ‘n’ Andy”, a show that reached an estimated 40 million listeners. As todays modern innovation of the internet which connects the world together in mere seconds, nearly one hundred years ago the radio connected the nation together on comparable principles. Similarly to the radio, the innovation of the automobile assembly line that allowed the middle-class Americans to enjoy the luxurious that were once only enjoyed by the wealthy triggered the automobile-consumption phenomenon.

In 1905, the retail price for a new automobile ranged from $600 to $7,500, with the average annual income of $450 per year. These prices made the automobile an exclusive purchase for the very wealthy Americans. In 1908, the Ford Motor Company developed the Model T by building it on the industry’s first assembly line. By 1916, the price for a Model T was $360, and making it affordable for the average middle class American. In 1908, Ford sold 6,000 units of the Model T, the number of cars sold in 1916 went up over ninety six times to 580,000 cars.

With the development of new technology that yielded to new innovations in which created a consumer frenzy society for the leading consumer products. Market competition and advancements in technology products that were only enjoyed by the rich were now made available to the masses. Similar occurrences of consumer frenzies have occurred in our generation, flat screen televisions once sold for $5,000 to $12,000 per unit, nowadays those same televisions range from $500 to $1,200 dollars making them affordable to the masses. So it is needless to ask based on our past history of one hundred years that, as technologies continues to amaze us as it advances into the twenty-first century, will we ever as society find the balance between innovation and mass consumption?

http://articles.cnn.com/2005-01-03/tech/cnn25.top25.innovations_1_airbag-hypertext-transfer-protocol-innovations?_s=PM:TECH