Bourgeoisie or Nouve riche?

I would say that at no time was American culture ‘driven by government’. In fact the opposite was true. American culture drove the government to make changes that would benefit the citizens. Some people interpret the word opportunistic as being offered an opportunity. My understanding is that there is an opportunity, but it is at the detriment of someone or something else. It has a negative connotation to it. Opportunism and materialism seem to go somewhat hand in hand, but I would say the driving force behind opportunism is materialism. From 1900-1950, American culture definitely became more materialistic.

Materialism, (economic) is really just having and wanting more than one needs. Of course what one needs is defined differently by different people. Obviously when cars were first invented, most people didn’t need them. In fact many were against them. Then there came the idea of affordability. Who could afford them? Well, the upper class could. 

Even the word “automobile” came with a class distinction: “the key to its adoption in America was its acceptance by New York City’s high society^”1. As the industrial age allowed large quantities of items to be massed produced at affordable prices, this made the lifestyle of “high society” affordable. Classes of nobility and aristocracy would no longer be what defined social status. The new emergences of the rising middle class and their consumerism would let their materialistic economics give them a sense of high society as well.

Materialism is apparent in the 1920’s not only with those that purchased automobiles, but with those who stole them. “It is estimated that 1/10 of cars that were manufactured annually were…stolen.” ² The puritan concept of coming to America for some gain had turned into ‘as much as I can get”. As mentioned by the sociologist David Riesman, looking back before the 1950’s he had seen a “historic shift from the goal-oriented, work-minded, “inner-directed” individual to a more self-conscious, consumer-minded,”outer-directed”one.”³

The time from 1929-the early 1930’s would cause a hiccup in the individualistic consumer approach, with the Great Depression. Then the government would step in with its “New Deal” and pave the way for more of an equal playing field for those that did not have Capital. The first Art museums were patronized in the 1930’s; of course the Rockefellers were the philanthropists to aid in bringing this about. Art is pleasing to the eye, but the need to own expensive works of art is a materialistic want, not a need. The same would be said for the indulgences of the Golden Era of Hollywood and Aviation during that time as well. The ownership of airplanes for people like Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart would take social status to a different level than before.

The early 1940’s gave way to WWII, the end of the war caused a boom in house building again and explosion of suburbia, these new homes built in the 1940’s would need the new TV’s that were invented, and the updated kitchen appliances that were the thing to have in every home. Advertising would continue to not only sell the automobiles that started this consumerist trend, but homes, televisions, aerosol hairspray and toys and records; All the materialistic consumer products that money could buy.

 

 

1. Cullen, Jim, American Dream, The (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 10

2. Heitmann, John, The Automobile and American Life ( North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2009), 48

 

3. Cullen, Jim, American Dream, The (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 152

 

http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/3/releases/MOMA_1929-31_0003_1929-09-06.pdf?2010