A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America

by Lizabeth Cohen

In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life.

Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Economics, Politics, American, Sociology

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2003

Reviews

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Argues that Keynesian-paradigms of thought transcended the New Deal brain-trusters and was adopted by grassroots consumers. In short, consumption became a political act in and of itself during the New Deal, and this dollar activism has remained in the United States ever since. In her examination, she builds upon E.P. Thompson’s idea of a “moral economy,” a notion that began with the Progressive era but came to actualization during the Great Depression. In particular, women and African American grassroots consumer activism gave these usually disenfranchised groups power. As activists, they forced issues of Civil Rights onto businesses that would discriminate. During the New Deal, administrators focuses on the rights of consumers, not producers, a sharp distinction after decades of adhering to Say’s Law. She argues that Keynesians subscribed to the concept of “purchaser-consumers,” or politics of purchasing. During the Cold War, consumption was in and of itself an act against communism. Politics pushed the freedom of purchasing, thereby creating a Consumer’s Republic.” Private consumption became the appropriate form of political public expression. This shift can still be seen in American landscape in the “landscape of mass consumption”: suburbia, strip malls, and highways. In short, suburbia is an extension of Keynesian policies. She detests this growth, finding it socially destructive at the expense of economic growth. Suburbs put private consumption ahead of all other considerations—in this way her book can be compared with Rome and Galbraith. Sprawl created a racial and economic exclusivity yet to be overcome. She hopes for a return to a landscape characterized by social equality, not clear delineations in the landscape depicting economic disparity.

Cohen’s argument is important because it complicates our understanding of American history. She downplays—nay, challenges—the historical assertion that the cold War was the defining influence on post-war America. Her consumer’s republic was a post-war strategy “for reconstructing the nation’s economy and reaffirming its democratic values through the expansion of mass consumption.” (11) This consumers’ Republic impacted where and how Americans lived, how and what they consumed, and how they viewed government. The consumer’s republic resulted in an economic upswing (Pax Americana), but also added to racial and gender stratification. This occurred through planning (i.e. suburbia, commercial v. residential zoning). Target Marketing by design stratifies by gender and race. Downtowns became decimated in favor of suburbia and malls. Schools were funded unequally based on property taxes. The G.I. bill aided predominantly white males. The 1970s economic crisis collapsed the Consumers’ Republic. In response, a growing political aim to aid in privatization and deregulation are justified as aiding the consumer and therefore the entire economy. Consumers view gov’t policies as another consumer good to be judged based on individual utility. (review)

At the end of WWII, New Deal era labor and consumers’ movements lost the battle to retain price controls. This defeat combined with postwar reconversion legislation and shifted power away from New Deal models of consumer citizenship towards white, male, middle-class consumers. The women now became not an active member of political action, but a Keynesian pawn held to her home to consume. There were notable exceptions: boycotts and sit-ins of civil rights activists come to mind. Her book attempts to answer Michael Denning’s argument about the “laboring of American culture” during the New Deal.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cohen's thesis--and this is very much a thesis driven book, sometimes to its determent--is that in the years since World War II, the United States is best understood as a "consumers' republic," and that, for the most part, that has operated to the detriment of political citizenship. The consumers' republic refers to the intersection of an economy, culture and politics "built around the promises of mass consumption, both in terms of material life and the more idealistic goals of freedom, democracy, and equality." Cohen does a good job examining the impact of the emphasis on consumerism on housing, the marketplace (particularly the growth of mall culture), and notions of community. Her discussion of how the increasing segmentation of marketing plays out not just in advertising but also in politics illuminates some of the forces that have led to the horrendous red state-blue state split we're living with today. It's not a perfect book; the alternation between her micro studies of New Jersey (clearly home base for her research) and generalizations about the U.S. as a whole doesn't always flow smoothly. But I'd recommend it over Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier for anyone looking for an introduction to the most important changes in American "lifestyle" from WWII to the 1980s.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

handful of durable theses at the center of Cohen's analysis.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great start for anyone who wants to think or write more intelligently about our shared shopaholic tendencies.

[AskHistorians]

A great history of consumerism in the post-WWII US.

[Simon Purdue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cohen’s sweeping history of the postwar period paints a vivid picture of a rapidly changing society. The author describes a cultural landscape in which the terms of citizenship had shifted dramatically, placing production and, more importantly, consumption as the primary term of involvement in this new ‘consumer’s republic’. Using her own experiences growing up in New Jersey as a case study- particularly in the third section of the book- Cohen argues that the encouragement of mass consumption had become a concerted project driven by political and economic elites. She notes that consumption, primarily of American-produced goods, quickly became an essential component of citizenship in the new, suburban America, as shopping malls became major social spaces and possession of goods became even more of an indicator of social status. This new culture of consumption marked a gear-shift in the idea of social mobility and the ‘American Dream’, and for the first time it was the spending of money and not the earning of money that paved the way to said dream. Furthermore the postwar years marked a notable shift in American capitalism, and a scaling back of the limitations imposed from the populist era through to the New Deal.
Crucially Cohen dedicates sizeable portions of her analysis of this new consumer’s republic to its failings and- in many cases deliberate- inequalities. She suggests that the consumer’s republic represented a more segregated America than had been seen in the preceding decades, and that the rapid changes that were taking place in American society left African-Americans behind. She, sometimes slightly clumsily, frames much of the Civil Rights Movement in consumerist terms, arguing that the ‘urban rebellions’ of the 1960s were the result of a renewed sense of African-American disenfranchisement and exclusion brought on by this reconfigured and exclusionary white middle class consumerist society. Cohen’s book frames consumption as a key marker of American identity, paving the way for deeper explanations of what it meant to be a citizen in this new social structure.

[MargaretDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely readable examination of the valourization of mass consumption in America in the middle of the twentieth century. Cohen argues that, beginning during the New Deal, the idea of Americans as citizens and as consumers became inextricably linked, and that consumption was understood as an important way all people could benefit to the health of the nation.

Cohen explores the rise of manufactured goods, suburbs, shopping centres and the ethos of increased spending on consumer goods as a rising tide that would lift all boats. She also explores the racialized and gendered lenses through which consumerism was inevitably understood, and the ways in which consumerism both empowered and disenfranchised American women and black Americans. Cohen also examines how important class was in America, despite how proudly many political leaders stated that the USA was a classless society, with all sharing in prosperity.

Though this was published in 2003, it's also a timely read. It explores many of the ways that black Americans have been excluded from American prosperity, from the GI bill to restrictive housing covenants to the 'don't shop where you can't work' movement. If you're interested in learning about the ways that American policy has favoured some groups over others, while also touting the American dream, this is an excellent read.

As I mentioned above, this is extremely readable. Though detailed, Cohen's prose is crisp and lively. She also includes photos, advertisements and charts to illustrate her arguments. This is an academic work, and it's not short. But if you're interested in the subject matter, I think it's worth picking up.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to learn that modern consumerism is not just an outgrowth of natural human frailty in the form of greed but was instead the creation of government policies to apply war production capacity to civilian needs after World War II. That's hopeful. It means that humans aren't doomed by nature, or by some quality of American culture, to deplete natural resources through overconsumption and destroy the environment through waste. Instead, we can change now to use less just as we changed back then to use more.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cohen's argument can be broadly generalized to say that post-war economic policies and consumer spending habits led Americans to conceive of themselves more as consumers than politically-minded citizens. However, the nuance of her work, especially in her attention to the gender and racial inequalities of post-war consumption patterns, illuminates a fundamental shift in what it means to be an American citizen and what constitutes "rights" beyond the framers' intent. Read in March 2017, when the current political climate bears the unbearable stamp of consumption, fraud and market segmentation, the significance of this shift could not have been visible to Cohen in 2003, but her analysis provides an eerily prescient foreshadowing of the consequences of these factors. Unfortunately, her conclusion assumes an acceptance and continuation of the dual identity of consumers and citizens. She believes it would be impossible to sever the social, economic or political connections that have fused over the last half of the 20th century. However, conditions in 2017 suggest that American political identities may have been long-dormant but are waking and may be poised to break free from the segmentation after all.

Cohen's writing is clear and refined. Although this is a work of advanced scholarship, it is well within the reach of able high school students and would be a great example of clear, professional historical writing. I can see using excerpts to teach content as well as style.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

After World War II, Americans began to change their attitude toward the role of consumption in constructing American identity and values. Actively discouraged by the American government during the war and socially condemned during the Depression, postwar conspicuous consumption subsequently came to represent all that was ideally American in Cohen’s "Consumers’ Republic": freedom, egalitarianism, and democracy. Cohen argues that the reality of the Consumers’ Republic was not so democratic, but was in fact a staging ground for competing notions of American identity and citizenry along racial, gender, and class lines.

Using her home state of New Jersey as a way to analyze mass consumption issues of the postwar era, Cohen details the origins, character, and consequences of this new American consumerist mentality and questions whether the Consumers’ Republic actually yielded all of its supposed benefits. She charts the origins of the Republic to the 1930s, when lawmakers, women, and African Americans pursued a “citizen consumer” role—a role that put the safety and political rights of the consumer at a premium. Government agencies reinforced and strengthened the citizen consumer concept through World War II with inflation control and other artificial means of maintaining a stable and productive wartime economy. Cohen places the firm establishment of the Consumers’ Republic in the immediate postwar period when government supported an expansion of the private sector, thereby assuming that this would be the sight of an egalitarian free market economy that would embody democratic ideals and freedom for all citizen consumers. Cohen shows that this was not always the case—women, African Americans, and low-income consumers were often marginalized, both formally and informally, by a defensive rising middle class, a painfully slow-moving federal government, and private developers and marketers who wanted to maximize profits, which meant marketing to the rising white middle class reaping the recent benefits of the GI Bill. Cohen also examines the creation and expansion of the suburbs, privately owned shopping centers, and market segmentation, which were all part of the idealist Consumers’ Republic based more on a dream of equality rather than a reality.

As a consumer history, A Consumers’ Republic is well conceived, well articulated, and well executed. Using her childhood home state to illustrate the larger trends taking place throughout the United States is helpful and convincing, but it neglects the heterogeneity of the country. Regional economic differences were even more pronounced during the establishment of Cohen’s Consumers’ Republic, leaving a southern or western historian to wonder whether these patterns of widespread suburbanization, multiplying shopping malls, and restructured tax systems were as prevalent in other regions of the United States. From a southern perspective, Cohen situates the role of consumerism among urban African American southerners in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, but fails to discuss the rural population that made up such a significant portion of the United States generally and the South more specifically. Additionally, the federal government takes a central role in her understanding of the Consumers’ Republic, yet southern state governments were notoriously wary of federal intrusion into state policy. It is likely that the economic and social problems of the South put it outside of the mainstream America that Cohen seems to be focused on, but it is a glaring omission in a book concerned with characterizing consumerism in postwar America as a whole.

In addition, Cohen fails to examine the rise of the modern tourist industry occurring almost simultaneously with the development of her Consumers’ Republic, especially in states like Florida and California, where theme parks and resorts expanded into multimillion-dollar attractions capitalizing on Americans’ postwar purchasing power. Parks like Disney World and Six Flags became synonymous with middle class white America’s idea of family vacation and symbols of American consumerism abroad. Cohen’s emphasis on the government’s role in postwar consumerism implied that housing, malls, and modern appliances were all that consumers were purchasing, but status symbols went beyond a nice car and a nice home. Middle class families might not have been able to afford a trip to Europe or other exotic destinations, but domestic theme parks marketed directly to this rising middle class offered a more exciting and economic alternative to local attractions.

A Consumers’ Republic is the product of extensive research and keen insight into the political and social history of modern American consumerism by an author who clearly understands how the pursuit of economic prosperity may have defined postwar America even more than the idealism of the Cold War. Every citizen participated in the Consumers’ Republic in some form or another, whether by accepting the government relief of the Depression, reaping the benefits of the GI Bill, or shopping in the local mall. With this book, it is now possible to understand how consumers’ personal economic benefit became the catalyst for these extensions of the Consumers’ Republic.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Consumer’s Republic uncovers the demand-side characteristics. Cohen describes how American government and industry leaders sought to promote prosperity, egalitarianism, political freedom, and democratic participation through mass consumption. Self-interested consumerism became a civic duty during the period following World War II. Mass consumerism made sense as consumption would drive production and sufficient abundance to continue the economic progress previously supplied by the war. Spurred by the GI Bill, housing construction became the foundation of this political economy. The GI Bill, however, is where the first inequalities appear; black veterans were eligible for the government benefit, but private banks refused to lend to them. This initial condition led to racially segregated communities that were further separated by income and class. These communities developed independently increasing long-term inequality as property value determined services and education. As housing inequities led to an unequal economic rise, increased material abundance further fragmented society. By the mid-1950s, industry believed mass consumerism might wane with market saturation. Marketing to smaller and more distinctive sections of society became the solution. Market segmentation maintained profits, but also reinforced the differences among groups and brought political power. Through boycotts, blacks and women forced political and economic change. Despite these positive impacts, abundance did not bring evenly distributed prosperity. Consumerism changed the American character strengthening short-term, self-interested thinking in both markets and government. The promise of an improved democratic society through abundance was left unrealized; instead, winners and losers linger in American society with no clear path to achieve the promises of consumerism.

[LightIssues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty cool book thoroughly researched and detailed to provide an accurate history of the rise of consumerism and its lingering aftereffects, focusing more specifically on the distinct time frame of the Great Depression to the '75 inflation crises. Maybe I'm just ooh-ahhing in awe because I have pretty much no contact with works of widespread historical analysis like this and am therefore uninitiated to both its peaks and my incapability to do anything this good, but there really is something stupendous in how it explains the incredibly complex ways in which consumerism became a core component of American (national, personal) self-identity and had an outsized effect on the nation itself. This manages to clearly point out its role not just in the more obvious developments, like the rise of conservative deregulatory and privatization practices (that this btw links already to Ford and Carter!) that ultimately gave way to Reaganomics, but even to the Watts race riots or increasing municipal localism. Fascinating how clearly this makes an argument for America as having become a fundamental country of consumerism, and more unintentionally perhaps as having with the passage of time only further showcased this consumerist dream's reality in self-serving perpetuation of the status quo in all its inequities and stratifications. Valuable reading for anyone interested in the history of the US and the potentially harmful effects of consumerism that are present in other countries as well (very valuable reads on the dangers of market segmentation from a reformist and/or revolutionary, but also communal standpoint here).

[Jene · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been fifteen years since Cohen published A Consumers' Republic, making so much of her thesis seem old hat. Everybody knows about the postwar culture of mass consumption. But what makes this book an important read, even now, is Cohen's further analysis of the effects of this "Consumers' Republic" (CR) on American lives. Americans of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds accepted the basic premise of the CR: that mass consumption would bring a greater equality to all of America. We didn't need the vast government programs of the New Deal to bring everyone into the middle class, or so the thinking went. Cohen followed up on this mass consumption = mass democracy theory, and found that we (surprise) did not eliminate class distinctions, but instead created new ones while solving some of the old. The postwar era was a lot more complicated than we like to remember.
I think Cohen's best chapter was on suburbanization - the promises it held for middle-class white families, and the legal barriers erected to keep out working-class whites and people of color.

[Andrew Westphal · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few insightful anecdotes and compelling theses in this book, but the juice is not worth the squeeze for a general-knowledge reader like myself. I did appreciate learning about the wartime consumer actions for fair price controls and the highly variable postwar outcomes for veterans based on their access to the GI Bill and other veterans’ benefit programs.

My main criticism of this book is with the writing style: Cohen occasionally devolves into arcane structures of academic writing which were difficult to parse.

Here is an example: “Over the last half century, transformation in America's economy and metropolitan landscape expanded the ability of many people to participate in the mass market. … But the commercializing, privatizing, and segmenting of physical gathering places that has resulted from allowing the unfettered pursuit of profits to dictate a new metropolitan landscape has made more precarious the shared public sphere upon which democracy depends.”

[Edward Champion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for research. Despite some remarkably extensive endnotes, I regret to report that Cohen doesn't have a fresh or coherent narrative. She doesn't know if she wants to watch a Naomi Klein style book on the history of consumerism up through 2003 or a 2003 update of the great volume BLACK METROPOLIS. There's a lot of space granted to Newark and much of what St. Clair Drake and Horace Clayton have already told us. So it makes this volume a quite frustrating experience. Cohen is cogent enough to connect the false complaints of auto plants seeing workers leave them because there isn't any affordable housing. She is smart to show racial inequities in loans (to say nothing of redlining). But what this needed was a theme or an argumentative direction. Cohen has neither. A failure of good intentions not worked hard enough.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Depression prompted the creation of two types of consumers - citizen consumers (influencing policymakers for consumer rights and safety) and purchaser consumers (influence via purchasing power). In the post-war period, these merged where purchasing power and self-interest acted in the best interest of both the individual and recovering American economy. Cohen considers the role of products, like cars and washing machines, the commentary of policy makers, newspapers, and scholars in examining the development of this shift. The epilogue turns to how this analysis can be applied to the 21st century. Chapter 5 is a stand out for me in it's analysis of suburbanization and it's relation to women, class, and race. For example, Cohen considers the domestication of women, suburbs, and liminal space that cars held for women.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m super busy at the moment so jotting down notes to write a fuller review later.

References Halberstam’s The Fifties with regards to advertising

Companion to City of Quartz but focused on NJ

Focuses on Black and female consumers, mainly 1945-1975

Black women organized against white store owners in Harlem to force them to hire Black employees in the 1930s

Riots focused on white-owned businesses while Black-owned businesses were spared

Looters saw commercials for products featuring whites which stoked consumer resentment

Whites moved out of cities and into suburbs, bus lines limited Black commuters who didn’t own cars in the same number as whites

Part time employees in suburbs were almost entirely white housewives

Women wouldn’t buy a house or establish credit without a husband, especially after a divorce

[Alisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly dense, well-researched, and thorough book about the history and politics of mass consumption in the U.S. I learned so much about the gendered and racialized dynamics of consumerism and its implications for inequality in the United States. I thought I already knew a lot about this topic but Cohen's book was an education. Although the title says "postwar" Cohen digs into the origins of the culture of modern consumerism as well as government policies that facilitated the structural conditions of market reliance (pressure, behavior) that helped create the consumer culture that we experience the legacies of today. This is not a breezy read -- it is a commitment -- but it is worth it.

[mirror · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes hard to follow, very dense. prosaic
i would definitely call this more of an academic text, there is a lot of detail put in and lot of time covered
i did feel i learned something, how the concept of consumer has changed over time and consumer activism, consumer protection. that being a consumer isnt really just one thing to contrast with being a producer or worker but theres multiple different facets. the civil rights movement having notable instances of consumer activism on a small scale (nowadays it seems more difficult for any consumer activism to have an impact, as companies are monolith)
this was pretty difficult for me to get through, i see it more as a reference text and would benefit from multiple reads to really pick up on all the info being shared

[Christina Ailor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is long and dry, but it’s a great resource if you want a comprehensive overview of how our nation’s economy and government grew to depend on consumerism. Cohen takes the reader through the 20th century, describing the various political, social, and technological factors that created the “consumer’s republic” and how the culture of mass consumption shaped the experiences of various segments of the population. She also explores the various ways consumerism has been treated as a political act or an act of citizenship.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thought provoking, offers lots of insight into the citizen-consumer relationship. I thought it was very long, and at times unnecessarily long. Maybe I'm just saying that because I had to read it for a class and was under a time crunch and that was very annoying. So, it was interesting, but I would not read a 500 page book about mass consumption unless I was forced to.

[Jared Lancaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was very interesting! Some deep dives in consumer activism and what it means to live in a society driven by mass consumption. The segmentation of markets coupled with the rise of identity politics was super interesting to me.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

For Cohen, a woman's place is in the kitchen. There the woman should work day and night as penitence for the Original Sin. And Cohen will fight till the end to achieve this divine goal.

[Bethany Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! So insightful, particularly into my parent's generation.

[gadabout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, well researched, and consistent. It does lose me on a few points as far as making poor conclusions or showing unfair bias, but it's otherwise a very informative book.

[Jimmacc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book. I enjoyed the walk through various consumer trends’ life cycle. I remember some of them as they started. The labor and consumer activism discussions were eye opening.

[Cory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undergrad radicalization

[SandersonLover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. Talks about where America's consumerism came from, answers some questions why things are the way they are. Looks into race and gender as a part of consumerism as well.

[Pat McDermott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant analysis of post-World War II American political, civic, and economic culture. For me, the best part was the author’s deep dive into New Jersey life after 1945, illustrating and explaining her home state’s (and mine) evolution to nearly endless suburbia, and the rise of mass consumption. I read the book from the library, but I also purchased the audiobook, because I think this is definitely worth rereading.

[Sean Staples · Rating 5 out of 5]

America is a country of mass consumption and Cohen does a great job of showing all the different factors that go into being a consumer.