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Cross argues that the Depression of the 1930s undermined the value of free time, but reconfirmed the worth of money as loss of income became a symbol of social exclusion. It was the daily contact with the affluent people, the universal access to the mass media and the continuously displayed luxury that increased the humiliation of poverty. Only a few years earlier, people had everything. The roaring twenties were not too long ago for people to forget. Ford had introduced the automated assembly line . Sloane had adopted new approaches of advertising and marketing so the “prestige car” was born. The gangster, with his golden watch, silk skirt and luxury car, mastered the twenties as he was in control of bootlegging and racketeering . He was the embodiment of what would sell. It was then that the image of a product became more important that its function. Veblen called this conspicuous consumption. (Theory of the leisure class) Blecher, meanwhile, called this: “spending money in a way that makes other people feel poor” . In the meantime, advertising agencies hired psychologists . Their job was to appeal to consumers' hunger for prestige and status. Suddenly the Wall Street crash occurred and lots of people lost everything. Peoples lives changed overnight, but the displayed luxury remained the same.

People who could keep their full-time jobs in the US during the Depression did not suffer as much as the jobless and the people placed on short-time schedules. In Britain, declines in employment varied from region to region. But because prices dropped faster than wages, people’s access to consumer goods in the steadily employed sectors often increased. That is why people could keep on consuming. It must not be forgotten that there was a lot of pressure coming from the media, especially from the Hollywood Studio System . In 1934 they invented the big-budget movie and they worked together with the consumer products industries to promote products in movies. When Carole Lombard’s frog appeared in Macy’s Window, people wanted to possess it just because it was shown on the big screen. Everything that appeared on-screen became fetishised objects. The new consumers felt driven to consume, no matter whether they needed or even wanted the products. Because others had them, families felt compelled to have them too. Even sillier than this, there was a Production Code Administration in Hollywood. This means that there were general censorship guidelines about what could and could not be shown in cinemas. People identified themselves with and tried to aspire to something that was not a reality.

The daily contact with the affluent intensified the longing for goods among those who experienced real decline in purchasing power. Sociologist Glen Elder notes that “The higher the climb before the Depression, the greater the investments and the more intense the frustrations of downward mobility”. Elder makes an interesting point here. When you are used to buying everything you want, it is very difficult to come to terms with the reality that that is not possible anymore when you have no job. In the theory of the Leisure class, Veblen remarks that it is in the nature of things that luxuries and comforts of life belong to the leisure class and that the working people should consume only what may be necessary to their subsistence.. Of course Veblen is right. People living in those days must have known that as well, but for them it was impossible to think rationally. The underlying thought in the rest of this review will always be: No matter what, the working class in those days felt that the most important thing in their lives was that they needed to keep up appearances. Thinking rationally was simply been excluded. It did not exist. Veblen also gives the answer on how it has become that working people buy luxuries. According to him it was private ownership of goods and an industrial system based on wage labour or on the petty household economy. These principles had the force of a conventional law and it had become the norm to which consumption tended to conform

The result was that status and adulthood became associated with goods. People who could buy goods had a high status and the people who could not had a low one. Wandersee notes that “To many families a radio, the latest movie, a packet of cigarettes, or the daily newspaper were as necessary to the family well-being as food, clothing and shelter.” Those goods were necessary for them because that was the so-called proof to others that they did not suffer from a downward mobility. Veblen noticed that it was seen that unproductive consumption of goods was honourable, primarily as a mark of prowess and a perquisite of human dignity. Not exactly the same, but in the same category as wage loss is that after many funerals, you see people buy new furniture, new chairs,…Some redecorate their whole house and even tear walls down. Maybe this spending could also be seen as a way of saying to others that they still have the same status as before.

Cross gives two theories why people consumed that much. The first is of “escapist working-class leisure consumption”. This means to buy goods in order to forget troubles. Orwell claims that “Twenty million people were underfed but literally everyone in England had access to a radio”. Access is a key-word, because it implies the transformation from a society build upon a class system to a society build upon access to consumer goods. Not only during the Depression did people buy to forget. Most people now have the tendency to go shopping whenever they feel bad. For example: going shopping because there is the stress of starting to write an essay, the stress of writing it and the stress after having it handed in. Retail therapy has become a mainstream phenomenon, creating the attitude that the minute that one thinks that something is wrong, they need to go shopping. So advertisers have created a transformation in our collective mind. Instead of thinking our problems through, they make us see shopping as the solution. Freud would say that the media have found a way to go round the Ego and to set the Id free. Because in our mind the Id is the pleasure seeker and the Ego tries to control it through the regulating Super-Ego. With the need to go shopping, the supervision of the Super-Ego is certainly eliminated and the desires of the Id are unstoppable.

The other theory is that of the psychological effects of poverty. Reduced income on people who expected expanded access to goods “must have made the pinch of hard times seem intolerable”. Sociologist Steiner stated in 1937 that people would change their habits to cost-free home recreation. But he didn’t identify that poverty increased the need for luxury.

The previous paragraph could simplify one of the many issues existing in Antwerp. Antwerp is the core city of an extreme right-wing party Vlaams Belang and also the core of an extreme left-wing party Resist. Immigrants living in Antwerp expected expanded access to goods, which of course, they did not get. They live together with too many people in too-small accommodations in poor neighbourhoods. They also show their possessions in an almost provocative way in the shopping streets of Antwerp. What the extreme right-wing party and their followers are so stunned about is that they can afford a Mercedes and a BMW, that they have nice jewellery and golden watches. They have these while they have no jobs and poor housing. If we apply the theory of the psychological effects of poverty to the Mercedes-owners of the Antwerp ghettos, we see that they just want to compete with the autochthonous inhabitants. They want to show that they are not different, that they can afford the same as the rest of us. As Mark Farwell said during the “Cultural Influence” unit, “It is the ONLY thing they have”. Although they do not have much, they still want to fill that need for luxury. So something that needs to be done in Antwerp is to look beyond that Mercedes and realise that although immigrants drive that fancy Mercedes, they still have poor housing and live with too many people in poor neighbourhoods. Autochthonous people are surprised that the immigrants get frustrated. To me that frustration is only normal. They try to buy their way into the Belgian society, as that is the only way they know, and while doing that they get even more comments.

If we return to discussions of the Depression years again, Cross also focuses on the irrational consumer behaviour of popular gambling in Britain. Every Thursday before Saturday’s sporting schedule bets were made. These bets were small and became a weekly ritual for approximately 40 percent of the male population by 1935. According to an observer called Smith in 1935, people with a marginal and insecure income gambled to gain pleasure in those hard times. “Pleasure lasts for some days and disappointment is only momentary”. Cross goes on to explain that it was not just any form of betting that was ok, because the male British workers despised bingo and lottery, seeing them as “mindless” games. These workers preferred the “learned guesses” based on information from sporting magazines and “inside tips”. Those bets gave men without public stature the opportunity once a week to make decisions. In this way gambling filled a need! Obviously, the first need was that of gaining some money. But let us critically assess this again: Some gambling is mindless and other gambling is not... It seems to me that this was a culture generated by the media. A need has been created for those sporting magazines. Again the Id which Freud describes has been set free. The Id is the pleasure seeker and will do anything to become satisfied. As bingo is “mindless”, is it not even more mindless to first buy a sporting magazine, secondly place a bet and thirdly still not win money? This again is what Veblen called conspicuous consumption: the method of being noticed in the crowd of consumers by your purchase.

Money also had a social significance. It was associated with wealth and respectability, especially for the late Victorian worker. A Victorian house was full of clutter. They collected everything and the only purpose for it was to display it to visitors. According to a popular saying “A Victorian’s home was their palace”. A mid 19th century sermon tells woman, who were responsible for the household, to “strive to make a home something like a bright, serene, restful, joyful nook of heaven in an un-heavenly world.” Women took their inspiration to decorate the house from the Aristocracy. Image was important, even in the home. That is why there was so much clutter: if you could buy, you were wealthy.

As this spending continued through the 1930s, Greenwood described that the unemployed were “suddenly awakened to the fact that they were prisoners” because they “could not buy their way into places of amusement”. The doors were “closed against them”. Cross says that the jobless dreamed of the respect and freedom that came from the ability to consume. That is why English workers resisted controlling their leisure or consumption no matter what efforts were made by the government. The risk of losing face from not being able to spend went even further as the “male providers” reduced the percentage given to wives for household management. Sons could even keep their apprenticeship pay as the parents wanted to disguise their lack of money. In those days, to keep up appearances was the most important thing to do. Spending was associated with freedom and manhood. People judged others by their houses and cars as they “do know money, but do not know you!” The social isolation of the jobless only reinforced this tendency to make such judgements.

An observation made by Cross is that “The trauma of austerity centred on frustrating efforts to maintain consumption routines”. English workers had to go to the “right sort of cinema” and they tried to maintain the annual habit of “summer holidays”. Not only had the English worker to maintain his consumption routines, as Veblen notes he also had to know HOW to consume them. The worker had to cultivate his tastes, because that was also a way for people to notice where you really come from. All this could be done through deficit spending which was introduced by Alfred Sloane, the president of General Motors, in the roaring twenties. Alfred Sloane introduced the national consumer credit agency in 1919 in order to make his cars affordable, because he believed that Americans were willing to pay extra for luxury and prestige. And he was right! Figures say that by 1932, 60 percent of furniture, cars and household appliances were bought on hire purchase. Because of the sharp decreases in food prices, they could keep up spending on “extras” like women’s clothing and car ownership. Car ownership was associated with the “American Dream” which in turn was associated with self-respect. Looking back to the Depression years, it sounds stupid that car ownership was associated with self-respect, but today that has not changed at all. Not only do mothers and fathers “need” to have a car, if it is feasible all children “need” to have one as well.

This self-respect was put under a lot of pressure, as the unemployed could not keep up social obligations in spending. This affected the “pub-life” because jobless persons were unable to participate in the ritual of “standing rounds”. The jobless could not even organise a card game as they were obliged to serve food and drinks as well. This humiliation obsessed men and some even abandoned old hobbies.

Cross stated the existence of the “male-provider-role” earlier. It is really important to emphasise that it was very frustrating for the male provider not to be able to provide for his family. For him it was hell because it was his “manhood” that was at stake. To give an example that the men were right about the effects on their manhood, is that some women denied sex to their jobless husbands. Men were also afraid to lose the love of their children because that relationship was based on coerced respect. How could unemployed men give authority, when society saw them as losers? Other examples that consumption was a part of a complex culture of domestic respectability are that the working class had a fixation on maintaining a pristine front room and on keeping up life-insurance payments.

It was inevitable that women would eventually enter the workforce. They gradually replaced wage-earning children as sources of supplemental family income. We could expect a role reversal of sorts to follow. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women compounded duty in house and wage work. (Seventy years later women still do the same!) Instead of only managing the household duties, they now had a double task. But in a way, women wanted to keep it like this as doing the household was their normal “rich” way of living. Managing the household was so important that in the last quarter of the 19th century domestic manuals were written for women. John Ruskin wrote “The woman’s power is not for rule –not for battle – and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, management and decision”. This is to illustrate that women were really conditioned to believe that managing the household was their true duty. Tidiness does appeal. According to Veblen it appeals because we have been taught to find them pleasing. He goes on in a very straightforward way that the housewife’s efforts were “under the guidance of traditions that have been shaped by the law of conspicuously wasteful expenditure of time and substance”. Women needed jobs, as working was the only way to earn some money to get access to the consumer society and to eventually keep up appearances.

Of course there were women who did not want to devote their lives to being a household manager. The legacy of design movements give us a good representation of how a woman was seen. In the Art Nouveau movement for example, women were being portrayed either in a vulnerable position or as a femme fatale. The femme fatale was of course the rebellious woman, the woman who according to society did not know how to behave in a correct way.

As women were so anxious to keep managing the household duties in the 1930s, it clearly affected the “Children of the Depression”. Daughters were denied support for further education. Their education was to be a good housewife. If mothers could not follow the “perfect way of living”, they definitely wanted it to be followed by their daughters. Put in that perspective, it was of course very well intended. It is no crime to want the best for your daughters, but it could still be seen as wrong. No matter which gender, everyone has the right to a good education. Education makes people aware of the rights they have, it keeps people from being ignorant. Educated people can give criticism and they have the ability to do something about it from inside the system. But in the Depression days, it was more important for girls to be good housewives. For the boys, both the “fraternity of spending” and the “provider role” were reinforced. In the 1950s, as these children had become adults, we see strong dominations in gender roles. Wandersee states that this “gender system was founded on consumption (being able to buy and provide) and on full-time employment (Manhood).” Cross says that neither women nor men wished to abandon these roles as it was the “ideal balance”.

Populist intellectuals never understood the working people’s “nostalgia for an ascetic community of neighbours around leisure”. And conservative observers did not want to presume that “wage-earners with free time would do nothing but become victims of the con men of consumerism or escape freedom in overtime and moonlighting”. But there was and still is a chasm that separates intellectuals from the working classes. Wage- earners just responded to the ever-changing context of their concrete lives.

Due to the impact of mass consumerism in the 1920s and the impact of the Depression in the 1930s, workers defined themselves less as jobholders and more as consumers, poverty was not a general trend but was restricted to “de-industrialized” regions. Instead of revolting against capitalism, they were too humiliated by their unemployment. It would have been easier for them if they recognized that their friends were in the same boat. People always tend to think that the grass is greener on the other side. Because they did not want to see themselves as jobless and because they did not see that others were in the same boat, gender roles were being reinforced.

It must not be forgotten that advertising, the media and instalment-buying created a precocious consumerism in America from the 1920s. Fox said that “All seemed united by their commitment to acquiring the mass marketed tokens of the American standard of living.” So it was no wonder that during the Depression people who didn’t possess the ability to buy lost their self-respect. They could not compete with the more affluent anymore. After the Depression, as a reaction to its impact, these people sought to join the middle class again in sampling the satisfactions that advertisers and their neighbours had continuously displayed during the lean years.

In conclusion Cross states that the social bias he previously described was not merely a product of the Depression. In fact, it was that prejudice that made it worse. Consumerism met accustomed social needs while undermining social contacts. Spending both comforted and fulfilled dreams. Veblen said that the utility of spending was the element of waste. Waste of time and effort e.g. the housewife. Waste of goods e.g. purpose is to exhibit. Both these wastes are methods of demonstrating the possession of wealth.

A final representation of the housewife in the 1930s comes from the book: Things my mother should have told me. The poem is called A prayer for Womankind:

God, give each true good woman
Her own small house to keep
No heart should ache with longing
No hurt should go too deep
Grant her age-old desire:
A house to love and sweep.

Endnotes:

1. Digital History. The consumer economy and mass entertainment. [WWW]. Available from: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display_printable.cfm?HHID=454 [accessed 10/11/2004].
   
2. Digital History. The consumer economy and mass entertainment. [WWW]. Available from: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display_printable.cfm?HHID=454 [accessed 10/11/2004].
   
3. The Roaring Twenties, ( ). Film, dir
   
4. Blecher G., (26/5/2004). A century on conspicuous consumption. [WWW]. Available from: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA542.htm [accessed 18/11/2004]
   
5. Sivulka J., (1998). Soap, sex and cigarettes. USA:Wadsworth Publishing Company.
   
6. Balio , (1993). Grand Design : Hollywood as a Modern Enterprise 1930-1939.
   
7. Digital History. The consumer economy and mass entertainment. [WWW]. Available from: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display_printable.cfm?HHID=454 [accessed 10/11/2004].