As they opened their September 1929 issue, readers of the Ladies Home Journal were treated to an account of the care and feeding of young Livingston Ludlow Biddle III, son and heir of the wealthy Biddles of Philadelphia, whose family coat-of-arms graced the upper right-hand corner of the page. Young Master Biddle, mounted on his tricycle, fixed a serious, slightly pouting gaze upon the reader, while the Cream of Wheat Corporation rapturously explained his constant care, his carefully regulated play and exercise, and the diet prescribed for him by “famous specialists.” As master of Sunny Ridge Farm, the Biddle’s winter estate in North Carolina, young Livingston III had “enjoyed every luxury of social position and wealth since the day he was born.” Yet, by the grace of modern providence, it happened that Livingston’s health was protected by “a simple plan every mother can use.” Mrs. Biddle gave Cream of Wheat to the young heir for both breakfast and supper. The world’s foremost child experts knew of no better diet; great wealth could procure no finer nourishment. Cream of Wheat summarized the central point of the advertisement by claiming that “every mother can give her youngsters the fun and benefits of a Cream of Wheat breakfast just as do the parents of these boys and girls who have the best that wealth can command.”
While enjoying this glimpse of childrearing among the socially distinguished, Ladies Home Journal readers found themselves drawn in by one of the most pervasive of all advertising strategies of the 1920s– the concept of the Democracy of Goods. According to this idea, the wonders of modern mass production and distribution enabled everyone to enjoy society’s most desirable pleasures, conveniences, or benefits. The particular pleasure, benefit, or convenience varied, of course, with each advertiser who used the formula. But the cumulative effect of the constant reminders that “any woman can . . .” and “every home can afford . . .” was to publicize an image of American society in which concentrated wealth at the top of a hierarchy of social classes restricted no family’s opportunity to acquire the most desirable products. By implicitly defining “democracy” in terms of equal access to consumer products, these advertisements offered Americans an inviting vision of their society as one of incontestable equality.
In its most common advertising formula, the concept of the Democracy of Goods asserted that although the rich enjoyed a great variety of luxuries, the acquisition of their one most precious luxury would provide anyone with the ultimate in satisfaction. For instance, a Chase and Sanborn’s Coffee advertisement, with an elegant butler serving a family in a dining room with a sixteen-foot ceiling, reminded Chicago families that although “compared with the riches of the more fortunate, your way of life may seem modest indeed,” yet no one– “king, prince, statesman, or capitalist” – could enjoy better coffee. The association of Soap and Glycerine
Producers proclaimed that the charm of cleanliness was as readily available to the poor as to the rich, and Ivory Soap reassuringly related how one young housewife, who couldn’t afford a $780-a-year maid like her neighbor, still maintained “nice hands” by using Ivory. The C.F. Church Manufacturing Company epitomized this feature of the Democracy of Goods technique in an ad entitled “a bathroom luxury everyone can afford”: “If you lived in one of those palatial apartments on Park Avenue in New York City, where you have to pay $2,000 to $7,000 a year rent, you still couldn’t have a better toilet seat in your bathroom than they have– the Church Sani-white Toilet Seat, which you can afford to have right now.”
Thus, according to the concept of the Democracy of Goods, no differences in wealth could prevent the humblest citizens, provided they chose their purchases wisely, from coming home to a setting in which they could contemplate their essential equality, through possession of a particular product, with the nation’s millionaires. In 1929, Howard Dickinson, a contributor to Printers’ Ink, concisely expressed the social psychology behind Democracy of Goods advertisements: “With whom do the mass of people think they want to foregather?” asks the psychologist in advertising. “Why, with the wealthy and socially distinguished, of course! If we can’t get an invitation to tea for our millions of customers, we can at least present the fellowship of using the same brand of merchandise. And it works.”
ESSAY TOPIC
According to Marchand, how are those who are not part of the wealthy class portrayed in advertisements from the 1920s? Do you think today’s advertisements (typically found in television, the Internet, social media, radio, magazines, newspapers, and periodicals) use similar portrayals of those who are not part of the wealthy class? To develop your essay, be sure to discuss the appeals of specific advertisements from any of the media.
