Imagining Consumers : Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning / / Regina Lee Blaszczyk.

• Author: Blaszczyk, Regina Lee.
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in industry and society.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (1 online resource (xiii, 380 pages :); illustrations, plates).
• Notes: Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.; The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License; Originally published as Johns Hopkins Press in 2000

In contrast, companies that tried to stimulate desire, reshape taste, and encourage profligate spending by using the tools of persuasion - mass advertising, extravagant styling, and installment selling - found their efforts thwarted, for consumers refused to buy products that they did not really want."--Jacket.

"Imagining Consumers is the first book to tell the story of American consumer society from the perspective of mass-market manufacturers and retailers. It relates the trials and tribulations of china and glassware producers in their contest for the hearts of working- and middle-class women, who by the 1920s made up more than 80 percent of those buying mass-manufactured goods. Following a model pioneered by Josiah Wedgwood during Great Britain's eighteenth-century industrial revolution, successful American manufacturers closely collaborated with retailers to sort out consumer priorities and tailored their products accordingly.

Table of Contents

Cinderella Stories -- China Mania -- Beauty for a Dime -- Fiesta! -- Better Products for Better Homes -- Pyrex Pioneers -- Easier Living? -- Essay on Sources.