Frugality or Comfort: Middle-Class Styles of Life in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY, AMERICANS BEGAN TO PAY SYSTEMATIC attention to how middle-class households spent their money. Inflation and new patterns of consumption, class relationships, and family life prompted interest in the way the middle class made budgetary choices. As labor lost some of its potential for providing satisfaction and as the line between work and leisure became more distinct, questions about how people spent their time and money became more critical. Middle-class families faced an increasing choice of goods and services. Moreover, changes in family life and gender relationships-new sexual mores, the entrance of women into professional and service occupations, and the increased independence of women-intensified the strain within households. The development of new institutions of mass culture threatened the dominance and health of a crumbling genteel culture that had stood as a bulwark of Victorian life. Ostentatious patterns of leisure and consumption among the wealthy and greater awareness of the expressive quality of immigrant and working-class culture made middle-class observers intent on defining more clearly the borders separating them from those above and below.'