Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market by Susan Strasser

Abstract

364 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE of the countryside and of farm values. I was also unconvinced by his treatment of “the professionalization of salesmanship.” He argues that a new code of conduct emerged. But I found a reward system framed almost entirely in terms of productivity more persuasive then the rhetoric about “force of character.” These problems notwithstanding, Making America Corporate is an absolutely essential addition to the bookshelf of any scholar interested in the “organizational synthesis” and 20th-century, middle-class Amer­ ica. The author asks exciting questions and gets some answers that will be the focal point of scholarly discourse for years to come. Along the way, he provides us with a carefully documented, carefully reasoned history of an intricate social process that was all-important to millions of Americans and should now be equally important to the nation’s historians. With the publication of this new book, the process and its history at last get the attention they deserve. Louis Galambos Dr. Galambos is professor of history and editor of the Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower at Johns Hopkins University. He has worked on large-scale, modern organizations for most of his career, and his most recent book, with Joseph Pratt, is The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 1988). Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market. By Susan Strasser. New York: Pantheon, 1989. Pp. xi + 339; illustra­ tions, notes, index. $24.95 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). In Satisfaction Guaranteed, Susan Strasser provides an overview of the changes in distribution, advertising, and merchandising in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a welcome addition to our understanding of the period. Indeed, the development of a mass market was an integral element in the emergence of mass-production technology and one of the most distinctive features of 20th-century American culture. Strasser takes a broad view of “the making of the American mass market,” focusing not only on distribution and advertising, but also on market research and retailing. Along with Richard Tedlow’s New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America, this work highlights the growing interest among historians in marketing and merchandising during the decades around 1900. Procter and Gamble’s introduction of Crisco shortening in 1912 is the focus of the first chapter. But in many respects, Crisco marks the conclusion of Strasser’s story. It serves as a textbook example of the trends in mass marketing that were at work between 1880 and the 1910s. Crisco appears to have represented the state-of-the-art in consumer marketing during the 1910s. With Crisco, Procter and TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 365 Gamble is seen working on new product development, wrestling with product brand names, experimenting with varied sales and marketing strategies, and currying the support of distributors and grocers. This sophisticated marketing approach stood in sharp contrast to P&G’s more primitive efforts during the early 1880s to promote Ivory soap. In many cases, the manufacturers of food products and other goods had made substantial capital investments in continuous-flow or large-batch production and now sought to manage the market for their products. They faced numerous obstacles in their quest for greater control over demand. For example, independent retailers viewed brand names and mass advertising with suspicion and even hostility. Both developments reduced retailers’ freedom to choose among suppliers and undercut their traditional influence over con­ sumer decisions. However, a far more serious challenge to manufac­ turers came from a new force—mass merchandisers. Strasser argues that department stores, chain stores, and mail-order Arms, with their emphasis on rapid turnover and low prices, threatened newly won brand loyalties by focusing consumer attention back toward price. Moreover, the tendency of these mass merchandisers to advertise discounted prices on brand names jeopardized the manufacturers’ tenuous relationship with small grocers. Manufacturers responded with programs like Kellogg’s “Square Deal Policy,” an attempt to fix retail prices on the firm’s cereal products. Along with New and Improved, Satisfaction Guaranteed will serve as a standard reference on the history of mass marketing. Both books are well written and together they provide...