A “Roaring Twenties” Perspective On the Power of Consumer Revolution

In "Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress," author and innovation historian Jason Voiovich takes readers on a captivating journey through the fascinating decade of the 1920s. 

It’s a book that not only sheds light on iconic figures like Al Capone, Babe Ruth, and Coco Chanel but also delves deep into the heart of the Consumer Revolution that defined this era. 

Through a blend of fun, fast-paced storytelling and insightful analysis, Voiovich uncovers the origins of our modern consumer culture, revealing how the 1920s reshaped not just what we buy but how we perceive ourselves in society.

The Roaring Twenties were a time of unparalleled societal transformation, yet their true significance often eludes us. Voiovich skillfully reminds us that this was not just a period of excess and indulgence but a time when innovators understood the desires of the average American and catered to them with ingenuity and flair.

Al Capone, with his understanding of the working class's need for a drink after a hard day's work, exemplified the spirit of the era. Babe Ruth, by giving people a show on the baseball field, transcended mere sportsmanship and became an entertainment icon. Meanwhile, Coco Chanel challenged traditional fashion norms, liberating women from constricting corsets and showcasing the power of self-expression through clothing.

Voiovich's storytelling prowess shines as he paints vivid portraits of these characters and their contributions to the Consumer Revolution. He seamlessly weaves together anecdotes and insights, making the history of the 1920s come alive on the pages.

One of the book's strengths is its ability to connect the past to the present. Voiovich encourages readers to reflect on how the choices we make as consumers impact not only our lives but also the world around us. He highlights the importance of being informed consumers and making choices that align with our values.

The endorsements from industry experts and historians speak to the book's quality and its ability to bridge the gap between history and marketing. It's a testament to Voiovich's expertise in both fields that he can deliver such a well-researched and engaging narrative.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of "Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress" is the empowerment it offers to readers. As we delve deeper into the book's pages, we begin to see ourselves not as passive consumers but as individuals with the power to shape the market and influence the world around us. 

Voiovich's book serves as a reminder that we are not mere sheep in the hands of Madison Avenue but rather private tycoons with the ability to bend the market to our whims.

"Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress" is a captivating exploration of a pivotal decade in American history. Through the stories of Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Coco Chanel, and many others, Jason Voiovich brings the 1920s to life, shedding light on the birth of modern consumer culture. 

This book is not only an entertaining read but also a thought-provoking reminder of the power each of us holds as consumers. It's a must-read for anyone interested in history, marketing, and the enduring impact of the Roaring Twenties on our lives today.

Jason Voiovich

In “Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress,” you delve into the 1920s as the origin of modern consumerism. Could you share what you think was the single most influential factor from that era that has shaped today’s consumer culture?

JV: Three unifying trends catalyzed consumer culture: mass production, mass finance, and mass marketing. We needed to be able to produce enough stuff, fast enough, at a price people could afford. If we couldn’t afford it when we wanted it, we needed to invent a consumer credit system to front us the cash. And none of that mattered if we didn’t know about those new options and didn’t desire them. Those trends merged during the 1920s; that’s why we call them the “Roaring 20s.”

However, that’s looking at it from the producer’s point of view. The biggest (unexpected) shift happened inside the average person’s consciousness. The birth of consumer culture in the 1920s marked the transition from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset.

As just one example, I retell the story of Clarence Birdseye and the introduction of frozen foods. Before the 1920s, if you wanted fresh vegetables out of season, you were out of luck. That’s why canning, smoking, and drying were so popular. But pickled veggies are no substitute for fresh ones. 

Birdseye ultimately came up with a way to flash-freeze meats, vegetables, and fruits without the reheated food tasting like mush. Think about that for a second. By the end of the 1920s, you could order ocean swordfish for dinner, with fresh vegetables, in the middle of Kansas, in the winter. It was mind-blowing. 

And that was just food. That sort of transformation happened in every corner of the economy with every product imaginable. Our choices exploded overnight.

Your book explores various innovations, from frozen food to diaphragms. Which of these innovations do you believe had the most surprising or unintended impact on society, and why?

JV: Family planning was the single most transformational innovation of the 1920s. To be clear, human couples have been trying to manage family size for millennia – don’t Google “crocodile dung” if you’re squeamish. However, the true innovation wasn’t effective condoms or diaphragms. Both of those had been available for decades. What was lacking was effective sexual education, especially for women.

Feminist firebrand Margaret Sanger – more well-known (and often reviled) for founding Planned Parenthood – got her start writing highly detailed pamphlets and books covering all aspects of reproductive life for women. 

Women used that knowledge to choose when and how many children to have and, just as importantly, to increase their sexual satisfaction. Most people point to the advent of the birth control pill in the 1950s as the beginning of the family planning movement. They’ve got the idea right, but the generation wrong.

In the end, family planning and its impacts (later marriages and fewer children) changed nearly everything about modern society. 

You mention empowering readers to make better consumer choices. Can you provide a specific example or story from your book that illustrates how understanding the history of consumerism can influence our decisions today?

JV: The rise of credit unions signaled that consumers sought education about making choices as much as they wanted the latest new gadget. The basic idea behind a credit union is simple: Find a group of people sharing a common interest, educate them on how to make sound financial decisions, and use the collective resources of the group to finance their needs. Because members own a credit union and not investors (like a bank), the credit union has more incentive to ensure its members understand money.

Of course, the banks didn’t like the competition and fought hard against credit union legislation. However, with the resources of department store magnate Edward Filene and tireless advocate Roy Bergengren, credit unions became a powerful banking alternative by the end of the decade. (And, it should be noted, they performed better than banks overall during the coming crash in the Great Depression.)

Most importantly, credit unions served groups of people largely ignored by the banking system – poor farmers, Black tradespeople, and small businesses, among many others – especially in the South. These groups may not have had much money (yet), but with more financial education, they would build wealth over time.

The 1920s were a time of great social and cultural change. How do you think the consumer revolution of that era compares to the digital and technological revolutions we're experiencing now?

JV: You might be surprised how similar the world of the 1920s is to today’s information revolution. Here’s a description of the problem the founders of Time magazine faced in the early 1920s:

“It wasn’t just that people didn’t have a place to make sense of the world around them; the world was racing away from them. People were awash in new product advertisements, world news, cultural upheaval, and celebrity gossip everywhere they looked. The pace of change was accelerating so rapidly that many simply gave up…..

……The true problem wasn’t information – there was actually too much information. The problem was not enough context. There was no one place where people could go to get informed about the day’s news. No one could make sense of it all. The solution they proposed was an entirely new media creation: the “news magazine.” It would filter out the week’s noise and give readers just what they needed to know and why they needed to know it.”

Sound familiar? In a way, it feels good that we’ve been struggling with information overload for over 100 years. The bad news is that we’re still struggling with it. It helps explain why much of the media we consume today spends more time on interpretation and opinion than fact delivery – there is simply too much information to consume. 

The good news is that American consumers (by and large) have become skilled at sorting the wheat from the chaff. Because there are so many choices for information, we choose the ones that best make sense of it for us. That means different things to different people, and that’s only natural. 

As choice makers, we decide what version of reality best fits our individual needs at the time. We may disagree with the choices others make and the products and information others consume, but at the same time, we’re loathe to allow others to choose for us.

In your book, you discuss the dark side of consumer culture, including its environmental impact. What lessons from the 1920s do you think are most pertinent for addressing today's environmental challenges related to consumerism?

JV: If we wanted to choose just one, the poster child for environmental impact would be so-called “fast fashion.” This refers to poorly-made, on-trend clothing meant to take advantage of immediate market opportunities – common triggers include capitalizing on a social media meme or mimicking something an influencer wore to a party. 

The idea isn’t to make clothing built to last but rather to sell clothing built for the moment. It may only be worn once…if at all. Once the moment passes, those clothes usually end up in a landfill.

That wasn’t Coco Chanel’s original idea. She focused on making durable, wearable (yet still highly elegant) fashion affordable and accessible to all women, not simply the elites and wealthy. The transformation was profound. Chanel allowed us to craft (and recraft) our identities through our outward appearance. She certainly didn’t advocate throwing clothing away after wearing it once – quite the contrary.

Most people take the word “consumer” literally – to extract, take, and ingest…and then throw away when we’re finished. A more accurate and constructive view is to take the word consumer figuratively – redefining consumer as a choice maker. 

That’s the big theme of the book. In fact, most of the book talks about choices people make that have nothing to do with buying products. Once people got the idea they could choose what they purchased, they extended that choice-making power to the rest of their lives. That’s why this is such a big deal.

Let’s revisit Chanel’s underlying goal to see that in practice. It wasn’t about clothes, it was about identity. Channels helped us create our identities through our choices. We can choose to reject fast fashion. We can choose to express on-trend looks in different ways – a digital avatar instead of a physical one. In other words, consumer choices don’t need to be destructive and wasteful. That’s what Chanel would have wanted.

Kirkus Reviews praises your book’s engaging and accessible style. Was this a conscious decision to make the complex history of consumerism more approachable, and how did you balance entertainment with educational content?

JV: First off, I’m a voraciously curious person. I can’t turn it off. It makes me happy. I think that joy comes through in the writing, and I’m not sure I could do it any other way.

But strategically, I learned that many of my readers are new to history – they haven’t read a history book since high school (if they even read one then) and wouldn’t think to binge Ken Burns documentaries. I want to introduce those people to how exciting history can be, so writing with a bit of flair and a variety of subjects is a nice gateway into more and deeper treatments of each subject. (I add links to further reading to help them along.)

For another group – the history lovers – the only way they’ll hear about the history of advertising, marketing, and consumer culture is in the context of how terrible it is. Consumer behavior is almost a dirty word – vulgar, not worthy of “legitimate” history like wars and politics. 

But for most of us, what’s more important to our daily lives? World War I or the creation of the home mortgage and installment payment plans? I think we know the answer, even if we don’t want to admit it. I want to challenge the prevailing way people think about consumer culture – not as an apologist for its excesses, but actually to show the full picture so that we can make better decisions in our daily lives.

Finally, what do you hope your readers will do differently in their daily lives after reading 'Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress'? Is there a particular mindset or habit you aim to change or challenge through your book?

JV: When most people think of automobiles, they think of one person and one car: Henry Ford and the Model T. While critically important to the adoption of the automobile in 1920s America, he wasn’t the most important figure after 1927 (when Model T sales peaked). 

The most important person to know is Alfred Sloan, the head of General Motors. The GM team introduced the “product ladder” – affordable Chevrolets to luxury Cadillacs – so that everyone could afford the right car for them. GM also introduced the model year change so that innovation had a timetable that consumers could count on. GM also introduced installment financing with GMAC so consumers could afford that new car. 

The net effect of all those innovations was that GM took the top spot from Ford and never looked back. GM became the largest company in the United States (and the world!) for decades by responding to consumer desires.

However, despite all that power, Sloan (in his autobiography) wrote that he lived in constant fear of changing consumer tastes. He feared us. He knew that at any time, we could vote with our wallets and put his company out of business, just like it had done for so many of his competitors.

We’re trained to think of big business as all-powerful, but Sloan was right to be scared. In 1958, the average life expectancy of a firm on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was 61 years. By 2020, it was less than 18 years. They estimate that by 2027, 75 percent of all companies on that list will have ceased to exist. 

The traditional explanation for this trend is that competition between businesses has sharpened, that the pace of change is accelerating, and that big companies struggle to balance profitability and innovation. However, a better explanation is that consumers are getting better at exercising their power, and we’re putting companies out of business faster than ever.

We can change the world with our choices. It’s time we started acting like it.

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