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Selling Mrs. Consumer

Frederick, Christine McGaffey, 1883-

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consumers -- united states., home economics, cost and standard of living -- united states.

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Glorifying the Amrricnn I lnuseii

By Neysa McMein I series l>y famous artists; courtesy B. T. Babbitt

Selling

Mrs. Consumer

by Mrs. Christine Frederick

Founder and Director Applecroft Home Experiment Station, Greenlawn, Long Island; counsellor to manufacturers on marketing home goods; author of "The New Housekeeping" (now translated into six foreign languages) ; "Efficient Housekeeping" (text book used in hundreds of home economics study courses) ; ex-consulting household editor Ladies' Home Journal and ex-household editor of various large women's magazines; newspaper syndicate writer on home eco- nomics to millions of newspaper readers each week. Lecturer in America and abroad on Chautauqua circuits, at advertising conventions, and clubs, Chambers of Commerce, retail institutes and sales conventions on home economics; founder of first advertising women's organization; first to apply the principles of scientific management to home; first woman consumer to address Congres- sional hearings on distribution and home buying problems.

THE BUSINESS BOURSE NEW YORK MCMXXIX

. > a

Printed in the United States of America

"Happy are the people whose annals are blank in history books." — Carlyle.

"The silence of the people is a lesson for Kings." — Abbe de Beauvais at the funeral of Louis XV.

Contents BOOK ONE

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Growing Recognition of Need for Consumer

Study 3

1. The Consumer in Control. — 2. Failure and Loss Due to Ignorance of Consumer.

II. The Facts Regarding Mrs. Consumer's Buying

Power 11

3. The High Status of American Women in Family Spending. — 4. The Explanation of Mrs. Consumer's Buying Power. — 5. The Figures Showing Mrs. Con- sumer's Buying Power. — 6. Baby and Children's Market.

III. What the Average Mrs. Consumer Is Like ... 19

7. The Average Mrs. Consumer's Education, Literacy and Vocabulary. — 8. General Character of Mrs. Con- sumer.— 9. Types and Classifications of Women Con- sumers.— 10. Statistical Analysis of Women's Sizes and Types. — 11. Guessing at Mrs. Consumer's Char- acter.

IV. Changed Consumer Habits and Purchases ... 29

12. The Six New Criterions of American Women. — . Food as an Index of Consumer Change. — 14. Growth of Eating Outside the Home. — 15. The De- cline of Meat. — 16. Frantic Efforts to Stop the Tides of Change.— 17. Taking It Out on the Textiles.— 18. The Things That Are Gaining. — 19. General Consumption Changes. — 20. Changes in Attitude. — 21. Mrs. Consumer Is Looking for Effects. — 22. Changes Toward Price.

vii

CHAPTER PAGE

V. Feminine Instincts and Buying Psychology . . 43

23. A List of the Instincts of Woman.— 24. The Er- ror of Wrong Appeals. — 25. The Importance of Woman's Unconscious Self. — 26. "Unconscious" Sell- ing Campaigns. — 27. Woman's Passivity and Nega- tivity.— 28. Mrs. Consumer and Inferiority-Superi- ority Feelings. — 29. Woman's Suggestibility. — 30. Women and Eye- Appeal. — 31. Men's Understanding of Women. — 32. Bargain Psychology and Mrs. Con- sumer.— 33. Women as Learners.

VI. A Study of Purchases as Between Men and

Women 54

34. Statistics of What Women Buy. — 35. Statistics of Retail Purchases by Men and Women. — 36. Sex Differences Disappear at Upper Levels.

VII. The Relative Strength of Appeals to Women . . 60

37. Precise Ratings for Sales Appeals to Women. —

38. Analysis of Breakfast Food Appeals. — 39. Study of Toilet Soap Appeals.

VIII. The Ten Levels of American Consumers ... 63

1. The Croesus Level. — 2. The Super-Liberal Level. —3. The Well-to-do-Level— 4. The Liberal Level. —5. The Moderate Level.— 6. The Comfortable Level. — 7. The Minimum Comfort Level. — 8. The Subsistence Level. — 9. The Bare Subsistence Level. — 10. The Poverty Level.

IX. Luxury Buying and Mrs. Consumer .... 72

40. Loose Talk about "Luxuries" and Necessities. —

41. Relative Degrees in Luxury and Necessity. — 42. Clothing and Household Equipment as "Luxury." — 43. The Real Luxuries.— 44. "Creative Waste" in Family. — 45. A Measure of the Taste of Mrs. Con- sumer.

X. Women's Wealth and Income 85

46. Some Revealing Facts of Women's Wealth. —

47. What the Income Tax Reveals.

XI. Market Research and Consumer Reaction . . 89

48. "X-Raying" the Consumer.— 49. The Twenty

viii

CHAPTER PAGE

Uses of Consumer Research. — 50. The Usefulness of the Consumer Questionnaire. — 51. The Cost of Con- sumer Research. — 52. Swift Consumer Changes of Today. — 53. Recording a Consumer's Buying His- tory.— 54. Use of Consumer Research for Trade Selling. — 55. Analysis of Volume of Consumer Buy- ing.— 56. Amateurish Consumer Research. — 57. Vital Style Research. — 58. Rivalry in Consumer Knowl- edge.

BOOK TWO

XII. Some Details of Per Capita and Per Family

Consumption 103

59. A Per Capita Contrast to 1875.— 60. Curious Contrasts.

XIII. How Mrs. Consumer Is Changing the American

Diet 115

61. The Ten Trends in American Diet. — 62. De- cline in Total Average Per Capita Food Consump- tion.— 63. Why the American Family Is Eating Less Each Year. — 64. Changes in Occupation and Climate Affect Diet. — 65. Speeding Up Provides Less Leisure for Eating. — 66. Cooking no Longer ''Conspicuous Consumption." — 67. Marked Ten- dency Toward Diversified Diet. — 68. Hotel Influence on Home Cookery. — 69. The Neglect of Native or Sectional Dishes. — 70. Mrs. Consumer's Great Re- ceptivity to Food Suggestions. — 71. The Story of Broccoli. — 72. The Psychological Method of Es- tablishing New Food Habits. — 73. What's Next in Foods ?

XIV. "Feeding" versus "Cooking" 129

74. Buying Food for Family Nutritive Values. — 75. How the Housewife Came to "Know Her Calories." — 76. Influence of Health, Vegetarian, and Beauty Trends. — 77. Vitamins and Their Relation to Vege- tables, Vitality and Vim. — 78. The History of Vita- mins.— 79. What Foods Contain Vitamins. — 80. The Future of Vitamins in Food Selling. — 81. Low- Cost Diet "Miracles."— 82. The Working Girl's Budget. — 83. What Is America's Most Popular Dish?— 84. Typical "Sectional" Meals.

CHAPTER

PAGE 142

XV. Family Expenditure for Food

85. Food Cost in Relation to Family Budgets. —

86. Tables Showing Percentages Spent for Food. —

87. Food Expenditure per Person per Day. — 88. Amount of the Chief Classes of Foodstuffs Used During One Month (with Monthly and Annual Costs). — 89. Calories and Family Food Expendi- ture.— 90. Providing Mrs. Consumer with Food Recipes. — 91. Specifications for a Good Recipe Book- let.— 92. Requirements of Good Recipes. — 93. Good Food Photographs. — 94. Some Menus of Mid-West Mechanics' Families.— 95. The Foods of the For- eign Language Americans.

XVI. Mrs. Consumer and the Tin Can 155

96. What the Tin Can Does for Mrs. Consumer. —

97. Failure of Many Canners to Set Grades. — 98. Grading as Known to the Trade. — 99. Mrs. Con- sumer Demands Reform. — 100. What the Consum- er Hopes to See on the Tin Can Label. — 101. Sim- plification of Grades. — 102. Increasing per Family Volume. — 103. Consumer Attitude Toward Tinned Foods.

XVII. The Household Equipment Revolution . . . 165

104. Our Household Revolution.— 105. The Three Stages of Advance.— 106. The Ten Factors of Change. — 107. Dependence on Devices in Lieu of Servants. — 108. Home Appliances and the Woman's Time. — 109. Is Mrs. Consumer Mechanically Minded? — 110. Study the Consumer's Appliance Needs. — 111. Appliances Which Should Never Have Been Born. — 112. The Cost of Appliances per Use-Unit. — 113. Equipment in Relation to House- hold Budgets.

XVIII. Practical Points in Selling Equipment to Mrs.

Consumer . . 177

114. Appeals Which Sell Household Equipment. —

115. More Power in the Home. — 116. Selling for Use. — 117. Education in the Effective Use of the Appliance. — 118. Adaptation from Hand to Power. — 119. Learning to Judge and Select Appliances. — 120. How to Select the "Best" Appliance in Relation to Consumer Needs. (Example — Washing Ma-

CHAPTER PAGE

chine). — 121. Mrs. Consumer and the Manufactur- er's Instruction Booklet. — 122. What the Manufac- turer's Instruction Booklet Must Cover.

XIX. Women and Drug and Toilet Goods Buying . . 188

123. A Changed, Point of View Toward Cosmetics. — 124. Mrs. Consumer Wants Better Quality Toilet Preparations. — 125. How Cosmetic Sales Are Di- vided.— 126. Cosmetics and the Psychology of the Older Women. — 127. Women Turning to Beauty Parlors. — 128. Special Shades, Scents, etc. for Spe- cial Personality. — 129. Novelty, Style and Package in Toilet Preparations. — 130. Selling Health and Nat- uralness.— 131. General Health Appeal and Drug Selling.

XX. How Women Buy Clothes Today 198

132. Women Know What They Want.— 133. Style and Quality Vitally Important. — 134. Popu- lar Priced Lines. — 135. Types of Clothes Consum- ers Prefer. — 136. Consumer Loyalty to Practical Clothes.— 137. Slower Changes in Fashion.— 138. Ensemble Merchandising in the Style Field. — 139. Average Clothing Budgets. — 140. Farm Women's Expenditure for Clothes. — 141. New York Women's Clothes Expenditures. — 142. Clothing for Women in Average U. S. Family.

XXI. Mrs. Consumer and Home Furnishings . . . 211

143. Why Home Furnishings Declined.— 144. Some Surprising Comparisons. — 145. A Survey of Consumer Lack of Interest. — 146. Why Women Don't Buy Home Furnishings. — 147. Poor Furni- ture Salesmanship. — 148. Mrs. Consumer and Her Floor Coverings. — 149. Unintelligent Carpet and Rug Buying. — 150. Conglomerate Room Furnish- ing.— 151. Silverware and the Housewife. — 152. The Decline of the Heirloom Idea. — 153. Mrs. Con- sumer and General Housefurnishings. — 154. Women and Interior Decoration Furnishings. — 155. The Emerging Bathroom.

XXII. "Merchandising" the Product to Fit Mrs. Con- sumer . . . 223

156. Making Products Without Taking the Con- sumer into Account. — 157. "Simplification" and

CHAPTER PAGE

Mrs. Consumer. — 158. The Threat of "Buying by Specification."

BOOK THREE

XXIII. Scientific Pricing of Household Goods ... 231

159. Mrs. Consumer's Fixed Ideas of Price.— 160. Grouping All Consumers into Price Classes. — 161. Mrs. Consumer's Criticism of So-Called "Scientific Pricing." — 162. Research Facts about Price.

XXIV. The "Hand-to-Mouth Housekeeper" ... 239

163. Mrs. Consumer Learns the Heavy Inventory Lesson. — 164. Why the Consumer Now Buys Hand-to-Mouth. — 165. Manufacturers Negligent of Adjusting to New Needs. — 166. What House- wives Desire. — 167. Hand-to-Mouth Buyers and Luxury Foods. — 168. Some Typical Hand-to- Mouth Menus.

XXV. Obsolescence, Style and the American Con- sumer 245

169. Woman's Love of Change.— 170. A Defini- tion of "Progressive Obsolescence." — 171. The Old Antique- Worshipping Standards. — 172. Con- trasting the European and American Modes of Buy- ing.— 173. The New Obsolescence Psychology of Consumption. — 174. Critics of Obsolescence. — 175. How Progressive Obsolescence Works. — 176. Checking Too Rapid Obsolescence.

XXVI. Mrs. Consumer and the Mass Production-Low-

Price Equation 256

177. Low Price as a Reward for Brand Loyalty. — 178. Examples of Price Lowering. — 179. En- richment of Consumer Dollar. — 180. Maintaining the Prosperity Pace. — 181. The Lesson of the Tex- tile Industries.-^ 182. "Trading Up" and Low Price.— 183. The Lesson of the Buyer's Strike.— 184. The Power of a Dime to Create a Depression. — 185. Consumer Interest in Working Conditions.

XXVII. Mrs. Consumer, Prohibition and Prosperity 269

186. Mrs. Consumer's Envy of the Drink Bill. —

187. Woman's Basic Antipathy to Drink. — 188.

xii

CHAPTER PAGE

How Repeal Would Affect the Family Market Basket. — 189. How Liquor Lessens Other De- sires.

XXVIII. Facts as to the Education of Women In

Homemaking 275

190. A Roster of Agencies for Consumer Educa- tion.— 191. Home Demonstration Work. — 192. A Significant Experiment in County Home Edu- cation.— 193. Consumer Education by Public Utilities. — 194. Cooking Schools Sponsored by Periodicals. — 195. Service Departments Spon- sored by Magazines.

XXIX. Mrs. Consumer and the Retailer . . . . 286

196. The Struggle for Consumer Prestige. — 197. The Private Brand Mistake.— 198. The Re- Awakened Independent Retailer. — 199. Retail Advertising Needs Reform. — 200. Low Grade Sales Practices. — 201. Mrs. Consumer's Need for the Intelligent Merchant. — 202. Making a Sale or Making a Customer. — 203. Store Layout for Consumer Convenience.— 204. Store "Red Tape." — 205. Why Consumers Cease to Trade with a Store. — 206. An Insight into Special Price Sales. — 207. A Study of Merchandise Returns. —

208. What Mrs. Consumer Wants of Retailers.

XXX. New Consumer Attitudes Toward Chain

Stores 302

209. The Chain as a Club on Independents. —

210. Upper Levelsj of Consumers and the Chain. —211. The Chains' Limited Stock.— 212. The Personal Touch and the Chain. — 213. Statistics of Housewives' Opinions on Chains. — 214. Bom- bastic Claims by Chains.

XXXI. New Departures in Distribution and Con- sumer Service 311

215. Mrs. Consumer Calls for Greater Shopping Speed. — 216. Adaptations to the Automobile Era. — 217. Women Entering Distribution. — 218. Mrs. Consumer Likes to Touch Goods. — 219. Popularity of Fixed Price Grades. — 220.. Mrs. Consumer and Distribution Cost. — 221. The Eight Handlers of Eggs. — 222. Distributing a Can of Tomatoes. — 223. Margins on Milk.

xiii

CHAPTER PAGE

XXXII. "Consumer Clubs" and Buying by Specifica- tion versus Brand 319

224. Why "Consumer Clubs" Cannot Function Adequately. — 225. Public Wants Less, Not More Work. — 226. Inability to Reach Large Masses. — 227. Mrs. Consumer's Effective Vote — Repeat Buying. — 228. Consumer Guidance by Periodi- cals.— 229. Bureau of Standard's Certification Plan.— 230. Buying for Utility Is Limited.— 231. Futility of the "Best."— 232. The Values a High Grade Manufacturer Offers.— 233. The Defect in "Buying by Specification.'1— 234. The Politi- cal Approach Wrong.

XXXIII. Mrs. Consumer's Attitude Toward Adver-

tising 333

235. Why Some Women Deny the Potency of Advertising. — 236. Mrs. Consumer's Close Part- nership with American Industry. — 237. Mrs. Consumer Fully Approves Advertising. — 238. Advertising as a Modern Merchandise Fair. — 239. How Advertising Strengthens Rather Than Weakens Character.— 240. The Relation of Good Advertising to Consumer Individuality. — 241. Buying Economy and Standardization Through Advertising. — 242. Inferior Goods and Trade- mark Advertising. — 243. Waste in Advertising. — 244. Research of Consumer Opinion of Ad- vertising.

XXXIV. A Consumer's Criticism of Advertising . . 344

245. Too Little Educational Advertising. — 246. More Reliability of Statement Needed. — 247. Ex- asperating Incompleteness. — 248. Pretty Women as Bait.— 249. A "Horrible Example."— 250. Mrs. Consumer Sensitive to Advertising Folly.

XXXV. Women, Color and Modernistic Art .. . . 353

251. Women's and Men's Color Preferences. —

252. Origin of the "Color-in-the-Kitchen" Move- ment.— 253. How Modernistic Art Was Over- done.— 254. Reaction to Modernistic Design. —255. How the Public Was Won.— 256. The "Livability" of Modernistic Art.— 257. An- tagonism Disappears with Use. — 258. Colors

xiv

CHAPTER

PAGE

and Their Mental Suggestion and Associa- tion.—259. Tests of Color Preference.— 260. Eight Uses of Color in Selling the Housewife. — 261. Color Obsessions in Relation to Food. —

262. Organized Effort to Elevate Manufac- tured Goods Design.

XXXVI. A Consumer Looks at Price Maintenance 369

263. Mrs. Consumer talks to Congress about Price Cutting. — 264. The Consumer's Interest in the Neighborhood Store. — 265. "Sensation Value" in Price Cutting Tactics. — 266. Price Haggling Is Passe. — 267. Price Cutting and Low Grade Working Conditions. — 268. Mrs. Consumer no Longer Quite so Anxious over Price. — 269. The Government's Consumer Research.

XXXVII. A Consumer's Critical Analyses of Instal- ment Buying 379

270. Instalment Not an Industrial Bonanza. —

271. The Novelty Has Worn Off.— 272. In- stalment Mark-up and Interest too High. — 273. Education in Budget Finance. — 274. Character Harm from Over-indulgence in Time Payment Buying.

XXXVIII. A Plan for Capitalizing New Home Equip- ment Purchase for Young Married Couples 388

275. The Age of Emotional vs. The Age of Economic Maturity. — 276. Dorothy Dix's Re- alistic Description. — 277. Why the "Dot Plan" Doesn't Fit America.— 278. A Specific Plan for Capitalizing New Homes. — 279. Some Evils Arising for Lack of This Plan. — 280. Downward Thrust to Lower Living Standards. — 281. The Newly Married House- hold Vital to Sellers of Family Goods.— 282. The Two-Earner Family Standard. — 283. Wives Determined to Maintain Their Level. — 284. Is the Modern Family Permanently Adopting the Two-Earner Standard? — 285. The Pressure on the Family Purse for Edu- cation.

To HERBERT HOOVER

BOOK ONE

The Growing Recognition of Need for Consumer Study

I have never been able to escape, as a home economist, a considerable need for understanding business economics. The moment a consumer becomes conscious of himself or herself as a consumer, that moment is born the necessity of under- standing the closely inter-twined relationship of consumer- distributor-producer. The greater the intelligence of any one of this trinity, the more certain is it that each will comprehend their close relationship, and plan action that is more unified. Just as the capital-labor relationship in America has been vastly improved by recognition of unity, so will the consumer- distributor-producer relationship improve by mutual study.

Speaking now not as an individual but as spokesman for Mrs. Consumer (who has immemorially kept as silent as a sphinx), I make bold to say that by far the least understood of this trio, and by far the most important to understand, is Mrs. Consumer, the American woman in whose hands is con- centrated so enormous a purchasing power. In saying this I am not vaunting Mrs. Consumer's vanity, since she is very largely unconscious of herself in the abstract role of consumer.

I am voicing only the compelling facts of our industrial situa- tion today, as attested by many of our ablest business men and economists. I do not believe I am speaking alone when I say that we are now coming to a great crossroads or turning point in progress. We can go on, mechanistically, and multiply machinery and corporations and technical skill to some end or other that does not seem clear, in a narrow search for profit; or we can advance along the lines of our new vision of in- creased consumption and consumer welfare as the guiding touchstone of our work, and realize what seems the new promise of great human advance.

There are plenty of signs that the first policy is dangerous and unsound; but that the second is a matchless contribution which America can hope to make to greatness in civilization — the spread of wealth in the form of goods for consumption to all classes, to a degree never known before, and on a principle which is a complete overturn of old hard-and-fast economic principles.

How are the vast and wonderful factories of America to keep their wheels moving? Something like 40% of our total factory production capacity is unable to find consumers, I am told on reliable authority. Nor is the situation confined to the factory; it is precisely the same on the farm and in all fields of production for consumption. The Government is advising growers to cut down their plantings and harvestings to fit con- sumption. Even the government-controlled growing of rub- ber, coffee, sugar, etc., have not sufficed to prevent the bonds from straining and breaking and prices falling because of over- production; all because of the consumer's failure to consume more.

Always the trail, however winding, leads to the consumer and consumer psychology. A hundred thousand anxious busi- ness eyes are upon Mrs. Consumer, and the number of these eyes increases every time that a business man or a farmer becomes intelligent enough to really understand the machinery of production and distribution. The least understood thing in the entire chain of economics today is consumption and con- sumers. "Consumptionism" is the name given to the new

doctrine ; and it is admitted today to be the greatest idea that America has to give to the world; the idea that workmen and the masses be looked upon not simply as workers or producers, | t but as consumers. Eav.them more, sell them more, prosper I - I iriacQ is the equation. It is with the hope that a lifetime of I

^ * '" ' !»!._ • . • 1 «

work, study and experience in just these matters may make an interesting mutual common ground, that I have written this book.

Business Men Realizing the Need of Consumer Study. — Fortunately the business world has awakened in the last few years as never before to the need for just such closer study of the consumer. Even Hoover's program of simplified prac- tices, which has already saved America $500,000,000 a year, is now declared officially to be dependent for further success largely on consumers. Certainly Mrs. Consumer must neces- sarily have an important part to play when tinware, galvanized and japaned ware is cut down from 1,154 to 873 varieties; China plumbing fixtures from 441 to 58 ; roll tissue sizes from 13 to 3; salt packages from 35 to 9; and sterling silverware from 190 to 61 patterns. Mrs. Consumer can kick the whole program out of the kitchen window (as I fear she has done already on women's shoe varieties) if she decides that in some lines she wants more rather than less variety. Mrs. Consumer always should be represented in conferences as important as these which deal with the things which are her vital daily life ; when she isn't consulted, she takes her unconscious revenge \ by her usual deadly weapon, failure to buy.

For greater efficiency in production and distribution she positively must be consulted. Loss and bankruptcy may be the cost of failure to do it. This is the new knowledge which business men have, and in consequence great changes are taking place in manufacturing and marketing procedure; through the use of consumer research. The producer and cjis- tributor cannot any longer impose their will upon consumers, for they are no longer docile as sheep. The consumer is par- taking of the spirit of the times. Mrs. Consumer of today is the sophisticated flapper of yesterday, who — quite literally — "knows her groceries." As a speaker at a southern manu-

facturers' sales conference in 1928 said, "we face a consumer remarkably sophisticated, with a buying power greater than ever before." Another speaker, a vice president of the Met- ropolitan Life Insurance Company, stressed the vast modern importance of "understanding how, when and where customers buy, and general consumer buying habits."

The new point of view is also struck by Secretary of Labor James J. Davis: "Prosperity is not the product of the classes,, but of the masses^" Dr. Paul H. Nystrom, Professor of Marketing at Columbia University says, "retail stores need to develop a new technique of predetermining consumer de- mand," and of course this applies also to other distributors and to manufacturers. Even the food brokers, usually merely technical cogs in the machinery, have been touched with the realization of the situation. Speaking at the convention of the National Canners Association one of them said in January, 1929, "we all lose sight of the fundamental principle, namely Mrs. John Doe who is the actual consumer and buyer of our products. We must admit that we go about our daily tasks without thought of her, yet it is she who has caused the expan- sion in canned food consumption and is responsible for in- creased production and dividends, also for packers who 'pass out of the picture' and fail. It behooves us to consider the consumer far more thoroughly."

1. The Consumer in Control. — It has always been charged, in past years, that automobiles were bought, not sold, and few have been able to deny it. A different day is here. As Merryle Stanley Rukeyser, financial writer says: "The con- sumer now sits in the driver's seat, and auto manufacturers are busy seeking to predict her fancies, rather than trying to dictate as of yore." Henry Ford, making a wry face, since he was one of the most arbitrary of dictators in the past, said to newspapermen some time ago, "we are no longer in the automobile, but in the millinery business." This was Henry's grudging way of paying a tribute to Mrs. Consumer, who was, I think, chiefly responsible for the rise of .Chrysler and Gen- eral Motors at the expense of Ford's model T, because while Ford arrogantly said "you can have any color so long as

it is black," Chrysler and General Motors supplied color and feminine luxury and comfort until Mrs. Consumer disdained to step into a Ford Model T. Even the mighty Ford wai ,

il brought to his knees by Mrs. Consumer's power^ for everybody L»- J but Ford realized thai- cars, ar*» hnnghi- ^Q^A^ys to fit woman's 1

[ and family needs. ' *

As experts" have recently pointed out, the consumer, especially Mrs. Consumer, no longer dresses by the dictates of style-makers. Whereas ten years ago it was common to see in news items that certain clothing associations or designers had met and decided to add an inch to lengths or issued an edict to change this or that design, today such autocracy is not even attempted, but statistical counts are made daily of the trend of consumers' preferences. Mrs. Consumer's choices set styles.

Little wonder that J. Sherwood Smith of Calkins & Holden in an address on "The Economic Forces that Influence Con- sumer Demand" at the National Retail Dry Goods Association convention, said: "Today we find that our consumer is not a searcher but a chooser." Mr. Smith also said, "Consumer demand is not something which already exists, but something that the producers and distributors are able to create in the minds of the consuming public." This statement should be amended, I believe, to mean that consumers have themselves a creative part to play in shaping consumer demand, and are not merely the keyboard on which a tune is played by producer and distributor. Consumer demand is something that is the result of the meeting of minds of all three parties in the trinity. When Mrs. Consumer goes to shop or when she reads adver- tising, something happens to her to change her ideas somewhat, it is true ; but when the producer and distributor contact with Mrs. Consumer something also happens, or will happen if they are alive enough to their own interests to seek a closer adjust- ment to demand and demand possibilities. Too often the distributor or producer is not alive enough, but is imbued, as Ford was with the idea that he could make the consumer want what he has to sell, whether or not it was fitted to the con- sumer. And then he is humbled by the consumer, as Ford was.

We have had far too much of the super-selling psychology in America which believes that if you are only aggressive enough and optimistic enough you can swing Mrs. Consumer around to your way. When such a thing is accomplished it is all too easy to say that advertising or super-salesmanship or great business genius did it; whereas the fact is that Mrs. Con- sumer's selective thought processes had far more to do with it than any other single factor. She decided that bath tubs and breakfast foods and other modern things were good; not alone because she was asked vigorously to decide, but equally a much because they fitted in with the trend and logic of her thinking about family hygiene and diet. Things were ripe for them — but for other things there was no place, or little place, no matter how much advertising or selling effort.

2. Failure and Loss Due to Ignorance of Consumer. — It is this Babbitt-like supreme self-confidence and optimism which is causing many business mistakes; and that is why the abler men of business are noting that there must be far closer work- ing knowledge of Mrs. Consumer. I should like to make this perhaps surprising statement : I believe that a larger percent- age of consumers have paid close, intelligent attention to the seller, than vice versa, the percentage of manufacturers who have paid close, intelligent attention to the consumer. There would not, I feel sure, be 43% of American manufacturing corporations showing a deficit instead of a profit, if the con- sumer was more carefully studied. Consumers have pros- pered, by comparison, more than producers or distributors, largely, I believe, because the American consumer has been on the whole more alert to new ideas than producer or distributor. Certainly the American consumer has a remarkable record of open-minded and open-handed patronage of new goods ; ready response to beneficial ideas, and willingness to be taught a new technique. If the American consumer is "sitting in the driver's seat" it is because in my opinion he or she belongs there on merit, and she must be consulted on merit if we are to progress still faster.

That I am not alone in this view is attested by an editorial

in the New York Journal of Commerce, April 5th, 1929, as follows, entitled "The Consumer Takes a Hand."

"A forward step has been taken in the vexed problem of distribution in the calling of the conference at the American Standards Association headquarters to discuss quality stand- ards for bed blankets. Despite the fact that all production is aimed ultimately at the consumer, he is seldom heard from in any articulate fashion except when his money is handed across the counter. The very large proportion of consumer buying originating with the housewife has remained particularly unin- formed except for what could be gained through commercial advertising and through inspection in the retail shop."

Guy C. Smith, advertising manager, Libby, McNeill & Libby, speaking at a conference, said that of all unknown factors in marketing, lack of detailed knowledge of the con- sumer is most serious. "It weakens personal sales work, it accounts for much of what is known as 'forced selling,' it per- mits us to put too much sales effort in one territory and too little in another, it allows us to direct our advertising through the wrong media, it leads us to make the wrong advertising appeal, it even results in our producing the wrong goods or distributing the right goods in the wrong way.

"The public has become more acutely conscious of its buy- ing problems probably because there are more things to buy. For this reason it requires more discrimination in spending the family income. It is not merely discrimination between dif- ferent brands of the same products, but discrimination between goods which satisfy entirely different wants. The better the manufacturer or distributor understands this buying problem of the consumer, the more intelligently can he direct his busi- ness to more efficiently take care of the consumer's needs."

As Dr. Hollis Godfrey, president of the Engineering Eco- nomics Foundation says, "the buyers or consumer's market in which business is now operating, is a permanent fixture, for the problem confronting business is plainly one of consumption, not production." He makes the further illuminating state- ment that, "although there are a vast number of business books in the Harvard and other university libraries, less than \%

written since 1910, deal with the processes of developing con- sumption."

Study of the consumer is one of the most certified tech- niques in American business. With our modern lingo about research we forget that three of our greatest American busi- ness men of the past got their great start as a result of con- sumer study. There was John Jacob Astor. Having made some money in real estate by studying which way people were moving, Astor one day found on his hands, because of a fore- closed mortgage, a millinery store. It had failed to sell hats, so Astor sat himself on a park bench near the store and watched women as they passed by. When he saw a woman who was obviously proud of her hat he took notes about it and at once went back to the store to have one made like it and put in the window. Then he sat on the park bench again until he spotted another successful hat. He would not have a hat in the store window that he had not proved that some woman liked. The store quickly turned from a liability into an asset.

Then there was A. T. Stewart, the great New York mer- chant. He began life on $1.50, and lost 87 J4 cents on his first business venture buying goods to sell which people didn't want to buy. Seeing that his loss was due to lack of consumer inquiry he made a promise to himself, "I will never lose any more money that way." He went around New York from door to door — for all the world like the modern-day consumer research investigator — to find out what people did want to buy. He invested the 62y2 cents he had left in this "wanted" merchandise — and everybody knows what followed. He was worth forty millions when he sold out to John Wanamaker.

Frank Woolworth, founder of the world-famous five and ten cent store, went through the same experience ; failing when he tried to sell unwanted merchandise, and then succeeding after he had learned to gauge the public. Today Woolworth's will not sell any article for which there is not an obvious and proved demand; it never imposes any merchandise arbitrarily on the public, without test and research. This was why Wool- worth's stores succeeded in Germany after others had tried the idea and failed.

The Facts Regarding Mrs. Con- sumer's Buying Power

To begin with, it is very important to realize to the full the special position of women in the United States as con- trasted with the rest of the world. Woman has never before attained, in any country, the psychological position that she enjoys in America. This status is so astounding to visitors from other countries that they often feel a sharp shock of surprise and revulsion; while even some of our young sa- tiric novelists, like Sinclair Lewis and Louis Bromfield, who spend enough time in Europe to note the contrasts, are con- vinced that American women autocratically "rule the roost,'* and that American men exist and labor largely to pour more spending money into their wives* laps. Count Keyserling of Germany was convinced after his visit here, that woman in America represented a new kind of aristocracy, "queening it" in quite high-handed fashion, and living in luxury and leisure upon the labors of man, — the commoner. He sensed an un- conscious belief among American women that these were her inalienable rights, and that she regarded her position and privileges somewhat as the aristocracy in Europe regards their own special prerogatives.

This is satire of course, but not wholly unjustified satire; for any fair-minded American woman who has traveled must agree that she enjoys great economic advantages and is held in very high chivalrous regard by American men ; a condition stemming back to the pioneer days of America when women were scarce and highly valued. She has the widest freedom to enter business even after marriage, and as a wife and mother she is deemed a partner in the family enterprise. Marriage being based on "romance" in America, it is inevi- table that women are highly regarded, and that this high regard be extended to financial considerations.

3. The High Status of American Women in Family Spending. — The American male himself often testifies that he labors in order that his wife and children should enjoy luxury and comfort. He seems to enjoy himself most at earning, while content to leave the pleasure of spending to his women. It has therefore become a male American tradition that the wife is the purchasing agent of the family, and on lower income levels men actually turn over intact, their pay envelopes to their wives. Such a condition puts buying power into women's hands on a tremendously broad scale, — so broad indeed that in a research made by Dr. H. L. Hollingworth of Columbia University, the only item that men bought en- tirely by themselves, without consultation with women, was their own collars! The purchase of not another article of apparel was free from the cooperating purchasing influence of women; and now that men are wearing shirts with attached collars so extensively, even that little island of isolation is being taken from man!

Every article of family use, even those beginning with exclusively male interest, like automobiles and radio, have slowly come into woman's purchasing fold, and their design, distribution, sales and advertising vitally affected by the fact of woman's purchasing standards. Since all but a mere small fraction of income goes for family purposes, it is of course inevitable that woman should dominate family expenditure. The percentage of this domination is a matter of dispute, but the minimum that students of the subject name is 80%.

I am not able to agree with this, and I place it at 90% if include, as I think we must, woman's increasing voice in in- vestments, savings and the general types of expenditure. The reasonableness of this high percentage is further demonstrated in the chapter on women's wealth and property in the U. S.,j a wealth which is astounding our bankers.

Surely such a staggering percentage of spending power as 80% or 90% in the hands of woman is something of the deepest importance to analyze. It it apparent that women have developed a very special faculty and ability for spend- ing; a fact which any seller will readily grant when he recalls the great differences between men and women as buyers. I was in a photographic material store not long ago and man and wife were at the counter looking at a home motion picture projector. The clerk and the husband were getting along famously talking of how the machine worked and what in- teresting things it would project right in the home parlor. They were coming close to a sale, when the wife began to ask questions, practical to-the-point questions that snapped out like fire-crackers. "How much do the films cost to rent? . . . What! We must buy a $50 book of tickets! And one feature film costs as much as $10? And how long can we keep the films? Only one day and pay extra if kept longer? Heavens ! Absurd I And we pay express both ways ? John, we don't want it. Don't you see what we'd be letting our- selves in for? Come along — we can't afford it!" And John went "along," while the clerk looked daggers after the wife. He would have made a sale to the husband, who was like a boy fascinated with a new mechanical toy; but Mrs. Consumer had other fish to fry with the family dollars — and who is there among the male sex to fully appreciate how right Mrs. Consumer probably was? She and she alone probably car- ried in her mind the practical relativity of values of their family income; only she knew the dividing line between what was sound expenditure and unwise expense. She probably was planning to buy an electric refrigerator or a new rug or foresaw mentally the tuition bills that would soon come due for Mary and Philip at college.

4. The Explanation of Mrs. Consumer's Buying Power. — Out of this psychology rises Mrs. Consumer's great buying power and the American man's content that she exercise it. Her mind is daily busy weighing these merchandise buying considerations, whereas the American man is thinking in terms of ideas and achievements and more earning, and is frankly a rather easy mark as a buyer, and admits it. Who that knows selling has not seen a man in a haberdashery? "Wrap me up a dress shirt, size 15 j£" he will say; or "Give me that tie." No inquiry about price or quality — just swift and snappy decisions. The European man is not like that, of course — neither are more sophisticated or off-standard American men; but in general the American man, however remarkable an industrial purchasing agent he may be, is not especially competent at personal or family purchasing. It is he, not his wife, who patronizes the fake oil stock salesmen, who falls for the sets of books he will never read, who gam- bles in Wall Street and loses like other lambs, and who buys cat-and-dog stocks and various other useless appendages which sap the family patrimony. Some American men are excep- tions of course, but we are speaking of the American man en masse. These men secretly realize what the situation is and permit their wives, with their more conservative point of view, to take the family financial reins out of their hands. Some of them have learned to do so only after some rather humiliating experiences, while plenty of others have not yet realized it, but will. True, there are husbands cursed with irresponsible, extravagant wives, but these by no means rep- resent the average family on the comfortable or lower in- come ranges. In the case of the higher levels of income it is natural that the husband, whose business acumen is attested by his higher income, ranks above his wife as a caretaker of the family exchequer, but there are many exceptions even here. Any number of American men are brilliant money makers and yet very untrustworthy custodians of their earnings. They are safe if they have wives who can conserve these earnings, but if not they live on a very erratic economic plane.

Women are by nature conservers of values. It is their

oldest instinct next to mother love. For^millions of years they have had to make sure that seeds were planted and har- vested and that there was food and shelter and supplies, while man lived in his world of ideas and adventure and even disdained to cut up the animal he shoj: for food. Woman's economic, and even political and social dignity and status, has always been high wherever she had an important share in the domestic arrangements. The American Indian squaw has always fed and clothed and housed and taken care of the Indian and the family, and because of this enjoyed a greater degree of liberty and equality than even her civilized white sister did until recent years.

In drawing this picture of woman's status and buying power in America I do not mean to overvalue her or make her out a prodigy, but merely to get the facts in a true focus. Woman is of course powerful in buying largely because of her secondary position to man. She is not man's equal in earning and doing and buflding, therefore she gravitates toward the' position of quartermaster rather than general in their mutual organization. She takes charge of supplies largely for the very reason that she can't lead the forces in the field. But then we have Napoleon's word for it that "armies move on their stomachs," and it is, alas, even more true that families move on their market baskets!

A civilization like ours — unlike that of the Roman or the Greek — centers its genius upon improving the conditions of life. It secures its thrills from inventing ways to live easier and more fully; means to bring foods from more ends of the earth and add to the variety served on the family table; methods to bring more news and entertainment to the family fireside; ways to reduce the labor and hardships of living; ways to have more beauty and graciousness in the domestic domicile; ways to satisfy more of the instincts of more of the family group.

Inevitably in such a civilization woman's influence grows increasingly larger, for woman is the logical center of peaceful living, the improvement of civilization and the gratification of instincts. Even man's "adventure" in a peaceful civili-

zation focuses logically upon increasing the value and variety and complexity of the home nucleus, so that he becomes, in the mass, no longer a warrior or an adventurer into far places, but an organizer and a fetch-and-carry man on a glorified scale, for the purposes of domesticity. As a writer recently facetiously put it:

"The Anglo-Saxon male tradition is slipping! Our civili- zation is lush soil for the feminine, but barren soil for the masculine characteristics of history and legend.

"We make much ado over our so-called modern industrial age, but what is it except kindly taking in women's washing and calling it a laundry — doing women's scullery work and calling it a food factory — taking in women's sewing and call- ing it a textile industry? So we busily mix dough, ply the needle and bustle about with soap and laundry machinery and call ourselves he-men 1"

To this Mrs. Consumer can only reply that both men and women seem to be agreed upon what constitutes real civiliza- tion, especially since the World War so apparently finally warped and destroyed the last vestige of the male's romantic notion about war. Man has decided to glorify the fireside rather than the God Mars, and to graft upon himself some of the more humanitarian principles with which women have always been concerned. He will fight nature, not himself; make war upon disease, discomfort, ugliness, hunger, igno- rance, poverty and misery rather than upon other men. He will live gorgeously and luxuriously, not upon goods taken from others in conquest, but upon goods which he himself manufactures and distributes. If this be feminine, then make the most of it ! is woman's reply to the iconoclast. If it seems to some to lack the lift and glory of traditional war and con- quest,— then we should admit that a new concept of glory which is neither male nor female but human is being substi- tuted by the American man, in which the prize is the lifting of living standards in this country, as well as in the backward countries of all the world. Here is glory and adventure of a kind which woman can applaud! Adventure which is con- structive, and in which women and the family can share

mightily. That it makes Mrs. Consumer the pivotal center of modern life is simply the logic of nature.

5. The Figures Showing Mrs. Consumer's Buying Power. — Having now presented the psychological picture of the basis for Mrs. Consumer's great buying power in America, I want to discuss some of its exact measurements and extent.

The 1928 pay envelope of the American people totaled approximately $92,000,000,000. Of this, as admitted by the Director of the U. S. Bureau of Standards, $52,000,000,000 is spent by women for food, clothing, shelter and other serv- ices. Taking this figure as representing the most conserva- tive estimate of what women buy, we have one billion dollars a week passed out from the hands of Mrs. Consumer. This is 166 millions per business day, or almost about $21,000,000 for each of eight hours per day. Twenty-one millions of dollars per hour, or $350,000 per minute, or almost $6,000 per second is the breath-taking speed with which Mrs. Con- sumer spends money in America.

How this volume of spending is broken up into divisions is a calculation which cannot very trustworthily be made. But the larger portion of it may be accounted for in the analy- sis of retail expenditures, which according to Dr. Paul H. Nystrom, professor of marketing at Columbia University, reached a total of $41,000,000 in 1928. The consumer's retail dollar was split up in the manner shown on the adjoin- ing table of statistics. This is a most important and revealing table, for it discloses those "relativities" of purchase which woman the practical family purchasing agent must observe according to her budget. Naturally this does not represent a typical consumer's dollar, but the total retail dollar for the entire nation. 80% to 90% of this is purchased b

The Consumer's Retail Dollar

Food, including groceries, meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy prod- ucts, etc., sold to consumers $ .412 X

Clothing, including ready-made apparel and piece goods for men, women and children, underwear, hats, hosiery, shoes, rubbers, etc 225

Furniture 030

House furnishings, including floor coverings, draperies, curtains,

kitchen hardware, utensils, china, glass, etc 037

Automobiles, accessories, gasoline, tires, etc., for pleasure use only .112

Tobacco products 045 >^

Beverages, soft drinks, etc 025

Pianos « 005

Radio and phonographs Oil

Jewelry, watches, clocks and silverware 010

Electrical goods for households 005

Perfumes, cosmetics, etc 013

Soaps, dentifrices 007

Drugs, proprietary and patent medicines 010

Books and magazines bought in retail stores 002

Paints and varnishes 005

Confectionery, chocolates, ice cream and chewing gum 007

Agricultural implements 007

Miscellaneous 032

Total $1.000

6. Baby and Children's Market. — It is estimated that in 1929 there will be approximately 2,500,000 babies born. The first year expenditures for the little newcomers will amount, in all probability, to about $150.00 each, which makes a total of $375,000,000 a year which American women spend every year for just the little one year-olds. The total baby bill is of course much greater than this; roughly about two billion dollars, when one counts in the little toddlers up to five years of age. The special catering to this purchasing power is to a certain degree neglected, and live druggists and drug manu- facturers should bestir themselves. A few live druggists and department stores go so far as to hold a series of informal meetings for mothers, at which physicians, nurses, etc. speak on baby care. This is the kind of consumer contact I thoroughly believe in.

Each year 400,000 high school students graduate, 2,064,- 000 adolescents come of age, 1,250,000 couples marry, 2,000,- 000 families move into a new house, 2,000,000 farm folk move to the city, and 1,000,000 city folk move to the farm, and 1,400,000 people die. Thus does this world creak on, creating changes calling for new merchandising needs.

III

What the Average Mrs. Consumer is Like

"Average" individuals or families do not exist, of course. They are statistical abstractions. The "average" family has, for instance, 4.3 people in it, but I have never yet seen a three- tenths person !

Still, it is a necessity in selling to find common denomina- tors and visualize a composite picture of the mass, or at least certain particular levels of the mass. For that reason I believe it is worthwhile to try here to visualize Mrs. Consumer in a more personal manner. It is extremely easy for a seller of goods to suffer from mirages about Mrs. Consumer. I have found innumerable advertising men and marketing executives who carry in their minds completely erroneous pictures of Mrs. Consumer in the mass. Unconsciously they tend to think of her (because they would like so to think of her) as a woman of their own class or nearly so. The executive higher up in business is guilty of the same thing, only more so ! Neither make as a rule an accurate study of just what levels of Mrs. Consumer they must address, and what she is like on those levels. They are often as a matter of fact, somewhat romantic

in their point of view about Mrs. Consumer, their customer. They gild her and embroider her and doll her up for their own delectation. Editors of women's magazines, before the day of large circulations, did the same thing. One I knew always spoke a little feelingly of having visited in a small town in Ohio one day and suddenly seeing there a particular home and a particular woman with her children, attending her flower pots on the veranda. For years after this haunted him and fixed in his mind the one woman for whom he edited the magazine. She was an ideal, of course, and undoubtedly far too refined, well-to-do and exceptional to be the real Mrs. Consumer- reader for a magazine which hoped to have millions of circu- lation. He endowed her with an education, a personality and a sensitivity which she did not possess, and before the millions of circulation could be obtained another editor far more cynical and realistic in his understanding of the masses of Mrs. Con- sumers was necessary.

Men in the U. S. are well known to be over-idealistic and chivalrous in their ideas of women. The foreign man sees his womenkind far more cynically — doubtless too much so. But when you must sell to Mrs. Consumer it is just as well to have courage for the "low-down" about her. Newspaper publish- ers in the U. S. have increased their circulations with every move to cater to the American public as it really is. Pulitzer's New York World began, Hearst's Journal continued, and The News and the Graphic tabloids (it is to be hoped) completed and have even gone beyond the average level in the journey downward to the plane upon which the masses of the common people appear to live and throb. The seller of universal con- sumer goods is in no essentially different position ; he must be able to speak on a par with the average Mrs. Consumer, and from her point of view, with full allowance for her position.

What, then, can be told about Mrs. Consumer? I have already elsewhere described her buying psychology. Here we should deal with her education, and literacy, vocabulary, so- cial status, her physical characteristics, etc.

7. The Average Mrs. Consumer's Education, Literacy and Vocabulary. — I have many times raised a laugh as well as

astonishment in stating that Mrs. Average Consumer has a vocabularly of only about 1,200 words, but adding that though her stock of words may be small, she has arapid turnover ! There is of course no official way to determine how large the average woman's vocabularly is, but when one must calculate an average from 35 million women of all kinds and types, including negroes, poor whites and foreign-born women who cannot speak any English whatsoever, I really believe that the average woman's vocabularly would be only 1,200 words. The high school graduate has a vocabularly of about 13,000 words, but of course only a small fraction of women are high school graduates. On the levels from the comfortable upward, doubtless Mrs. Consumer has a vocabularly more nearly that of the average mechanic, which is 7,500 words; but this leaves other millions of women on the lower levels to be accounted for, at a much lower vocabularly.

As for literacy, we must not overlook the fact that the number of illiterate women in the U. S. is today close to 3,000,000. About 12% of foreign-born women are illiterate.

From college education, Mrs. Average Consumer is of course still further removed. There are only about 2,500,000 women in the country who are college graduates or have taken some college work. Mrs. Average Consumer's education con- sists approximately of a sixth grade school education. 95 or 96% of Mrs. Consumers know only what the grade schools taught them, and many have forgotten much of that 1 Mrs, Average Consumer does not know more, intellectually

_ __ _ _ ,* She would

not know how to define the word "philanthropy" or "courage," or describe the difference between "poverty" and "misery" (although she may be feeling it) or between "character" and "reputation" or "laziness" and "idleness," or between the words "revolution" and "evolution." She has a "memory span" for only seven digits. Since only3 0 % of American

c annof even be ^cJL^miej^t h a t _Mrs.

Average Consumer brushes her teeth ! Of course this does not

*This is based, on the authority of Dr. H. L. Hollingworth, of Columbia I I Diversity, on the Stanford-Binet test.

apply to Mrs. Consumer of the Comfort Level and the levels above.

8. General Character of Mrs. Consumer. — In order to rescue Mrs. Consumer from the apparently low status given her by intellectual tests, we must remember that this low status is a characteristic of any average person in a great country like ours. It is, after all, far above the status of the women of any other large country. The thing to remember is that Mrs. Consumer's intelligence is of a native kind, rather than a mere school-rated kind, and that this native, instinctive, practical intelligence is most competent, shrewd and effective. It com- _ prehends much more than it understands in detail. I know many college educated women who are still very hazy as to what the germ theory is, but you may be sure that in their daily family work they meticulously act upon the assumption that germs must be outwitted. The mounting sales of antisep- tics and germicides surely prove this.

Mrs. Consumer habitually proceeds more along the lines of instinct than upon theory or reason, and accommodates herself more readily to practical realities. Man is more stubbornly theoretical. She is adept at matching one desire against an- other and evaluating her emotional and instinctive reactions. The logical-minded social worker who severely criticizes a woman of a very poor family when she "blows herself" to some cut glass for her sideboard is entirely forgetful of the fact that the cut glass bowl may make the woman's hard life bearable through the pleasure it gives her. Without it, she might "break" under the severe economic pressure. She knows life "in the round" better, perhaps, than the social worker.

On a higher plane many Mrs. Consumers do equally "illog- ical" or "unreasonable" things in their spending. Women understand such acts, but only a few men ever do. They often revive their spirits and youthfulness and their zest in life with such "foolish" purchases. One reason why so many women have failed to get a thrill out of scientific training in home economics or budget-keeping is because it is too strictly logical. It is mechanistic, and women have never felt much in common with mechanics. They live emotionally on a pulsating rhythm,

not on a flat plateau, such as is more characteristic of men. Their moods are of shifting hues, not of one set color. The emotional consideration is to them always the vital consid- eration.

Mrs. Consumer has changed very markedly in character from the last generation; that is now a truism. This change came about through a release from several cramping pressures of tradition, which have made her much less suppressed and less fretted with a sense of social, religious, political, sex and mental inferiority such as women of the last generation suf- fered from. The present generation of women are not bound much by religious controls, nor by the controls of social posi- tion and caste, nor by the feeling of being below men in politi- cal rights, mental ability or sex inhibition. It is quite amazing what sudden, far-reaching changes these represent. They very naturally alter every woman's outlook and thus alter her pur- chases and ideas of living. She is less sentimental, and more aggressive and sure of herself and her tastes. She is not afraid to be individual, and this reflects itself in desiring spe- cialties and novelties and new patterns and colors. She knows precisely what she wants, even in color and line, far better than the older generation; and of course this is why all sellers are finding that consumers, not sellers, decide trends tqday.

There are undoubtedly four distinct age periods for women consumers, and I classify these as follows :

16 to 22: Narcissistic and Self-Gratification Period: In this period general family goods is more or less uninteresting, and appeals made to economy, logic, health and sometimes even sanitation are not very powerful. Personal adornment, pleasure, vanity, excitement, style, — these arc the predomi- nating appeals.

22 to 28: Romantic Home Buildinp Period: This covers the period when young couples are thinking about or actually setting up new homes, and is a most important consumer period, for it marks the creation of the new generation of homes, often with distinctly individual ideas of change from the old generation. The new and radical are the most power- ful appeals in this period.

28 to 38: Alert Home-making, Cooking and Housekeep- ing Period: This represents the apex of the modern con- sumer attitude; the period when women are most approach- able and suggestible, alert and open-minded. They are still ratable, in America as young women, and they are still ener- getic, youthfully and fashionably dressed. Furthermore the appeals of logic, economy, health, sanitation, hygiene, labor saving and efficiency have their maximum opportunity in this period, while fashion, personal appearance^ pleasure and up- to-dateness are also still appeals of great power.

38 onward: Parenthood and Relaxing Period: In this period luxury attains a higher place in consumption because of the gradual accumulations of wealth and earning power, and appeals to luxury and comfort, travel, new housebuilding, health, etc., bear good fruit. In sheer volume, this is the maximum period of consumption, but conservatism, habit and preference begin to rule out consumption of certain goods on which younger women will take a chance. It is doubtless with accurate knowledge of this that our women's magazines have in recent years taken very particular pains to emphasize quite pointedly that they edit for young women, for women under 35. New goods, new ways, new standards of living have not such a responsive appeal to women of this age.

9. Types and Classifications of Women Consumers. — Naturally an effort to classify women consumers is largely guesswork. A former president of the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs made such a general classification some time ago, as follows :

20% of American wives are of the jazz or "can-opener type."

15% are of the nagging type.

20 % are of the drudge type.

IS% are of the "baby doll" type.

30% are of the home-maker or ideal type.

This, coming from a woman, indicating that 70% of American married women, or nearly 17,000,000 wives, are of a kind that is below an admirable standard, is certainly frank and a bit devastating. It leaves only about 7,200,000 wives *'»

the admirable class. But, of course, this classification was for controversial and critical purposes, and if so many women are of the nagging, drudge, jazz or baby doll type, doubtless their living status and their husbands have much to do with it.

More important for purposes of classification is the seg- gregation of women into more practically useful types for the seller. This has been done for the guidance of textile and fashion goods sellers, but it is useful for any seller. Here they

are:

Youthful Middle Aged

The Vivacious Type The

The Conservative Type The

The Dignified Type The

The Feminine Type The

The Sophisticated Type The The Uninteresting Type

Matured

Vivacious Type Matronly Type Conservative Type Feminine Type Uninteresting Type

The Flapper Type The Boyish Type The Demure Type The Vivacious Type The Conservative Type The Statuesque Type The Feminine Type The Sophisticated Type The Uninteresting Type

Naturally the youthful or unmarried type indicates a wider variety; Mrs. Consumer tends to mould herself more to a pat- tern after she is married — but not even then until she has children ; often not until she has two or three. It is one of the marked characteristics of Mrs. Consumer of today, that she insists on being somewhat girlish even until past 35. She "dies hard" so far as her youthfulness is concerned. Women in other countries settle down to matronliness as early as 25, but there are grandmothers in America who belong to the "jazz" type, and since weight is such .a tdl-tflK *hpy Haw violently concentrated on holding down frfreir fig-m-ps. There are any

number of mothers who are less serious and more playful and girlish than their own daughters, who so often at 18 or 20 are in a "serious" or intellectual mood.

Of course, such persistence of youthfulness presupposes living on the Comfort Level or above it. Economic pressure, as nothing else in the world, crushes women's youthfulness. Even child-bearing is not so relentless an aging factor as strug- gle for existence. Therefore as more and more Mrs. Con- sumers attain the Comfort and upper levels, we will naturally

have more youthfulness and more purchasing that caters to youthfulness. I should say that the real hope of the textile industry to lift itself out of depression is to cater to the con- stantly enlarging number of women at the later ages, of 45 to 70. This group is not only being increased because more women live to be older, but because they wear more lively \clothes at older age-periods. My own grandmother took to Vblack alpaca at 40 or 45 and never once deserted it until her Ideath at 80. The grandmother of today is a very different Mrs. Consumer. I'm told a tale of a famous old New York store which fell into new hands and found a large roll of alpaca on the shelves. "Throw it out" was the laconic order. "Oh, no," said the excited clerk, a graybeard, "Mrs. Van Umpty-Ump comes here every spring and fall as regular as clockwork to buy some." "Out with it!" was the positive order; "it would have been better if you had paid Mrs. Van Umpty-Ump to stay away, because that is exactly why young women stopped coming here ! And older women, too !"

10. Statistical Analysis of Women's Sizes and Types. — It is of no small usefulness to know what Mrs. Consumer looks like physically, in the average. Naturally those who make clothes for Mrs. Consumer are obliged to know, and this information may be utilized in various ways.

In general only 22^ of women are slender (and this is a genuine revelation, for witn all our reducing agonies, less than a quarter of women have evidently achieved their goal !) . 50% are of normal figure, and 28% are "heavy." 9% are shortwaisted, 1% have large busts and 6% have large hips. 21 % are short, or under 5' 3". 50% are medium, or between ? 3" and 5' 6", and 29^_are_tall, or 5v67roFo^r.

The details under each classification are as follows : Slender: 5% of all women are "short-slender" (bust 30-34) ; 11% are "medium-slender" (bust 30-34) ; and 6% are "tall- slender" (bust 30-36).

Normal: 10% of all women are "short-normal" (bust 34-36) ; 25% are "medium-normal" (bust 34-40), and 15% are "tall- normal" (bust 36-42). Heavy: 6% of all women are "short-heavy" (bust 36-46) ;

are "medium-heavy" (bust 38-46), and S% are "tall- heavy" (bust 40-48). Statistically, this works out as follows :

Slender: 1,800,000 are short-slender; 3,960,000 are medium- slender, and 2,160,000 are tall-slender.

Normal: 3,600,000 are short-normal; 9,000,000 are medium- normal, and 5,400,000 are tall-normal.

Heavy: 2,160,000 are short-heavy; 5,040,000 are medium- heavy, and 2,880,000 are tall-heavy.

The total number that are slender is 7,920,000; the total num- ber that are normal is 18,000,000; the total number that are heavy is 10,080,000. Grand Total, 36,000,000.

11. Guessing at Mrs. Consumer's Character. — Another curious bit of interesting sub-division of women into arbitrary classes has been made by Needlecraft Magazine. It attempted no percentage or statistical grouping, but it presented, with photographs four "types" (1) the Indolent Rich, (2) the Overworked Poor, (3) the Clinging Vine, (4) the Creative Woman. I regard this as a shrewd classification, and shall make so bold as to submit my percentage estimate, based on these types :

1. The Indolent Rich Woman, 1%, 360,000 women.

2. The Overworked Poor Woman, 20%, 7,200,000 women.

3. The Clinging Vine Woman, 5%, 1,800,000 women.

4. The Creative Woman, 74%, 26,640,000 women.

These classes overlap, of course. The "clinging vine" type is often also an "indolent rich" type — but she may also be in other classes. The creative woman, as I see her, is any woman who works, whether at home or elsewhere. I do not attach any importance to the above — it is merely interesting speculation. As a matter of fact one might profitably enter into some deep-going discussions as to the greater ultimate usefulness of these various types of women. It seems that many "feminists" of today are somewhat disillusioned over working. There is something profound to be said of the rela- tive effects on man of the creative and the indolent types of women. It is a philosophical problem as to whether men are

spurred to their utmost in accomplishment by one or the other type ; also whether we wish a civilization in which women work and create, or one in which women merely consume. In my own opinion this depends on how well women solve their work and personal problems ; how well they are able to maintain the male sex tension by working. If they fail in this, we may move to- ward the more savage standard, where only women work.

Changed Consumer Habits and Purchases

/Change is in the very air Americans breathe, and consumer Changes are the very bricks out of which we arc building our, new kind of civilization. To discuss consumer changes with complete adequacy would mean discussion of America, its genius and destiny, its significance in civilization.

But, I am confining myself to the market-basket point of view, taking the changes as I find them and not attempting to discuss them all, which would clearly take several volumes. Consumer changes rest largely on increased income and greater diffusion of income; but they do not rest on these factors alone. I choose to account for them also in part as due to the increased alertness, sophistication, and power of American women. They have evolved new sets of values and criterions.

12. The Six New Criterions of American Women. — Let us list a few of these outstanding new criterions, inadequate though such an effort must be:

( 1 ) American women have arrived at a new kind of adult- hood and no longer consider themselves the timid "wards"

and dependents of their fathers and husbands. They con- sider themselves individuals, citizens and responsible persons, without trace of a sense of inferiority or fear of taboos. They are less negative and passive, and more positive and aggressive toward life.

i/| 2) American women have acquired a far greater degree of education and sophistication than formerly and are much less like sheep. They boldly think about their "place in the sun" of American life and their responsibilities, and initiate ten- dencies of their own befitting tha^feliiihme conception of "the good life."

v/(3) American women as a mass have made up their minds — partly in response to scientists, medical men, experts and advertisers — that their practical dream is to abolish war, al- coholic drink, child-labor, infant mortality, bad housing, mal- nutrition, lack of sanitation, disease, ugliness, and ignorance. They want to have a great share in bringing about these abolitions.

(4) American women as a mass have made up their minds that they wish to be freer from the crushing, age-old burdens of the home, which have been crushing precisely because they have not been sufficiently industrialized. They insist on more leisure and to this end have patronized the industrialization of the tasks of the home, which, practically speaking, means doing better and cheaper everything possible outside of the home, in factories up to high scientific standards.

They insist on the mechanization of the remaining tasks of the home, with the use of electricity and gas to keep pace with the rapid increase in the use of power per worker in the factory.

(5) American women have to a degree reached genuine cul- tural sophistication, and they are resolved to have more and more beauty in their surroundings ; better homes, more artistic furnishings, more beautiful goods of every variety, even more colorful and decorative kitchen utensils. They have become "style conscious" in regard to everything they use and wear. Having the purchasing power to practice it, they are increas- ingly applying the leverage of obsolescence to move ever up-

ward on higher planes and standards of living, which may thus keep pace with the rapid developments in science, inven- tion and art.

(6) American wprrfen are resolved to-enjoy more of the good th i ngs oi Tife,Wnpre kinds><)f tnoc^iffjiflrfi Igjsnr^ mnr^ at^ilf^i"- sports, n/iore education, more traveL more arL.vmore ™nrerTnmir more ri'vlr

landscaping and city planning, more literature, .more social graces ,J more social freedom and more cosmopolitan o-dlish and smartness. They are resolvedHo live more richly, remain more youtEful, appear to most advantage; to have fewer children but better cared for, better educated and better fed. One has only to run rapidly over these six new criterions, which have had so marked an impetus in the last dozen years, to realize how truly numerous and remarkable have been the changes they have wrought. All of these changes very point- edly have to do with woman as a consumer, for it is in her purchases or her failure to purchase, that Mrs. Consumer has most authentically indicated her preferences and tend- encies.

13. Food as an Index of Consumer Change. — Because

food bulks so large in the American budget, it is natural that

food purchases should reflect to a very considerable degree

i all these changes. The American woman sets an astoundingly

u diversified table today, and will set an even more astounding

H table tomorrow, when the new methods of preserving and re"-

f frigerating food are more widely applied.

ji/ The outstanding fact is the very much larger place in the jhf ft family budget which today is occupied by food. Ten years^jy / ago in lectures on family budgets, I and many other home economics authorities considered that 20% of the family in- come for food was as much as good nourishment and good economics demanded. It would appear from our figures that, whatever may be a sound or frugal ideal, the American family spends 27% of its total income on food* I aminclined to believe that the actual percentage of ""the Average tamiiy buclget spent for food ranges from 35% "fa

How does America's high ratio of food consumption com-

pare with other countries? According to Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor, an international food expert,* America and tradition- ally wellfed Germany were on a par in pre-war times. Each nation consumed approximately 3,650 calories per capita, per day^. whereas the United Kingdom consumed 2,860 and Italy 2,560. The per capita calorie consumption for the United States in my opinion, is today about 3,800 or 3,900; although it is true, as Dr. Taylor says, that increased income tends toward more varied diet rather than increase in calories per capita. But still there is an increase, since a generous table always superinduces a measure of overeating. We see the reflex of this in the widespread concern of the more fastidious American men and women in regard to overweight. Dr. Taylor himself estimated that 10% of our population con- sumed more than 4,000 calories, without the hard work which justifies such an intake. I believe this estimate low. The working classes are notably heavy eaters. On the New York East Side, four meals a day are the rule : while among factory and farm populations generally, the intake of food of high calorific value is very heavy. Among working classes, even with the high wages received, the food ratio of expenditure is often 40% to 45% of the total income. In my observa- tion, the steak-eaters and the scorners of salads and vege- tables and cheaper cuts of meat, are principally well-paid mechanics.

14. Growth of Eating Outside the Home. — Consideration must also be given to the rapidly increasing amount of food eaten outside the home, in restaurants, at soda fountains, etc. There are today about 1 2.5,000. hotels and eating places — an increase of at least 40 fe in }0 or 15 years. The habit of eating a fourth meal, a late supper, grows with increased prosperity. So serious indeed did the new family habit of eating out at cafeterias and restaurants become in a large western city, that a few years ago the local gas company asked 'me to develop for them an extensive home cooking

* Article by Alonzo Ethelbert Taylor on "Consumption, Merchandising, and Advertising of Foods," Harvard Business Review, April, 1924.

campaign to induce women to go back to their kitchens to prepare food!

The soda fountain has emerged as an eating place and "soft drinks" take rank with candy in the revised eating habits of the American family. Tfrg .- -mpi d & dz£££g. m consumption of sugar is_anothcr American romance* Back ln~the "days bef ore the Civil War, the consumption of sugar per person was scarcely afew dozen pounds per year; today rising from, 79. pounds irTRTfO it is now close to 100 pounds per. person

The 85,000 confectionery stores of the country sell IS pounds of candy per person to the people of the United States —a rise o+ .UK) 7? in a frw «"****- Candy and soft swee drinks comprise about sfa pey ^fflt^ of

If we include candy and sweet drinks in the family food bill, we have a total of 19 billion dollars, or a little less than one half of the country's total retail expenditure, or approxi- mately 33 1/3% of the total family budget. Our expendi- tures for what we put into our mouths, including tobacco, are « today more than our expenditures for all else that we buy in retail stores.

The tendencies disclosed by these and other facts cited, have, of course, produced vigorous reactions from the busi- ness interests affected. Some such efforts may be able to halt consumer tendencies slightly, but others are rather hopeless. Mrs. Consumer has in such cases made up her mind somewhat firmly and she is not likely to be dissuaded, t^r ^tfi]ifl"3f I \j ^ use offlSread) meat and potatoes for instance- — the latter now I y\ 7\ being down to two Subnets per capita.

15. The Decline of Meat. — There is a growing scarcity of meat, especially the choice cuts, which are all the average per- son seems to care for. There are also added dietary reasons for reducing our meat diet, because an increasingly urban, sedentary population should not eat so much meat. Meat has in the past been by far the largest food item on the American menu. We have been in the habit of eating a good deal over two billion dollars' worth of meat of all kinds (not including poultry and fish) ; and intelligent hopes are for no less than a reduction by one half of the per capita consumption. Even

now, meat is one quarter of our entire food bill. It is a fact astonishing to contemplate that we have spent more for meat than we have for clothing of all kinds. When it is realized that America is still the FesFcIressed nation in the world, the true proportions of this stupendous fact will be noted.

We spend about seven times as much for meat as we spend for bread; and about five times as much for meat as we spend for our public schools; and over ten times as much for meat as we spend for our churches. A rearrangement of our family budget in the direction of more vegetables and fruit and other forms of food is inevitable, and is, in fact, desirably taking place.

16. Frantic Efforts to Stop the Tides of Change.— Sellers of the neglected foods are very much worried. The flour millers are trying, with an "eat more bread" propaganda, to raise per capita consumption up to 220 pounds per year. We eat hardly a third of a loaf of bread per day per person today. Milkmen are trying to bring up per capita milk con- sumption to one quart per capita per day — it is less than a pint per day now. The butter makers want to bring up per capita butter consumption to Australia's high level of 10 pounds above our own. Cheese makers want to raise our cheese consumption by 22 pounds per capita, to equal Switzer- land's. All of these efforts are indicative of the American family's desertion of old and cheap forms of nutriment for more attractive and varied new foods. The tremendous im- petus given to fruits, vegetables, nuts, apples, raisins, and ^rune$) by grower's cooperative marketing associations is de- veloping a marked change in our diet; while refrigeration cars and ships are bringing to America quantities of other delicacies and tropical foods, all of which are further altering standards of consumption.

These artificial stimulations to consumption are not con- fined to food fields. Many articles once strongly desired, have been neglected for other preferences. Cotton goods have made way for cheap silks and the young lady of what- ever social station wearing cotton hosiery is today a rarity! Enamelware for the kitchen became overshadowed in popu-

larity by_ aluminum, just as tinware had been ^sglajjgd by enamelware, — until the enamelware makers bestirred them- selves with color. Suspejiders were almost displaced byjjejls,. carpets by rugs, lace by cretonnes, washtubs by washing ma- chines, bar laundry soap by soap chips. Always the trend is toward something better, but also something more expen- sive, resulting in always a lift to the sum total of the family budget.

17. Taking it Out on the Textiles. — According to one esti- mate we spend only about $75 per person per year on cloth- ing. On a family basis, this is about $322 per family per year (using the census figure of 4.3 persons to a family). This is a lower percentage of the present-day family budget than clothing has been accustomed to enjoy in other days, and is a significant social change. How can it be explained?

We are now arriving at a point in this nation-wide satura- tion of the family budget with new wants, when some old wants must be sacrificed to make room for the new, even if there is no question of price involved. The National Associa- tion of Retail Clothiers asserts that the average man no longer cares much about clothing, but centers his interests in his automobile. Iowa, according to this Association, leads in the number of automobiles, but also in careless dress ap- pearance ! In a New York State town a clothing store made its annual sales drive selling only 17 of the usual 150 suits sold; whereas across the street in the same interval 25 cars were sold ! The shoe manufacturer's plaint is the same. Peo- ple don't walk much any more thank^ to the autompbilcj _ so their shoes last too long! Although population has increased 1 62£* shoe consumptio" innr00^ on^y ifffi cinr^ 1Q10 "We are not so fussy about our footwear — even women, from a quality point of view, as we seem to prefer fancy novelties made of cheaper materials.

We thus see at work some of the social changes due to new types of merchandise and new wealth. Time was when well-to-do farmers' sons spent a lot of money on fancy watches, guns and clothes ; but today they prefer automobiles. A cer- tain level of workmen even in recent war years heavily bought

silk shirts — until their income and surplus reached the Ford car level ! The farm woman once wore little else but gingham and black alpaca. Today, she buys copies of Fifth Avenue models and her daughter, whose face was formerly innocent of aught but freckles, now possesses our standard laboratory of toilet articles and not one, but several types of face creams and powders !

There seems little doubt that the newer comforts and luxuries are making far greater headway than the basic in- dustries or the "necessities." Staple foods like rice have de- clined markedly. QfittoO* like a poor orphan, has been crowded to the side by the brilliant performance of .marvelous all-purpose rayon* which is now consumed at about the ratio of a pound per capita, as against half a pound only a few years ago.

That geople skimp ^Q^^mjlhTjty^GS of expend! ture_Jn order to obtain new and more exciting satisfactions is obvious, Umbrella sales have declined 15% in these last two years. Even candy, a luxury, has suffered. In clothes we women have trimmed ourselves down to an almost "irreducible mini- mum," spending nearly one-half less per dress than formerly, and thus lowering some items of clothing still further down into the lowly "necessity" class. The millinery people have long writhed under the vogue of the economical felt hat which rules out feathers and frills. Even men are no longer so particular about their shoes and hats but patronize mass pro- duction chain stores, thus pressing these items lower down into the narrow-profit-necessity class.

Home furnishings have also suffered. There was a further decrease of 12.8% in carpet and rug manufacture in 1927 over 1925, thus the American family evidently spends only $7 per capita annually on carpets and rugs. Indeed only 3^4 cents of the consumer's dollar goes for all kinds of house furnishings (excluding furniture, and it too has suffered badly).

18. The Things That are Gaining. — Meanwhile we use far more cigarettes — 1,000 per capita— and buy 177 million dollars' worth of toilet goods (wholesale), and purchase far

more packaged food} bakery goods, tea and coffee. We spend 1 \\ 14 y?nt.s of the consumers dollar for automobiles, 4^£ cents on tobacco. The entire toilet goods field has moved up rapidly, the per capita consumption (calculated on wholesale value) being now about $1.75. It was $1.50 at the last (1927) census.

Miscell aneous 21.3 %

Inc. 1913-1923 - 101%

Clothing

I6.JS Inc. 76<7o

BUDGET FIGURES SHOWING INCREASE SINCE 1913

Education is another "luxury" that is gaining rapidly — as is radio, amusements, sports, travel, etc. Ice cream, soft drinks, restaurant eating, smart shoes for women, furs, jewels, etc., are all showing decided upward trends. Even chewing ffumjyfnwg anf*..grqwsj More service of all kinds is bought than ever before. The steam laundries have multiplied their volume by five in 16 years. Their 600 million dollar 1928

volume is expected to go to a billion in 1930. Hair dressers, beauty parlors and other personal services have grown in widespread popularity.

Perfume and face powder have become rarified luxuries beyond all expectations. There are now actually 2,500 brands of perfume offered for sale, and perfume for $25 a bottle is sold as never before. There is also color in face powders; Guerlain of Paris makes 28 shades! Another face powder advertiser recently capped the climax of the esoteric appeal by seriously offering "a different face powder for every mood!"

Meanwhile soap languishes somewhat, and so do a long line of basic necessities or "backward industries," as they are termed in Wall Street. Yet in the past six years the public has spent two billion dollars for radio; a perfectly stupendous sum, every dollar of which has naturally had to be diverted from other goods on which it would have been spent had radio not been invented.

19. General Consumption Changes. — I can do no better than to summarize an important survey completed in May, 1929, by Dr. Leo. Wolman* in which he/say« that the most sweeping changes are the increased use (4)\vf foodstuffs; (2) of manufactured goods; (3) of theV&utomobile and radio; (4) of the volume and quality of housing. More minor changes of importance, he reported, are ( 1 ) increase in value per square foot of residential floor spaces; (2) an 80% elec- trification of homes other than farms; (3) rise to 11,530,000 residential telephones; (4) installation of 1,000,000 bath tubs in homes; (5) a domestic water consumption rate two to three times greater than that of any city in Europe; (6) great gain in expenditure for education, charity, social services, health (more than trebled since 1915).

Dr. Wolman also calls attention to vastly increased con- sumption of silk, rayon, knit goods, carpets, millinery, lace goods, men's furnishings.

As for the farmer, he finds that farmers on "high-value"

* "Consumption and the Standard of Living," National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.

farms have kept pace in consumption with the rest of the population, but those on the "low-value" farms have not improved since 1922. There is an annual movement of 2,000,- 000 people from farm to city, and, on the other hand, a movement of 1,000,000 from city to farm.

20. Changes in Attitude. — It is most apropos in this con- nection to digest the words of one of the most convinced modernists and style merchandisers in consumer's goods, Mr. Oswald W. Knauth, executive vice president of R. H. Macy & Co., New York, speaking before the American Management Association, April, 1929. It was in Macy's that the "color in the kitchen" movement was actively set in motion. Mr. Knauth's general ideas of consumer attitude and demand are of importance.

"Any changes that have taken place must concentrate on color, style, price, time payments and brand or reputation. In regard to each of these, there has been a very definite change and these changes on the part of the public have seri- ously affected the whole fabric of merchandising.

"Let us take color and style. During the last decade, the increased circulation of magazines dealing in color and style has, been astonishing. The increased attendance at museums has taxed their capacity. The increased bookings of European liners is an index of the greater traveling habits of America. Lectures at women's clubs are a definite part of American life. As a result of all this, we are developing a very definite style of our own, both as regards dress and as regards home furnishings.

"The colors which we demand are neither the garish types which came out of Russia and which were taken over by the French modern movement of five years ago, nor are they the shadowy uncertain shades and mixtures which we associate with somberness. They are, generally speaking, clear colors, stronger than pastel shades and yet not vivid. They are de- cidedly bright, but not garish. They are positive, and in no sense muddy. The patterns are similarly clear and clean cut. They are rather simple than ornate. But above all, they are positive in their expressions. There is nothing of

Oriental splendor either in color or design which appeals to the American people. Perhaps this can be best illustrated in the purple shades which Americans like as against the more sumptuous purples of a past generation. The purples of today are clear and rather bluish in tint, the purples which we do not want are warm and sumptuous. In these respects of color and style, the modern demand of consumers runs exceptionally true to form. The percentage demand for articles which follows this general description is overwhelm- ing and increasingly significant.

"Now the results of this change can be seen everywhere — in rugs, the imitation Orientals with large flowers and cen- ters have given way to small allover patterns and plain car- pets; in women's dress, the fussiness of the past has given way to plain colors and flowing lines ; in upholstery, the strag- gling patterns, the big flowered chintzes are replaced either by plain colors or by small snappy patterns; woven goods with their vague outlines are less popular than the clear cut lines of printed goods; the^^ariiisiied icebox is almost u^market- i^a somber note in the kitchen and today's demand or^ a clear jgreen. Look at any novelty

jewelry store and note the preciseness of the patterns as against the filigree work of the past. Look at the bathrooms of a recently built house and compare them to the bathrooms of even a few years ago — the change is remarkable, and who can deny that it is for the better? It is clean, neat and at- tractive. Might we not even venture the generalization; The American people do not like sumptuousness, they do not like richness of texture, they do not like dirt or anything that suggests it. They do want clean, neat, sophisticated, and appropriate articles. And I think you will agree that such a generalization could not have been made 10 years ago with as much positiveness as it can be made today.

21. Mrs. Consumer is Looking for Effects. — "This very decided shift of demand has brought about equally great changes in our merchandising ideas. People are looking for effects today as their primary consideration, whereas a gene- ration ago they looked for quality as their primary considera-

tion. It is not that they neglect quality, but that they take it for granted. To meet this change the articles which mer- chants have today must be selected with a degree of skill never before required, and the articles which manufacturers make must be designed with a degree of skill never before required. To fall down on this requisite means almost certain disaster, for price is a less important consideration than for- merly, if an article is not just what is wanted. I think a safe generalization might be that just as the public takes quality for granted, so it takes price for granted — it expects to get the designs and effects that it wants, at reasonable prices. And when it expects all this, it doesn't wish to pay anything for an article which is merely useful.

"For the last few years consumers have gone their own sweet way in regard to lengthening of the skirts, to laces, to ribbons and to artificial flowers. If anything is true today, it

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is that staples have ceased to exist. Demand jumps around from color to color, from fashion to fashion, from pattern to pattern in a most unexpected way. Records of comparative sales of different types are baffling to study and they add a new terror to manufacturing and merchandising. Nothing that has been attempted has changed their point of view. As a result of this, the^tyjists ^ ye^

into the fashion forecasters of today. The stylists of yester- day determined authoritatively either by hunch or by necro- mancy what was fitting and what was not. The fashion fore- caster of today works through serious studies of trends and attempts to forecast the demands of tomorrow from the tend- encies of today.

22. Changes Toward Price. — "It is worthwhile to discuss briefly the change in regard to the general attitude toward prices. This is a subject which in view of its importance has been too much neglected, yet it is worthy of concentrated study. I think a safe generalization can be made that the past generation of consumers felt that they had to look for reason- able prices; where they could not bargain, they just kept on looking. Today in its normal run of purchases, the public takes the fairness of price for granted and only estimates

whether or not the price asked is within the possibilities of its pocketbook. That is a broad generalization and not al- ways true, but in the main I think it holds; for a really suc- cessful merchandise establishment is based on fair prices for everything. It repeatedly sacrifices possible super-profit for the sake of instilling in its customers the conviction that all its prices are fair. It is the intent, and on the whole with success, to change the attitude of the customer from, 'wasn't I lucky to get this,' to 'isn't it wonderful that I can get so much for so little money.'

"Fixing a price on any article is not selling it. The poten- tial buyer has only the choice of taking it or leaving it, and when he leaves it, there is no sale. Now the really successful retail merchant must go a point further than charging a fair price. The price that he charges must also be within the limit of the pocketbook. It is this point which has not been suffi- ciently studied and understood. A fair price, after all, cannot be an exact amount, but it must fall within certain well de- fined limits. The exact cost per article in any establishment which deals with a vast variety of articles, cannot be mathe- matically determined. There are too many arbitrary features. But cost accounting has progressed to a sufficient point to enable us to get certain fairly clear ideas as to what the limits of fairness are in relation to cost. Further consideration is the limit of the pocketbook. Within these ranges of fair price there are frequently the most astonishing differences in the rate of consumer demand at different price levels even when these price levels are not far apart. We have done consider- able experimenting along those lines and we conclude from these experiments that the average customer has a pretty clear ratio as to his spending ability for the various types of articles of consumption."

Feminine Instincts and Buying Psychology

These are the days when the veil of woman's "mystery" is being torn off, and it is high time, for there is no real mys- tery in woman's psychology, although there is paradox. Woman, I must contend, cannot be expected to be wholly reasonable because of two or three facts. First fact: as a sex, woman is predominantly emotional, due to her well- authenticated greater emotionality, arising from her nature as a woman. She therefore lives a life closer to instinct than man. Gina Lombroso, the famous Italian woman psychologist, makes the interesting distinction that men get their satisfac- tions from within themselves, from more abstract and im- personal subjects. Woman's satisfactions and stimulations on the other hand, from the objects and people immediately about her. Doubtless this is why Mrs. Consumer is the heart and center of the merchandising world, the great family purchas- ing agent, who spends most of the money men earn and who is deeply concerned with all the details of ten thousand little items of merchandise, which can be more thrilling to her than men usually realize.

Second fact: women are born into an anomolous position, as second fiddle to man in the game of life. Their role is thus made into a psychological paradox; how to be independent, though inexorably dependent; how to be demure and "femin- ine" and yet aggressively attain her ends; how to retreat at the same time that she advances !

Third fact: women are not persuaded, as men are, that logic and reason are the only factors with which one should guide oneself. She has backing in this from the new psychol- ogy, which has shown that we can so very easily "rationalize" ourselves into thinking what our emotions subtly suggest that we tfcink. The conscious brain processes are now known to be not only less powerful, but less important in making a rounded success in life. This does not mean of course, that women are using less reason and intelligence. Indeed they are using more. But emotion and instinct bulks extremely large.

23. A List of the Instincts of Woman. — The first task therefore in coming to grips with the "psychology" of Mrs. Consumer is to make some endeavor to list and rate the in- stincts and emotions of women, as they bear on purchasing. Woman's purchases are exceedingly near to her instincts.

The psychologists have gone a long way in recent years in studying the human emotions, and they have dug up tremen- dously interesting material which is especially useful in study- ing the feminine buyer. Psychoanalysis is something I recom- mend to the intensive student of the woman buyer. The basic fact of importance is the greatly added significance which our new knowledge gives to the emotional reactions (the uncon- scious) as contrasted with our supposedly "intellectual" or logical processes of thought. The human instincts are given a far greater dignity and power now that we have learned what Freud, Jung, Adler and even Watson have added to our knowl- edge. We have always assumed that men, even if not women, bought goods on a basis of logic and reason ; but the findings of psychoanalysis now show that men as well as women, are thor- oughly ruled by their instincts and emotions, although it is undoubtedly the truth that women are more definitely ruled by them.

In the order of their strength among women (according to my own estimate and experience) I list the following in- stincts :

1. Sex Love.

2. Mother Love.

3. Love of Homemaking.

4. Vanity and Love of Personal Adornment.

5. Love of Mutation, Style, Modernity, Prestige, Reputation.

6. Hospitality.

7. Sociability.

8. Curiosity.

9. Rivalry, Envy, Jealousy.

10. Pride, Ostentation and Display.

11. Exclusiveness, Social Ambition, Snobbery.

12. Tenderness, Sympathy and Pity.

13. Cleanliness, Sanitation, Purity.

14. Practicality, Economy, Thrift, Orderliness.

15. Love of Change and Novelty.

16. Delight in Color, Smell, Neatness, Looks and Feel.

17. Delight in Manners, Form, Etiquette.

18. Love of Beauty.

It is true that psychoanalysis is not yet a perfected science and that one must tread cautiously in its mazes, but sufficient has been authenticated to indicate that it has greatly changed our outlook on all matters. I shall speak of only a few of the possibilities of the study of women as buyers as opened up by psychoanalysis. The emphasis I place, as above, on a study of the instincts which are especially strong in women, is the first great step. I believe a seller of family goods should de- finitely see to it that he aims at specific selections among the eighteen instincts listed, and make every selling or advertising appeal square with them. I further believe that every seller of family goods should make a special analysis of the instinc- tive appeals his goods carry, and rate these appeals on a scale. He can do this with excellent effectiveness with the technique described in the chapter on consumer research.

24. The Error of Wrong Appeals. — I see so much adver- tising that is misrated in its appeals, — a kitchen device featur- ing mechanical ingenuity when it should be featuring sanita- tion; a modernistic home furnishing article featuring its for- eign origin, when it should be appealing to woman's love of change and novelty. It seems to me that much selling appeal that I see, is as a result like machinery from which the power belt is slipping or which has come off entirely. The full power of the article's possible innate, instinctive appeal is not being applied, with resulting loss in sales.

In other cases the wrong appeal is used or given exagger- ated emphasis. The case of a certain talcum powder comes to my mind; a new talcum was about to be launched on the usual, habitual appeal of "purity." But when a careful analy- sis of Mrs. Consumer's reactions was made it was discovered that odor was an immensely more powerful appeal; women loved their talcum perfumed. Therefore it is my urgent recommendation that all sellers of family goods leave nothing to guesswork as to which appeals are most powerful for their goods, and to specifically determine how powerful each is.

25. The Importance of Woman's Unconscious Self. — Psychoanalysts make much of the unconscious-, that part of us which feels and thinks below the threshold of our conscious mind. In my belief Mrs. Consumer's mind is an especially unconscious mind. For ages women — because of the paradox of their lives I have previously mentioned — have suppressed much of themselves. They have far more "inhibitions" than man, and are content to do far more things on the basis of intuition, emotion or unconscious motive than man. Early in a girl's life her mother, teachers, church, society, outfit her with suppressions and inhibitions one after another — the heritage of our sex. She rarely parts with them even after growing up — they are part of feminine psychology. There are more words that she hates to hear mentioned; more ob- jects, acts and ideas toward which she has a revulsion, more things she doesn't like to do, more limitations she imposes upon herself than man ever dreams of being bothered with. It is authenticated by psychologists that women's character-

istic attitude is dislike, while man's is like; women respond more quickly to appeals 'to their dislikes; while men respond readily to their preferences.

For these reasons I make bold to say that the strategy of appeal to women should make frequent and full use of her unconscious self. In practice, of course, many advertisers do this (themselves often unconscious why). I learned recently, for example, that a great many young unmarried women were reading Children, the parents' magazine. This would puzzle you until explained with the key of the unconscious. These young women are dreaming of a home and children in their unconscious, but they wouldn't admit it. Probably if you spoke to them about it they would display a younger genera- tion bravado and cynicism about it — but the truth, the uncon- scious truth, is that they are interested in reading about chil- dren. Try to bury the mother-instinct !

26. "Unconscious" Selling Campaigns. — The cigarette advertisers are subtly appealing to the unconscious with their cryptic phraseology "She's a Lucky girl," etc. and the pictures of women with men who are smoking. The conscious judg- ment of many women is that they don't like to see posters and advertisements of women smoking — even though they smoke. Here again, as in so many cases, the child enters the equation, for mothers don't want their daughters to learn to smoke at too early an age, if at all.

The Listerine advertising, a famous campaign to women, was to a degree an unconscious campaign. So have been many others. It must ever be kept in mind that woman's thought processes are not as a rule direct like a man's. Or, if this seems like characterizing women too sharply, let us say that women are not uncompromising logic-choppers like men. Be- ing far more practical humanists and diplomats, they use more gentle strategy and circuitous methods their wonders to perform. Woman is rarely direct; she actually prefers indirec- tion ; it is more suited to her emotionality and to her anomo- lous position in life. Attempts to secure a direct reaction from us often rouses our anger and resentment, especially if it is in regard to a deep-lying instinct.

27. Woman's Passivity and Negativity. — The passive role fits her better than the active ; the negative more than the positive. Every man of insight and understanding of feminine psychology since Casanova has known that it is a special un- manly folly to ask a woman for a kiss ! Think of the woman's predicament from a woman's viewpoint. She cannot say uyes" without appearing out of character as somewhat aggressive, and as assuming more responsibility than she wishes, nor can she say "no" without appearing unresponsive. She hates both alternatives ; so she prefers indirection 1 even if she is a modern flapper with a veneer of seeming aggressiveness. There is at present a reaction to the feministic pose of directness, like man's. Women are retreating from it. All who deal with women should be thoroughly aware of these unconscious atti- tudes, half-expressed states of mind, and fundamental feel- ings. They are quite as powerful in woman as a purchaser as in woman filling any other role in life.

28. Mrs. Consumer and Inferiority-Superiority Feelings. — The inferiority-superiority feelings, so prominent a part of modern psychoanalysis, are very powerfully present in women, far more so than in men. Men have achieved a more normal expression of their ego in work, but women have had a harder path to tread. First, there has been the inferiority bred in her because of her subjugation by man, and following that her sense of isolation from the work of the world. As a result women have built up a very powerful social snobbery — a method by which they secured a seeming sense of superiority. "Society" and "woman's cruelty to women" were the result. Today when millions of women, even women of the upper classes, are working, "society" is decaying — mainly because the sense of inferiority has declined. The suffrage campaign was an expression of a sense of inferiority. Once obtained, women have done little with suffrage — but the ballot was great satisfaction for their egos. The appeal to snobbery has def- initely declined in power — but it is of course still very strong. It was once all-powerful. The decline of the "inferiority com- plex" is reflected, I believe, in the decline of the textile indus- try. Women are not so rabidly interested in dress as before,

and do not make it such a fetish. They have other interests. In the days of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, (who wore, I believe, 14 petticoats under her inaugural ball gown,) and later dur- ing the days of Ward McAllister and the Bradley-Martin Ball in the Mauve nineties, women crucified themselves as persons on their inferiority complex — and literally tried to cover it up with textiles ! Today they do much more as they please about clothes, and make Paris nervous and jumpy with their calm refusal to do its bidding, whereas once they were its abject, obeisant slaves.

29. Woman's Suggestibility. — Along the lines of more orthodox psychology there are findings of practical importance to note. Women have a greater suggestibility than men ; they are more receptive; men being more stubborn and unadapta- ble. This is doubtless why the advertiser of family goods has made such phenomenal progress. Mrs. Consumer in America has a very volatile character — far more than the women of other nations for very obvious reasons. She is a new race- mixture without fixed social roots or traditions in a new and democratic country. There is nothing whatever to stop her from reaching any level of wealth or social position or even personal advancement of which she is capable. The American man is alert for business — Mrs. Consumer is alert for cultural and social felicity and advance. That is why she is a "culture hound" ; that is why she wants just as well-equipped a home or kitchen as her husband desires a well-equipped factory or office. Of course she is suggestible — and the reason she is more so than man is that there are more male traditions to bind the man. American women feel far less bound.

But for the very reason of this high suggestibility, Mrs. Consumer's attention, although easy to get, is hard to hold. Her variability of mood and tense and interest makes it par- ticularly important for the seller of goods to plan more care- fully to hold her attention than to get it. That was why a colorful poster with the words "Use Pears Soap" in olden days was inadequate, and why all pure "general publicity" is inade- quate today. She must be held, and it cannot be done with stilted name publicity. She can only be held by elabo-

rate approach to her instincts, even logic being insufficient. The personal appeal is far more certain to hold Mrs. Con- sumer; and it is precisely the selling campaigns based most decidedly on the personal appeal, that have been most success- ful in recent times. ("The skin you love to touch"; "she never knew why," etc.)

There is a further interesting distinction. Men appar- ently respond most readily to <zcftow-appeals — women to vis- z/0/-appeals. A man is very greatly interested in what a thing does-, whereas Mrs. Consumer is much more interested in how it looks. The automobile, the radio and the phonograph are classic examples of this difference. Women disliked these "contraptions" (for such they were at the beginning) and they did not attain their present widespread vogue until they were designed and built to please women. I remember how I re- sented it when my husband first brought into the parlor the messy-looking box called a radio set, and how I was annoyed lest the acid from the battery spoil my rugs. The pleasure in hearing it did not compensate for my dislike of its unsightly appearance. Now, of course, radio is an elegant, decorative article of furniture — and the same evolution occurred in the case of the phonograph. The self-starter, the closed car, the luxurious fittings were what brought universality of use to the automobile industry.

30. Women and Eye-Appeal. — Which brings me in gen- eral to the "eye" appeal so highly developed in women as often to be a grave fault. It has made her an addict to white bread, white rice, and other less desirable food forms, solely bought on a basis of eye appeal. Women are exceedingly sensitive to how their food looks on the table — often far more sensitive than they are to sanitation or sound nutritive considerations. Women react very sharply to the appearance and exterior of articles or merchandise, are often indeed hypersensitive on the subject. Every seller should realize this clearly and plan his merchandise and advertising accordingly. Further, women are much keener for pictures than men, as Gale showed in his experiments.

Indeed, women definitely have a greater sensitivity to all

sensory impressions. Their senses are very likely to be sharper and less robust than men's. They will be unpleasantly affected at an odor which men barely notice, and become nervous at sounds men ignore. Women have far more dislikes in com- mon with each other than they have likes in common, while the reverse seems to be true of men. Women are also less prone than men to be influenced by appeals to social solidarity such as guarantee, union made, sympathy, recommendation of others, etc.*

Woman is not a "mystery." I do not subscribe to the usual mystery hocus pocus by women who believe that no man understands them ; on the contrary, I am sure that many men understand women very well in her buying attitude.

31. Men's Understanding of Women. — I do believe, how- ever, that the psychology of the woman buyer is a far more subtle thing than the average male is able to grasp, and that the next five to ten years are going to be years of greater study of the consumer — which necessarily means, to a large extent, the woman consumer.

It is well to keep constantly in mind the peculiar and in- nate sense of relative values which women have. It is often particularly puzzling to men to see women unusually extrava- gant in some things and unusually penurious in others. As a rule men explain this with the simple formula that women are extravagant about their clothes and toilet but stingy in the purchase of other family goods. Like most generalizations, this is really not correct. The proof lies in the fact that manu- facturers of clothes are complaining today and that the high class department stores have been compelled to put in "inex- pensive dress departments." In fact the department store men of England the other day adopted the pathetic slogan "Wear More Clothes." The truth is that women are tremendously clever compromisers in purchasing and are always juggling their "consumer dollar" around in some new way to make it enlarge or double to meet new desires; and since woman is predominantly emotional, she shifts her desires frequently. Men are notoriously rigid in their purchasing psychology,

* For further detail see "Advertising and Selling," Hollingworth.

clinging in some instances to one haberdasher and one kind of clothes for a lifetime ; whereas few merchants can count on a woman customer for longer than they have special attractions to offer. Change is the great keynote to feminine character.

32. Bargain Psychology and Mrs. Consumer. — Even the old doctrine that woman is a born bargainer is only another partly erroneous generalization, because women with a good deal of money are not always bargainers, and the significant truth is that the American woman is every year going further away from the old bargain counter psychology. Recent com- parative studies have shown that women are no longer falling for the "comparative price" advertising psychology and its sister, the "bargain counter." They are also no longer so concerned about the cut prices of chain stores. Live depart- ment stores are now preaching the doctrine of selling the women the entire store as an institution, rather than special bargains. Modern woman is more discriminating, and not a mere bargaining penny-saver.

33. Women as Learners. — Women today are avid learn- ers of new domestic techniques. I am naturally speaking here of the younger generation of women under 35 or 40. Our remarkable household science columns in our women's maga- zines and newspapers have been doing a great educational job for the past 20 years, and the results are becoming evident. Woman is a thorough-going revolutionist in spirit, — even in

. the spirit with which she approaches her most traditional job — home-making.

I do not think any more striking example can be given than the speed with which women made use of the new information as to the vitamin content of liver. Meat men tell me that within a few weeks after this information became public, liver became a prized article, and in New York at least, it is now almost necessary to make a reservation for your liver as you do for a popular play sold out for weeks ahead ! The Amer- ican advertiser has taught the American housewife to think constructively of her job. The truth is that these old saws about woman's psychology have succumbed to the greater ap- plication of reason and intelligence among women shoppers, —

always bearing in mind that "intelligence" also includes emo- tional intelligence, which is the tremendously important quality in a woman's life.

Women are speeding up change in America, and they psy- chologically love change. Every woman shifts her furniture frequently, and her draperies, while men look on amazed — they were satisfied with the old. Mrs. Consumer often has to take away from men, almost by force, their old shoes, old hats and overcoats I

A Study of Purchases as Between Men and Women

Because of the importance of the woman factor in an ever- increasing range of purchases, it is of real consequence to know the facts in detail as to what articles are purchased (1) by men only; (2) women only; and (3) by both men and women together.

Some years ago I aided in such a research made by Dr. H. L. Hollingworth of Columbia University. This for the first time, resulted in some detail measurement of the differ- ences between men and women in family purchasing. While these figures are doubtless not perfectly up-to-date, the direc- tion of the later developments must be said to be toward still greater buying participation by women. The figures should be exceedingly useful. The research was made among New York people of incomes from $2,000 to $6,000. The figure for "None Purchased" means that to the percentage indicated none of those families which were investigated bought this type of goods at all.

34. Statistics of What Women Buy. — The summary of the entire research is as follows, after which is presented each of the divisions in detail.

Men P.C.

Men's Clothing 65.1

Women's Clothing 1.5

Druggists' Articles 10.0

Kitchen Ware 2.0

Pets 18.7

Dry Goods 0

Vehicles 22.0

House Furnishings 4.0

Musical Instruments 17.8

Raw and Market Foods 0

Special Foods 3.2

Miscellaneous .. 5.6

Women Together None P.C. P.C. Purchased P.C.

11.2

86.7

48.0

88.9

5.3

96.0

48.5 10.5 87.3 79.2 21.7

22.9 11.0 40.7

8.7 14.7

4.0 17.0 45.5 29.0 12.7 13.7 68.4

General totals, per cent 12.5 48.6 24.0

1.3

61.3 .0

61.0 .0

43.5

4.0

3.5

14.7

Men's Clothing

None

Men Women Together Purchased

Suits

Shoes 96

Shirts 68

Collars 100

Ties 52

Hats 92

Gloves 68

Underwear 48

Socks 40

Handkerchiefs 32

Jewelry 40

0% 0

20%

4 32

0 44

20 24 44 24 32

Average, per cent 65.1 11.2 22.9

Women's Clothing

None

Men Women Together Purchased

Suits 0%

Dresses 0

Cloaks 0

Underwear 0

Footwear 0

Hats 0

Parasols 4

Fans 0

Gloves 0

Handkerchiefs 0

Jewelry 12

Average, per cent.

1.5

96 92 100 96 88 84 92 96 92 36

86.7

20%

4 12 12

8 52

Druggists' Articles

Men

None

Women Together Purchased

Medicines ................................... 12% 24% 64% 0%

Soaps ............................................ 8 48 44 0

Brushes ........................................ 20 44 36 0

Perfumes .................................... 8 64 20 8

Talcums ...................................... 4 60 36 0

Dental preparations .................... 8 48 44 0

Average, per cent ............... 10 48 4.7 1.3

Kitchen Ware

None

Men Women Together Purchased Cooking Utensils ........................ 0% 100% 0% 0%

Clothes Lines .............................. 0 92 8 0

Pails ............................................ 0 100 0 0

Tables ......................................... 4 88 8 0

Ranges, Refrigerators ................ 8 68 24 0

Chafing Dishes .......................... 0 84 12 4

Average, per cent ............... 2 88.7 8.7 .6

Pets

Dogs .. Horses Birds

Average, per cent 18.7

None Together Purchased

52%

14.7

61.3

Lace ....

Ribbons Cloth ... Thread

Dry Goods

Men 0% 0 0 0

Average, per cent 0

Women 100%

88 100

~9<f

None Together Purchased

0% 4 12 0

0% 0 0 0

Vehicles

Men

Automobiles 20%

Boats .. 24

Average, per cent.

22 56

None

Together Purchased 18% 62% 16 60

House Furnishings

Men Women

Rugs 0% 32%

Tables, vacuum cleaner 4 36

Washing Machines 4 36

Lamps 8 48

Electric Utilities 16 28

Curtains 0 80

Mattresses 0 80

Beds ., 0 48

None Together Purchased

60 60 44 40 20 20 52

0 0 0 16 0 0 0

Average, per cent 4 48.5 45.5

Musical Instruments

Men

Pianos 20%

Piano Players 4

Phonographs, Radio 24

Stringed Instruments 20

Average, per cent 17.0

Women

12%

8 14

10.5

None Together Purchased

4% 80 38 52

43.5

Raw and Market Foods

Flour

Fruit

Vegetables

Butter Meats

Men

Average, per cent 0

Women

96%

87.3

None Together Purchased

4% 0%

28 0

12 0

4 0

8 0

20 0

12.7

Special Foods

Men Women

Bread 0% 92%

Cereals 0 96

Canned Goods 0 92

Water 4 84

Candies ., 12 32

None Together Purchased

4% 4 0 4 56

Average, per cent.

79.2

13.6

Miscellaneous

None

Men Women Together Purchased

Stationery 4% 36% 60% 0%

Pens 4 32 64 0

Books 4 20 76 0

Magazines 8 12 80 0

Newspapers 36 8 56 0

Pictures 8 28 64 0

Xmas Gifts 0 24 76 0

Wedding Gifts 0 40 60 0

Birthday Gifts 4 28 68 0

Children's Toys 0 20 64 16

Apartments 0 8 64 28

Summer Outings 0 4 88 8

Average, per cent 5.6 21.7 68.4 4.3

35. Statistics of Retail Purchases by Men and Women. — Another more recent survey, also made in New York City, developed a new set of percentage of purchases made by women. Out of the twelve classifications, in only two were men more prominent in purchasing than women — hardware and automobiles. Here are the figures :

Per Cent of Purchases by by

Types of Store Men Women

Drug store 22% 7S%

Department store 18 82

Grocery store 19 81

Silks 2 98

Pianos 22 78

Leather goods 33 67

Automobiles 59 41

Hardware 51 49

Electrical supplies 20 80

Men's socks 25 75

Jewelry 20 80

Men's neckwear 37 63

36. Sex Differences Disappear at Upper Levels. — There are definite signs that among the upper and more intelligent levels of women sex differences in buying are disappearing and that women on such levels react more and more like men. This means that they are busier, more curt and analytical

in their attitude toward buying, and are to be approached with the same "reason why" attitude. Domestic Com- merce, issued by the government, printed a communication from a seller clearly showing this:

"With the woman buyer playing so large a part in the purchase of consumer's goods, it seems that attention could profitably be paid to both the more permanent angles of the woman buyer's psychology and the attitudes created by chang- ing conditions. Where formerly the woman's place was set- tled upon as being in the home, now it is more and more the case that women are choosing a business career, or are taking part in activities which either call them away from the home or engage their time. The salesman or business man dealing with the woman customer still seems to think she is always at home and possessed of boundless leisure. He refuses to make a definite appointment to repair the plumbing, and cannot understand that he should be specific as to what hour the groceries will be delivered. Canvassers appear indignant when the woman at home, who may be writing advertising copy or tending a sick child, says she is 'busy.'

"As another instance of need for proper regard for the woman buyer, there may be mentioned a condition which is particularly impressive to the woman who is called upon in her business capacity to make purchases for the office or con- cern for which she works. When she comes to buying for her home she is unable to find out much about the quality of the food or household appliances she intends purchasing. The chief appeal is to the emotion. It is not possible, for instance, to procure a catalog of furniture to be studied at leisure. When the article is as expensive as a refrigerator or vacuum cleaner, the salesman may exhibit astonishment if the woman purchaser lets it be known that she is comparing several dif- ferent makes before a final decision. On the other hand, for a man buying file cases for the office, such a procedure would be a matter of course."

VII

The Relative Strength of Appeals to Women

So many mistakes are made in attempting to influence women that it may be of some aid to give consideration to the relative strength of appeals. In another chapter the in- stincts of women have been valued and enumerated, but of course appeals may or may not be to instincts. Appeals may also be argumentative as well as instructive; of a surface nature as well as deep-going.

I would certainly recommend that all appeals directed to women be tested, and the various possible appeals worked out and valued. There is no common sense in making an appeal to women unless it is first tested, as it is wasteful of the seller's money and the consumer's time. Consumer interest should meet seller-appeal as precisely as the two sec- tions of a well engineered bridge or tunnel dovetail. We live in an engineering age. It wearies me to read advertising which has a futile appeal, and it irritates me not to be appealed to in the instinctively right way, as when a nursery swing manufacturer stresses the color of his swing, when the appeal should be the safety of the child.

37. Precise Ratings for Sales Appeals to Women. — Un- doubtedly the most useful study of appeals is one I show here (Hollingworth) which rated appeals to women with- out reference to a specific article of merchandise. Therefore the ratings represent the basic general standing and power of all appeals. Naturally, the moment a specific article of mer- chandise is introduced the more powerful appeal for that article acquires special strength and precedence. Here are the appeals and their rating with women; also their rank with men only; and their rank averaged for both men and women. These appeals are separated into three groups, clustering around three levels for the ratings:

Percentage Percentage Percentage

Rank Rank Rank

for for for

Appeal Women Men Men and Women

1. Time Saved 97 10th 4th

2. Health 95- 1st 1st

3. Cleanliness 95 2nd 2nd

4. Efficiency 94.7 9th 6th

5. Scientific 93.5 5th 3rd

6. Durability 91.5 llth 8th

7. Quality 90 13th 9.5th

8. Appetizing 87 3rd 5th

9. Guarantee 85.5 19th 13th

10. Medicinal 85 22nd 15th

11. Safety 84.3 4th 7th

12. Modernity 83.5 8th 9.5th

13. Reputation 81.6 15th 12th

14. Substitutes 79 28th 23rd

15. Family Affection 78.2 6th llth

16. Hospitality 76 21st 22nd

17. Courtesy 73 16th 18th

18. Economy 72.4 17th 19th

19. Imitation 70 14th 16th

20. Affirmation 70 20th 20th

21. Sport 67.5 18th 21st

22. Elegance 66 12th 17th

23. Sympathy 63 7th 14th

24. Clan Feeling 59.5 25th 24th

25. Social Superiority 58.8 27th 27th

26. Beautifying 57 29th 29th

27. Imported 55 26th 28th

28. Nobby 52.5 23rd 25th

29. Recommendation 52 24th 26th

38. Analysis of Breakfast Food Appeals, — In another test of appeals (Strong) on a specific article, breakfast food, ap- peals worked out as follows :

Appeal Grade

Cleanliness 95.5

Doctor's recommendation .... 93.5

Brain-Power 92.1

Taste No. 1 92.0

Taste No. 2 91.8

Healthful No. 1 91.8

Healthful No. 2 91.5

Mental dullness 90.7

Magnifying glass (Health) 90.5 Old reliable firm .. .. 90.2

Appeal Grade

Roosevelt recommendation .. 90.2

Cheapness 90.2

"Shot from a gun" 89.0

Used everywhere 88.5

Men like it 87.0

Patronize home industry 86.9

Royal recommendation 86.0

Enormous plant 85.1

Souvenir free 83.2

39. Study of Toilet Soap Appeals. — Still another test of women in New York, on toilet soaps, indicated the following appeal strength :

Appeal Grade

Cleanliness 97.3

Does not irritate the skin .... 95.9

Health 94.5

For Shampoo and bath 91.7

Beauty 91.9

For Bath (Resinol Soap ad) 91.6

Guaranteed 90.6

Doctor's recommendation .... 90.3

For the Baby 90.2

Try it at our Expense 89.1

Appeal Grade

Old Reliable Firm 89.1

Used in Carnegie Institute

(Ivory Soap Ad) 88.4

Sold everywhere 87.6

Roosevelt's recommendation .. 86.3

Royalty's recommendation .. 85.5

Cheap 84.9

For particular people 84.6

Enormous plant 83.4

Souvenir free .. .. 80.9

VIII

The Ten Levels of American Con- sumers

For clear thinking, in selling goods to American consumers, it is most important to be able to distinguish between the fairly well-marked groups, and to determine which of them con- stitute your logical market. However alike may be the men of the several groups, because of their closer association to- gether in business and industry, the women of these classes are quite decidedly different, because they do not associate together much, if any.

These ten levels of Mrs. Consumers, which I have made bold to set up, with the help of competent statistical advice, are, of course, to some degree arbitrary.

There is plenty of diversity within each class or level, because of the great geographic spread of these United States and the recent foreign origins of so many of our people.

These ten levels are, of course, based entirely on family income and social status, rather than on type, locality, race or buying habits. The numbers given for each class represent families, and the grand total is 28,000,000. The statistics on which these calculations are based, are income tax figures

and other available research data. The result is not claimed to be scientifically accurate, for it is well known that informa- tion about the lower levels of income is very unreliable and no one has exact information, especially about the farmer and low grade rural families. Presumably there is a 5% or 10% margin of possible error in these figures, which are none the less valuable because of this.

Another factor that is most important, and complicating — as described elsewhere — is the multiple earner situation in a large number of families. There are about 46,000,000 people gainfully employed at this writing, whereas there are about 28,000,000 families, which means that there are 18,- 000,000 more wage-earners than families. The earnings of these wives, daughters, sons, etc., in families greatly add to the total of family income available for spending. But as there is no way to apportion this, it can only be said that it is spread fairly evenly throughout all levels of income. A recent survey made by the Chicago Herald and Examiner showed that out of 3,350,000 people in Chicago there are 1,135,700 "independent economic units" living alone, and not in families. This, in large cities, represents another phase of consumer study.

The wealthy family is just as likely as the poorer family to contain individuals besides the head of the family, with in- come, whether from salaries and wages, or from inheritance, investments, etc. Such a situation makes for marked con- trasts between families whose heads have the same income, and who may actually work side by side in a factory. Family "A" may have a $2,000 income from the man alone, while Family "B" may not only have $2,000 but $1,000 from the earnings of a daughter who is a stenographer, and $1,500 from a son who is a clerk. This makes a total of $4,500 for the family. There are some such families enjoying as much as $8,000 a year, from the earnings of its members, while the salary of the head may be but $2,000. Family "C" may have no children, while the wife adds to the family earnings. There is thus a considerable amount of family income which is not included in the total volume of income as indicated, but,

Chart Showing The Ten family Consumer Levels and Their Relative Status

(B) (c) (DJ

% 3,0001*

55,000

8.92 8% of '$2,000to\f ami lies $3,000

7.154% of families

$ 1,500 to #2,000

35.374%of f ami lies

IBelowSSOO,

6.785% of

families.

S500 to ftl,000 13.934% of f am i I i es

SI, 000 To SI, 500 ££.764% of families

CA)S5,000 to SI 0,OOO 3.584% an SI 0,000 to S25,000 1.084% <oS25,000 to 550,000 .268%

(o) $50,000 and over .125%

100% 28,000,000 families

after all, these multiple family earnings are sporadic and seasonal; son and daughter are extra family earners only for a comparatively few years, when they set up their own families. levels. The American people represent such a vast mass of The groupings herewith are no doubt over-rigid — but they have the merit of making a genuine and I hope fairly intelligent effort to classify the American consumer into logical

such varied and violent contrasts ; of great wealth and narrow income, of great city and widely separate homes in sparse rural districts, of education and illiteracy, of sophistication and naivete, that the entire scene is not only likely to, but frequently does, confuse the seller. Until I traveled Chautauqua cir- cuits into the small town and rural districts of many states, north, south and west, and by personal, as well as correspond- ence contact with large numbers of women, I had only a con- fused idea of the country, and a lack of ability to visualize the various levels.

These ten consumer family levels I now delineate as fol- lows:

/. The Grcesus Level:

Income range: $50,000 a year upwards. Approximate number: about 35,000 families. Proportion of total families: .125%. Approximate total income: $4,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented : 4.3 %'. Approximate number on this Level in 1914, about 10,000. Percentage of gain in number since 1914: 350%. Approximate proportion of the income of this Level secured through salaries, 10%; remainder from investments, etc. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year, 27.6%; per month ap- proximately $250 for food, $300 for shelter, $200 for clothes, $400 for operating and maintenance.

Typical Proportion spent by this level on "Advancement" per year, 18.4% ; per month $766.67.

Typical Proportion held as "Surplus," per year 54%, $27,000; per month, $2,250.

2. The Super-Liberal Level:

Income range: $25,000 to $50,000 a year; average $37,500. Approximate number: about 75,000 families. Proportion of total families: .268%. Approximate total income, about $2,250,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 2.4%.

Approximate number on this level in 1914, about 16,000. Percentage gain in number since 1914: 370%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level, secured through salaries, 25%; remainder from investments, etc. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) on "Necessities," per year, 33 % ; per month approxi- mately $250 for food, $310 for shelter, $190 for clothes, $291 for operating and maintenance.

Typical Proportion spent on "Advancement" per year, 17% ; per month $531.

Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year, 50%, $18,750; per month $1,564.

3. The Well-to-do-Level:

Income range: $10,000 to $25,000 a year; average $17,500. Approximate number: about 300,000 families. Proportion of total families: 1.084%. Approximate total income, about $4,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented 4.3%. Approximate number on this level in 1914, about 60,000. Percentage gain in number since 1914; 400%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level secured through salaries, 33% ; remainder from investments, etc. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) on "Necessities" per year, 37.5%; per month ap- proximately $133 for food, $150 for shelter, $112 for clothes, $150 for operating-maintenance.

Typical proportion spent on "Advancement" per year, 17%, $2,975, per month, $247.

Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year, 45.5%, $7,962 ; per month, $663.

4. The Liberal Level:

Income range: $5,000 to $10,000; average $7,500. Approximate number: about 1,000,000 families. Proportion of total families: 3.584%. Approximate total income, about $6,000,000,000.

Proportion of total income of country represented: 6.45%. Approximate number on this level in 1914, about 275,000. Percentage gain in number since 1914: 264%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level secured through salaries, 43%.

Typical proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children, for "Necessities," per year, 69 % ; per month ap- proximately for food $100, for shelter $100, for clothes $75, for operating-maintenance $75.

Typical Proportion spent by this Level on "Advancement" per year, 16% ; per month, $100.

Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year, 28%, $2,100; per month $175.

5. The Moderate Level:

Income range: $3,000 to $5,000; average $4,000. Approximate number: about 2,500,000 families. Proportion of total families 8.928%. Approximate total income, about $10,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 10.75%. Approximate number on this level in 1914, about 275,000. Percentage gain in number since 1914: 816%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level secured through salaries, 52%.

Typical proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children for "Necessities," per year, 69%; per month ap- proximately $70 for food, $60 for shelter, $50 for clothes, $50 for operating-maintenance.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level for "Ad- vancement" per year. 14.5%, per month $48.33. Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year, 16.5%, $660; per month $55.

6. The Comfortable Level:

Income range: $2,000 to $3,000; average $2,500. Approximate number: about 2,000,000 families. Proportion of total families: 7.154%. '

Approximate total income, about $5,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 5.37%. Approximate number on this level in 1914, about 400,000. Percentage gain in number since 1914: 400%. Approximate proportion of the income on this Level secured through salaries, 58%.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year, 79.2%; per month ap- proximately $55 for food, $45 for shelter, $35 for clothes, $30 for operating-maintenance.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level for "Ad- vancement" per year, 11.2% ; per month $23.33. Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year 9.6%, $240; per month $20.00.

7. The Minimum Comfort Level:

Income range: $1,500 to $2,000; average $1,750. Approximate number: about 9,900,000 families. Proportion of total families: 35.374%. Approximate total income, about $17,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 17.9%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level secured through salaries, 85% to 95%.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year, 87%; per month ap- proximately $49.50 for food, $32 for shelter, $26 for clothes, $19 for operating-maintenance.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level for "Ad- vancement" per year, 8 % ; per month, $11.60. Typical Proportion held as "Surplus," per year, 5%, $87.50; per month $7.30.

8. The Subsistence Level:

Income range: $1,000 to $1,500; average $1,250. Approximate number: about 6,390,000 families. Proportion of total families: 22.764%.

Approximate total income: about $8,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 8.6%. Approximate proportion of the income on this level secured through salaries; 100%.

Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year, 97%; per month ap- proximately $46.80 for food, $22.80 for shelter, $20 for clothes, $10.50 for operating-maintenance. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level for "Ad- vancement" per year, 2% ; per month, $2.00. Typical proportion held for "Surplus" per year, 1%, $12.50; per month, $1.00.

(Special characteristics: Every dollar must be most carefully managed and there is no room for much beyond immediate needs. In this class are also families who because they live in rural sections and have a garden, chickens, pigs, etc., manage to secure a fair living from this income, and own an automobile and enjoy even some comforts. There is a distinct difference between such people and those with the same income living in cities.)

9. The Bare Subsistence Level:

Income range: $500 to $1,000; average $750. Approximate number; about 3,900,000 families. Proportion of total families: 13.934%. Approximate total income: about $3,000,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: 3.22%. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year, 99%; per month ap- proximately $27.75 for food, $13.75 for shelter, $12.50 for clothing, $6.25 for operating-maintenance. Typical Proportion spent by families on this Level for "Ad- vancement," per year, 1 % ; per month, approximately, 60 cents.

Typical Proportion held as "Surplus" per year, Zero. (Special characteristic: Most of these families are in the rural and very small town districts, and especially in southern and southwestern states, some, however, are in the large cities.)

10. The Poverty Level:

Income range: below $500.

Approximate number: about 1,900,000 families (and indi- viduals).

Proportion of total families: 6.785%. Approximate total income : about $600,000,000. Proportion of total income of country represented: .645%. Typical proportion spent by families on this Level (with two children) for "Necessities" per year 100% and more; usually being in debt.

(Special characteristic: A great many of these are negroes and poor whites in rural districts of southern states; and a small proportion are in the smaller cities and towns. Although the figure given here is for families ; this is inaccurate, as on this Level there must be included about one million paupers, insane and others supported by the state, and another 1,000,000 or more who are "floaters" and wanderers.

Luxury Buying and Mrs. Consumer

There is a great deal of nonsense talked about luxury sell- ing in America, especially in recent years when wealth has un- deniably increased and there has been an appreciable inclina- tion on the part of Mrs. Consumer for more style and color and quality goods. This nonsense arises chiefly out of some new definitions read into the words "comfort," "necessity" and "luxury." At a trade conference not long ago three sepa- rate speakers said that the day of "staple" merchandise in America has passed. This is downright silly — at least so it seems to me. There is a vast quantity of "staple" goods still sold today, and always will be. If the word staple is properly defined, its character is permanent. It means a principal or well-established article of commerce, moving in regular chan- nels of trade. Thousands of tons of such staples are consumed almost every hour. The greater part of American income goes for its purchase.

40. Loose Talk About "Luxuries" and Necessities. — What is behind this loose talk about luxuries and the passing of staples is that a certain proportion of staples are today be- ing merchandised and sold to a far greater degree as if they

were specialities. Sugar is sold in cartons as if it were a break- fast food, but it is a staple nevertheless. Soda crackers are packed in cartons and made into a specialty. Both were once invariably sold out of a barrel — but what is somehow forgot- ten today by those who habitually see only the upper crust of life, is that by far the largest proportion of both sugar and soda crackers are still sold in bulk form. Why should it be a woman consumer who brings to the attention of business men such facts? I find that it invariably surprises business men greatly to learn that 66% of biscuits and crackers are still sold in bulk. They have nearly all had the naive idea that everybody today in America eats crackers only out of a Uneeda or Loose-Wiles Takhoma waxed paper carton. Such ideas are only a part of the appalling ignorance prevailing about Mrs. Consumer, to which I have elsewhere alluded. The effect of this ignorance is invariably to underestimate the market for ordinary goods, — staples, if you will; and to overestimate the market for luxuries. Like the famous calculations for the market for Col. Seller's eyewash — "there are a hundred mil- lions of people ; each have two eyes, and if each person uses ten drops a day washing each eye, the market for eyewash will be 730 billion drops or, seven billion, three hundred and fifty million bottles per year. We'll all be rich 1"

There is a serious confusion as to what a "luxury" means, as against a "necessity" or a "comfort." This is not surpris- ing in a country where living standards are moving forward so rapidly — especially when even in England the same confusion reigns. Sir Edwin Stockton, speaking in London in February, 1929, on "finance and luxury" referred to it. The London Financial News reminded him that "nearly all present day necessaries, not excepting shirts, and boots, and glass windows and thousands of other things, began as luxuries. Civilization is, materially speaking, the conversion of luxuries into neces- saries. It has been justly said that to furnish entertainment for the mind is as important as to provide food for the body. Industry progresses through its interpenetration by science, and in the wake of that comes its interpenetration by art. Lux-

ury, then, always has been, and always will be, a purely relative

term."

Staples and necessities still remain such, and account for most of the contents of the millions of freight cars and ship- loads of goods that move about — wool and cotton for clothing, wheat for flour, etc. But there is also large additional ton- nage for comforts and luxuries. It is perfectly natural for a mother who has seen to it that her children have food, clothing and shelter, to think of toys, amusements, ornaments, travel and beautification. A Mexican half-breed mother is no dif- ferent from a Park Avenue mother in this respect. She will reach after comforts, and attaining comforts, reach after lux- uries; but only as the garnish to the necessities. The New York East Side families — once regarded as the poorest people in America — are now largely beyond struggling for bare neces- sities, but with what result? They have increased greatly their purchase of the so-called necessities, as their first desire. The East Side eats good food and plenty of it; often four meals a day. The first result of a raised standard of living is thus not to neglect the staples and necessities, but to increase their use to a considerable degree, also to exchange some of them for more agreeable types. Only after this point is reached does the purchase of comforts or luxuries begin. If then education also increases, there is a further increase in the purchase of selected staples and necessities — lettuce, oranges, milk, etc. — on the basis of discrimination between staple values, from new and enlightened points of view.

41. Relative Degrees in Luxury and Necessity. — The lettuce, oranges, bread and milk items make excellent examples. All four are staples. The poorest families have purchased them for many decades — but, except bread, only in limited quantity, and in season. They were staples and necessities — but only to a relative degree. Nothing, except perhaps bread, has ever really deserved the name of a "necessity," and one may logically question whether bread is, since more than half the world's population gets along very well without it, using rice instead; while there are millions in America who eat very, very little bread. Vast armies of soldiers have done without

bread, using "hard-tack." Only among the very poorest peo- ple is bread important today, for in their diet it assumes a large proportion, while among most other people bread is more and more neglected. During the war Hoover called the bread men together and told them he wanted them to sell a five cent loaf which met certain requirements, because a ten cent loaf seemed to be oppressive on the poor. The bread men smiled and in- formed Hoover that the New York East Side, at least, would spurn the five cent loaf as not good enough, because the East Side depended considerably on its bread, insisting on unusually good bread, and was perfectly willing to pay for it. It had always paid more for its bread than other people — but this did not make it into a luxury; it only proved its character at the time as a "staff of life." Today even the East Side is turning slowly from bread — its young women, traditionally buxom, now want the slim American figure, which is inconsist- ent with a heavy bread diet.

Lettuce and oranges, on the other hand, are being used in far greater quantity — 500% more than a decade or more ago — but it would be absurd to call them luxuries, even though to eat them out of season and plentifully may appear to be luxurious. Isn't health a necessity? Then the greater use of lettuce and oranges is not a luxury but a necessity. When one sees a family of five people who have five bottles of milk de- livered in the morning there is a temptation to speak of milk being used luxuriously. But again there is a distinct health necessity reason behind it. The claim, then, that a modern family lives "luxuriously" because it uses less of the old starchy staples, bread, rice and potatoes, and more citrus fruits, milk and vegetables out of season, falls rather flat. It is simply a well-advised shift of emphasis as between various staples.

42. Clothing and Household Equipment as "Luxury." — Now let us go higher in the scale than food and consider the case of other so-called comforts and luxuries. Certainly in clothing there is no great tendency toward luxury. Elsewhere I have shown how women are paying less per garment than formerly for their clothes; how they are preferring more or less standardized, modest-priced felt-hats to the old elaborate

"creations." They have cut down not only in average price of garments but in number of garments worn on the person. The textile industry's slackness reflects this, and it is the textile industry which has most actively criticized the tendency to "luxuries" at the expense of "necessities." Presumably some textile men would like to believe that we women have been shedding some "necessities." We have shed plenty, but we believe that what we shed were luxuries, not necessities ! Pet- ticoats, for instance ! I throw out of court therefore the argu- ment that we are neglecting any textile necessities. It is again a case of changed meanings and altered needs ; and in the case of rayon, a shift to a new creation.

Now as to household equipment, this is a common argu- ment. "Women buy luxurious electric refrigerators, electric percolators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, etc. and neg- lect the ordinary necessities." I would undertake to prove to any audience that all of the above-mentioned devices, and many others besides, are productive machinery precisely on a par with the dictaphone, the typewriter, the filing cabinet and the adding machine in its money saving and time saving values. No such machinery should be called a luxury — we stopped using such epithets for machinery a hundred years ago. Like industrial and office machinery, home machinery has brought economies which have enlarged productivity and well-being. I throw out the term luxury therefore as regards home equipment.

As for the automobile, I do not need to prove my case. The National Automobile Chamber of Commerce and many economists have demonstrated that automobiles are not today a luxury, because they are also economic, productive machines, and only incidentally give pleasure.

Pianos, phonographs and radio sets are to be classed as luxuries only if you insist on considering recreation a luxury. I do not, because work activities demand alternation with recreation if ill-health and insanity are to be avoided. The "good life"; wise, well-rounded living demands recreational and cultural activity quite as much as food; therefore I see no basis for rating these articles as other than staples and com- forts.

43. The Real Luxuries.— What have we left? I will fully and willingly concede to be luxuries alcoholic liquor, night clubs, travel, imported food delicacies; the notion of a college education for everybody, the collection of antiques, the pos- session of a multiplicity of homes, country estates, yachts, jewels, show-off hospitality, competition in wealth and display and things like that. But it will at once be noted that the great bulk of family buying is quite on another plane, and so is the great bulk of manufacture. There is not being sold to- day on any large scale what I would call genuine luxury. What is taking place is a vast realignment of standards of living on the modern basis which makes use of our new health and dietary and artistic knowledge. The old labels of luxury and necessity are useless, and so is any criticism of consumers as seeming to prefer luxuries to necessities.

"The American consumer demands the conveniences and the refinements of life rather than the necessities" is the state- ment of Raymond A. Kline, department store head of Atlanta, and this is typical of the twisted ideas one encounters. It is a self-contradiction, for we cannot otherwise than buy the "necessities." If we do not buy them any longer, or in such large quantity, it is proof that they are no longer necessary.

Naturally the sellers of the goods which Mrs. Consumer decides is no longer quite so necessary are inclined to complain. Take shoes. We are not wearing as many shoes per person as twenty years ago. The shoe people are after us. In a movie they have concocted* they tell us that in an average town of 15,000, the clothing merchants get 20 cents of our dollar, and want 25 cents. The automobile dealers get 10 cents of our dollar and want 12 cents. The food dealers get 20 cents of our dollar and want 25 cents. The shoe dealer gets three cents of our dollar, and wants five cents. Mrs. Consumer, you will see from this perfectly truthful picture, is the storm center of very earnest endeavor to shave off a larger slice of her dollar, but there is no evidence that she is following any fool- ish yielding path, though she is an interested listener to all pleas. If she shaves her shoe bill, you may be sure that she

* "Your Share of Pairs," National Shoe Retailers' Association.

has a reason, and is not neglecting any "necessity," nor galli- vanting after any so-called luxury. She, not the seller, sets the criterion as to what is luxury or necessity.

The margin for so-called luxury buying is much less than what is supposed by the superficial observers of family spend-

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ing. They forget the increased drains of so many new kinds of "necessities," which Mrs. Consumer only wishes it were true that she could avoid or reduce. These necessities are as com- pelling as the need for food. One can't go around with one's hair looking like a gypsy; one must patronize barbers and hair- dressers; and one can't avoid having need for doctors and hospitals. The list of other similarly inevitable demands is ever lengthening. The accompanying chart shows the average expenditures of a family with an income of $100 a week or over — the type of family which is most accused of irresponsi- ble luxury buying. The proportions, here shown, when real- ized, certainly rule out the idea that there is much room for luxury buying — unless it comes out of the 12% savings and insurance item, none too ample for the average family.

In relation to luxury buying, it must not be forgotten that when you break up the families of the United States into logi- cal groups according to standards of living, you have only ten or fifteen million out of the 120 million people who have more than the slightest surplus for luxury; therefore any luxury buying is the privilege of only a very limited class, concen- trated largely in a hundred or more large cities. It is true that there has been since 1913 a rise of about 30% per capita in "real" income; that is, in the purchasing power of a day's labor, but as I have explained it has not wholly been turned into "luxuries" but into better selected "necessities" and com- forts for all but a narrow fringe of people. I am therefore opposed to the implications of the word luxuries, as misrepre- senting Mrs. Consumer's standard of modern values. This country is very far away indeed from any general standard of living worthy of the name luxurious.

44. "Creative Waste" in Family Spending. — It is now time to assert and proclaim for the American family, on all levels above the Minimum Comfort Level, a bold new policy, already in existence, without fear of being called extravagant or wasteful. This the policy of creative waste in spending. For many years American women have had a sense of guilt about our so-called "wastefulness" and "extravagance," as it is regarded from the French and German housewife's point

of view. We have been told a thousand times — and indeed I, too, have told it to American women from lecture platforms — that the foreign housewife could feed her family from what the American Mrs. Consumer throws into the garbage pail. French women visiting America are astounded and aroused at nothing that they see here so much as our open-handed indif- ference to what we "waste." We do not bother much about fixing up "left-c^ers." We buy a loaf of bread, and often throw away half of it. We throw away the beet-tops instead of cooking them, and we buy so many, many things that are simple to make in the home and that no foreign woman thinks of buying, and buy them far more often, because we discard them before their use is anywhere near exhausted.

Now the time is ripe to announce and defend the prin- ciples upon which Mrs. Consumer in America operates, and disavow the last vestige of a sense of guilt because we are not as painstakingly "economical" as our foreign sisters. Dur- ing the summer of 1929 I made three speeches in Europe to leaders of the foreign housewife in many countries (at the International Management Congress, Paris; at the British Housewife's Conference, New Castle, and at the International Advertising Clubs' Convention in Berlin), and at each one I specifically discussed this point, and it aroused the most lively discussion and interest. There is far more involved in this subject than merely the effort to squeeze the family dollar terrifically hard, and utilize every scrap of food and every ounce of utility that family goods can be made to yield. General industrial prosperity and higher standards of living are involved.

As a tribute to woman's genius the old concentration upon pinching economy is exceedingly left-handed and negative, on a par with tatting or elaborate hand embroideries, because it is essentially a petty, medieval accomplishment. It is an application of brains in the wrong place, for there is no future to penny-squeezing beyond a certain point, not even health and good sense. We know today that women's energies should be applied to something else than the infinitesimal tasks on which they expended their energies many years ago.

The machine and power era has altered the entire domestic scene, as well as life in general, and houswives have been the last to apply the change. Domestic economy is still largely medieval in Europe and in some parts of America.

The machine and power era makes it not only possible but vital to apply in the home the doctrine of creative waste. By this term I mean the relaxation, by those who can afford it, of the old desperate grip most of us had upon values and utility in goods; a desperate grip which became a necessary instinct of self-preservation during our long and bitter hand struggle with our environment before the machine and power emancipated us. We held on to what we possessed too long, made too few changes, tried to get too much out of a pur- chase, and denied ourselves too much. We were, really, merchandise hoarders.

Just as old George F. Baker, the greatest living banker, discovered that the way to relieve panics was for banks to unhesitatingly pay out their resources instead of hoarding them, when stringency arrived, so we have learned that the way to break the vicious deadlock of a low standard of living is to spend freely, and even to waste creatively. The differ- ence between real waste and creative waste is not at all diffi- cult to define. Business men are long familiar with it. They will cheerfully sell or throw out an office or factory machine, bought only last year and which is still good for years of use, in favor of a new model bringing additional economy or con- venience or smartness. It is in fact recognized as stodgy and backward not to do so. It is genuine creative waste; it has been the great developer of business and industry. Why not recognize the same principle in the home? Real waste is to buy goods which does not fit or will not be used at all, or which is wilfully wasted — like the making of three carbon copies of typewriting when one will suffice, or in the home, buying a crate of oranges and permitting a goodly portion to rot. Mrs. Consumer is distinctly against real waste, and her adoption of hand-to-mouth buying is ample evidence of it, for foreign housewives are hand-to-mouth buyers. I

know small French families who buy a half a loaf of bread at a time.

Creative waste is, then, something quite different. Its distinctive characteristic is looking to a larger end, beyond .the draining of the last bit of utility. Mrs. Consumer does not believe that fussing over left-overs, as the foreign housewife does, is invariably good dietetics or even real economy, con- sidering her desire to live her life on a broader scale of values. She has a choice of spending most of her afternoon cleverly devising a tasty dish of left-overs, masking them with care- fully made sauces, as the Frenchwoman does, — or spending that time at something which interests her more and which is in the end more creative and useful. As a matter of fact we never have been able to make the American man fond of left-overs, however ingeniously disguised! The value of a woman's hour of time is distinctly greater, relatively, in America than abroad, and the laboring of the domestic moun- tain to bring forth a small mouse of economy has not here the same ratio of importance as abroad, largely because the cumulative effect of our free-spending, creative wasting policy has been to raise wages and standards of living. It has al- ways been woman's dream that in a more ideal state of society she would not have to pinch pennies and spend an hour fret- ting over the saving of a dime or two. This state of society, let us clearly realize, is arriving for all the levels above the comfortable level.

There isn't the slightest reason in the world why materials which are inexhaustibly replenishable should not be creatively "wasted"; no reason why, for instance, bread crusts and left over portions of breadloaves, should be on the conscience of Mrs. Consumer because she doesn't make a bread pudding or French toast out of them, as foreign housewives do. Or hash out of yesterday's roast of beef. Or dust cloths out of old undergarments ; or pantaloons for son out of father's cast-off suits — and so on a d fnitum. I had a great-grandfather who sat for hours rolling tapers out of pieces of newspaper, to save matches, shaking his head at the awfully lavish use made of matches today!

There is an engaging tale of the penurious farmer who had a barrel of apples. He admonished his family that when picking out apples to eat they must always select the specked or partly rotted ones. They did, and of course they were eating half-rotted apples all winter long. None ever enjoyed the luxury of a completely solid apple! Quite similar is the practice of friends of mine, a young couple. The wife is most economical, having had a real old-fashioned mother brought up in the old hard school. Every morning she puts on the table, for hubby's breakfast food, yesterday's half- filled bottle of milk, usually appreciably below par in fresh- ness. If hubby kicks and wants today's fresh bottle she gently chides him for being extravagant, and the poor fellow never gets really fresh milk for his breakfast I

These are graphic examples of the psychology of con- sumers still caught in the net of old pre-machine and power age instincts, and who have not mastered the new point of view. Some, alas, grasp it too well and go to the other extreme; but the principle of creative waste is not to be as- sailed. It is a clearly-marked part of American technique in all fields, and is now coming to full bloom as a family standard. I shall never again criticize the American free- spending attitude, so long as we also have an equally active producing urge, for it is absurd to expect us to produce more and not at the same time expect us to spend more. Spending more inevitably means wasting more; means progressive obso- lescence and much change ; but I certainly see no sign that our changes are for the worse. They are very decidedly changes for the better, therefore let them come on apace! A vast mountain of American family possessions today are no good but to make a bonfire with ; and I wish I could burn up gradu- ally a third of our houses! National health and happiness would be very well served, as they were in London in the middle ages when the Great Fire mercifully cleared out all the old shambles. It seems impossible to impress many peo- ple with the fact that our speed of progress in the past 30 years has obsoleted nearly everything, and created a current, continuing rate of obsolescence which we ignore only at our

peril and disadvantage. Mrs. Consumer and her attitude toward change is the key to the situation; the dial which registers how fast we can move. If only she would creatively waste more rather than less I

45. A Measure of the Taste of Mrs. Consumer. — The evidence is conclusive that Mrs. Average Consumer is greatly improving her aesthetic taste and appreciation, but she has, naturally, a long way to go. America is not yet able to claim distinction as an aesthetic country, although in full fairness it should be said that there is certainly a far larger propor- tion of women in America who have an appreciation of the aesthetic than in any country of the world. The error is too often made of contrasting the women of Paris, let us say, with the women of all America, whereas if the women of all France are contrasted with all American women the advantage in aesthetic appreciation would be with America.

The closest approach to any real facts that we have on American women's "taste" is the consumer research made by the furniture interests*. This showed that 39% of women had a good color sense, 34-% a poor one and 27 % no particular color sense. Other angles of this research of taste indicated that this is a fair general estimate of the decorative taste of the average housewife. I submit that this is nothing to weep about, even if it isn't a perfect score. Not two-fifths of French or German or English women, I feel sure, have a good color sense.

* Millis Advertising Agency, Indianapolis.

Women's Wealth and Income

It is only fair when discussing Mrs. Consumer, to study her also as an owner of wealth, instead of merely as an agent for spending wealth. Mrs. Consumer spends not alone her husband's income, but often also her own. She is an astound- ingly large owner of wealth and property, and her income is of great importance in any study of American wealth.

This fact has only recently been realized to the full. In- deed, a survey made by New York bankers* early in 1929 makes the fantastic statement that women will have the en- tire wealth of the country in their hands by the year 2025 if the present rate of accumulation is maintained! The ma- jority of the stockholders of the largest corporations of the country are women ; a fact which must surely arrest profound attention. 41% of the nation's individual wealth is in the hands of women. Facts like these are surely striking indica- tions that Mrs. Consumer is not alone interesting from a mere market-basket point of view as the spender of a pro- vider's income, but from the point of view of a property- holder, a person of surplus wealth and of income of her own.

* Lawrence Stern & Co., New York.

This puts another aspect upon the face of Mrs. Consumer, and entitles her to a dignity which perhaps we have not al- ways readily accorded her. Some of the facts which can be enumerated concerning woman's wealth position are as fol- lows:

46. Some Revealing Facts of Women's Wealth. — Women are beneficiaries of 80% of the $95,000,000,000 of life in- surance policies in force in the United States.

Women pay taxes on incomes totaling more than $3,250,- 000,000 annually.

Women constitute from 35 to 40% of investment bond house customers.

Women millionaires are as plentiful as men, according to income tax returns.

Women are receiving 70% of the estates left by men and 64% of those left by other women.

More than 8,500,000 women are gainfully employed in this country and this is the 1920 census, already nine years old. The figure, I estimate, is now likely to be 11,000,000.

The number of women stockholders in shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange has increased greatly during recent years.

Women comprise more than 50% of the stockholders of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. In the United States Steel Corporation there are 50,000 women stockholders, more than 50% of the total. They also com- prise 50.48% of the shareholders of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, and also predominate in many other corporations, such as the Westinghouse Air Brake Company and the National Biscuit Company.

A Pacific Coast investment firm in February, 1929, an- alyzed the purchasers of first mortgage serial bonds and found that 31% were bought by widows and 28% by housewives, making a total of 59% for women.

It should be pointed out that women, so intimately familiar with the great corporations serving her with foods and family goods, find it a most natural proceeding to invest in the stocks of such firms. Some of the wisest of these, such as

Swift & Co., who are well aware of the great value of having their customers as stockholders, take special pains to cultivate them. The Swift "Year Book" is sent to consumers.

Women have by no means been absent from the ranks of stock speculators. Because of the great interest being shown by women in the stock market, several New York Stock Ex- change firms have opened branch offices exclusively for women. From 35 to 40% of the customers of leading investment houses are women, and the ratio is steadily increasing.

Of special interest is the vast wealth being transferred to women's control by legacy. During one period, it was learned that fifty out of seventy men's estates were left to women, and forty-four out of sixty-nine women's estates were left to other women.

47. What the Income Tax Reveals. — In 1926 women making income tax returns paid taxes on $3,297,527,089. Individual men, including those reporting as heads of fami- lies, paid on a total of approximately $4,741,136,187. The exact ratio was 41% of the total for the women and 59% for the men. These figures do not, however, tell the whole story, as the largest part of the taxes paid were on joint returns of husband and wife, in which class there were re- turns totaling $13,555,920,041. If we assume that married women are as wealthy as single ones, we arrive at a total of $5,500,000,000 contributed to this total by women, or a grand total for married and single women of $8,797,527,000 of taxable income.

A still more striking picture is presented in the case of the very rich by excluding all incomes of less than $100,000 a year. In this class, in 1926 individual women reported about $484,794,440, as against $404,802,056 for individual male reports. Here women actually lead by a substantial margin, having 54% of the total.

Further analysis shows that individual income tax re- turns indicated that 139 women paid taxes on incomes in ex- £ess of $500,000 and 44 on net incomes of more than $1,000,- 000. Individual returns of men showed only 123 paid on net incomes of $500,000 and, 42 on incomes of $1,000,000.

Women's wealth is found to be the greatest in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California. The net incomes of women in these States follow :

No. of Returns State Income

141,985 New York $896,927,687

65,018 Pennsylvania 328,402,085

60,336 Illinois 273,139,342

53,037 California 253,967,205

Market Research and Consumer Reaction

I happen to have had a great deal to do with the develop- ment and application of consumer market research, over a period of twenty years. My observation is that it has rarely if ever failed to be of primary importance in more successfully reaching and influencing the consumer. The manufacturers and distributors who are closest to the consumer, and who re- search consumers most frequently are the most successful.

48. "X-raying" the Consumer. — An "X-ray" of the con- sumer, via market research, is as logical in selling as in medi- cine. Consumer market research is the bridge that covers the great gap by which most business firms are separated from the consumer. This gap has long been accepted complacently. In particular the textile industries operated at an astounding distance from consumer knowledge ; no officer of the mill be- ing in the slightest degree informed, as a rule, even about sales, much less about ultimate consumers. Thousands of others who sell goods through jobbers have been out of touch with consumers, and even those who sell through retailers.

I do not believe that either the department store, the mail

order house, the chain store or the house-to-house seller would ever have secured so great a place in modern business if the manufacturers making goods used by the public had been more alert and active as regards consumer habits, desires and pref- erences.

I presume that one reason for the widespread neglect of consumer research until recent years is lack of familiarity with the technique of it, which is rather new. It is not a simple thing to make a competent survey of consumer reaction; in fact the job is full of pitfalls for the unwary. At the same time I do not for a moment consider that only university pro- fessors and psychologists are able to make consumer surveys. In fact, I do not even believe that they are the ones to under- take it. The best method is the work of an organization trained and established to do such work. There are now several such.

49. The Twenty Uses of Consumer Research. — In my opinion consumer research is a tool of very wide practical use- fulness, for many purposes, small and large, for matters both of little and of great importance. I list a few :

1. To establish the basic need or place for a proposed article.

2. To determine the new conditions or changed point of view regarding an old article.

3. To secure a careful fitting of the design, plan, shape, size, price, form or method of marketing a particular article.

4. To develop the facts concerning the average method of use or application, or varied possibilities of an article.

5. To learn the goodwill status of a well known article in relation to competitors.

6. To study complaints, misfits, difficulties or peculiar con- ditions under which the goods are used.

7. To follow up users of goods.

8. To secure advance data as to reactions to certain contem- plated methods of sales or advertising approach.

9. To test out appeals and rate their relative strength.

10. To check up results from certain forms and kinds of sales or advertising already done.

11. To study sales resistance more closely at its source.

12. To check up distributors or branch selling organizations.

13. To make more scientific analyses of market potentialities, for quota or other purposes.

14. To make quick, brief tryouts of new suggestions or plans of a routine, unimportant nature.

15. To check the relative merits, in certain markets, of cer- tain mediums or methods.

16. To solve the mystery of consumer indifference or hostility or special interest in some matter or method.

17. To acquire accurate data as to average family practice and point of view, among certain levels of consumers, or in certain localities.

18. To secure authentic proof of consumer preference for use as a sales and advertising argument.

19. To secure statistics of average family consumption vol- ume.

20. To discover just what a family reads, or where it trades, or how; and as to what members of the family influence the purchase of certain goods, and to what degree.

50. The Usefulness of the Consumer Questionnaire. — In nearly all cases the very best technique for consumer research is the questionnaire technique. I am aware, of course, of the occasional criticisms that have been made of questionnaires, but boiled down such criticisms have been only twb : ( 1 ) that there are too many questionnaire surveys, and (2) that they tell little and the consumer replies what he is expected to reply. These are after all superficial criticisms, of no real importance, especially the first. Mrs. John Consumer living in a particular house in a particular town, rarely encounters the questionnaire. It will be a long time before consumer questionnaire surveys crowd each other. The matter of Mrs. Consumer replying what the investigator wants her to say is, of course, simply a question of how experienced and capable the managers of the survey are. It is absurd to suppose that they do not know their business, just as engravers or automotive engineers know their technique. Obviously it is folly to put answers in Mrs. Consumer's mouth ; but I have never had anything to do with makers of surveys who were as simple-minded or dishonest

as this. There is an intelligent technique for making consumer surveys, and if it is followed, immensely useful information is to be obtained. In fact the astounding thing to contemplate is that for all these decades business men in offices and factories have sat at handsome desks guessing crudely what Mrs. Con- sumer thought about their goods, and the conditions surround- ing their use, while few ever thought of the simple, common sense idea of going straight to Mrs. Consumer and having a nice little family chat with her about matters of such obvious mutual interest. Such a chat becomes a formal "questionnaire" only for reasons of system and accuracy, to prevent the inter- view from becoming a mere vague blur of general impressions. Many times, when the questions on the questionnaire are few enough in number, the experienced consumer investigator does not even show the questionnaire to the consumer in order not to make the visit seem formal or self-conscious.

The coming of the more analytical mind into business is responsible for the far more frequent use of consumer research today. Such a mind is not interested in opinions. Like Mr. Kettering, of the General Motors Corporation, it wants opin- ions only when there are no facts obtainable. Naturally it is absurd to say there are no facts obtainable about the Mrs. Consumer. She is no deep mystery at all — she is sphinx-like only to the business guesser, who has never had imagination enough to think of collecting consumer reactions and averag- ing the specific answers and thus get a collective reaction from Mrs. Consumer.

51. The Cost of Consumer Research. — The method is ap- plicable at such low expense that there is no excuse whatever for business houses to use the old guesswork method. For a cost of only fifty cents to a dollar per consumer, and even in groups of as few as 100 consumers, for some less important matters, accurate answers may be worked out to questions. Yet even today some business men seem to be willing to stake hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures on no more of a "con- sumer survey" than the opinions of their stenographer, their aunt, their wife or grandmother — if indeed they deign to go that far. I am speaking from remembrance of scores of con-

crete instances when I say that sellers of household goods are constantly making the most astounding errors, which any dozen intelligent Mrs. Consumers could have prevented if they had been asked beforehand. It stirs one's pity and incredulity to see so many1 men investing large and small sums of money with great hope of success, in ways so utterly stupid, from Mrs. Consumer's point of view. As an instance of failure to research even the practical application in use of an article, I recall a firm that put out a patent cake-cutter, modeled after the prin- ciple of an excellent apple-cutter now on the market, which when pressed down on an apple cuts it into six parts. This new device was based on the idea that you could do this also with cake — which you can't without smashing the cake !

But this manufacturer had dies made, organized a com- pany and started salesmen out hopefully to sell this absurdity! Scores and scores of other instances I could name, of merely mechanical stupidity due to failure to research; yet this is so very obvious. What is not so obvious to many is the need for consumer research which will bring out family conditions militating against the article, or for the articfe, if known. For years women wished for packages containing smaller quantities of various foods like cheese or butter, but it re- mained for a manufacturer who made a survey to discover Mrs. Consumer's wishes and act on the fact and reap an excellent advantage. There is so much tradition and habit in the way consumer goods are put out. Mrs. Consumer, as I have said, is not vocal; she says nothing and suffers in silence, as a rule. You must dig out of her these reactions, some of which she has never even formulated to herself, but which she would formulate if asked the direct question.

52. Swift Consumer Changes of Today. — These are times of many consumer changes, and Mrs. Consumer is today so swift on the trigger with changes that even on the score of rapidly changing habits and conditions manufacturers need to make consumer researches. Certainly I would give different answers to the same question today from five years ago, so changed are family conditions of buying and use. Why I drop one soap for another, one disinfectant for another, one

method of vegetable preparation for another, one method of cleaning and polishing for another, one kind of breakfast for another, even one general plan of a meal for another, is and must be of the greatest importance to the seller both of the goods I drop and the goods I now use in its place. 53. Recording a Consumer's Buying History. — One of the

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most interesting of the types of consumer investigations, to my way of thinking, is one which takes the consecutive buying history of a consumer regarding a certain product. An ex- ample of questionnaires of this nature is shown herewith, with four spaces on it watch buying history. The plan is to secure from the consumer the record of four or more specific consecutive purchases, asking similar questions regarding each of the four or more purchases. From such data it is possible to see the trend, if any, of that consumer's buying. For in- stance in the case of Ingersoll watches it was possible to note a tendency from expensive watches toward cheap watches, or vice versa. It is naturally most important to know, from the facts themselves, rather than from the consumer's opinions, in what direction her purchases are veering. She may be pre- ferring one general competitive trend to another, acquiring a philosophy of buying often, and at a low price, rather than buying high quality, long-lasting goods. She may be turning from private brand to nationally advertised goods, or vice versa, and she may be sticking to one brand or discontentedly trying something new each time. These are most important disclosures, especially when a large enough sample of con- sumers is researched, and general trends are disclosed.

54. Use of Consumer Research for Trade Selling. — An- other unusual use of consumer research — possible of course only by certain firms — is to secure evidence of consumer pref- erence and practice in a manner that is impressive to the trade. A brilliant example is a survey made in 1929 for the American Metal Cap Co., manufacturers of metal seals for glass con- tainers. The salesmen had for some years told packers and food manufacturers that housewives preferred goods with metal caps, but the salesmen's words were discounted as natural bias.

Then a consumer survey was made among 8,028 house- wives in 46 cities in 26 states. The investigators, .who did not know the client or the purpose of the investigation, placed five jars before each housewife, each with a numbered cap, and the women were asked to imagine themselves in a store

choosing between them. The company's product came out at the top of the test, with 5,575 or 69.5% of the women preferring the Amerseal cap. This consumer survey data was then made the basis of a vigorous campaign, in trade journals, direct advertising, etc., and a booklet containing the results of the survey was printed. The survey made a deep impression on the company's trade.

There are plenty of other parts or "ingredient" manufac- turers who could profit greatly by just such a survey. The automotive parts and supply concerns very frequently make surveys of automobile owners, and such information is of very real importance. It must increasingly become important for parts or supply companies in the family goods field to se- cure factual evidence of consumer preference or prejudice or consciousness.

55. Analysis of Volume of Consumer Buying. — Just merely the question of volume of purchase of certain items is an important reason for consumer research. The per capita or per family statistics for the entire country are only mathe- matical, abstract averages, and the real figure important to secure is the typical consumer's annual volume of use, on vari- ous levels of income, or in various localities. This is not possible to secure by calculation from existing statistics — it can be most reliably accomplished only through careful con- sumer investigation by the questionnaire method. Such data is often most surprising, and enormously useful in studying possible consumption. If I use 120 cans of Campbell's to- mato soup per year in my family, and the average per family in the entire U. S. is only 3.9 cans, it is obvious that my family is enormously above the average, and comparisons become possible with other typical families on various levels, for the setting of territorial quotas, etc. In the case of many house- hold items, where much unbranded, bulk or unknown goods in a certain line is purchased, it becomes particularly import- ant to study average family volume of consumption. I have heard some perfectly ludicrous debates among business men on questions of family practice indicating that they labor under the most absurd illusions concerning family buying

in their own field. They confess themselves entirely without any information about the consumer. My standard "line" when I address a sales conference or convention for a partic- ular firm, has been to find out beforehand the things it doesn't know about the consumer, (which are usually many) and then, out of my practical observation, or previous research, make statements about the consumer which upset and surprise them. (I wish courtesy did not forbid the mention of some names of famous American advertisers and the details of my re- marks, as they would make entertaining reading.) I have had more than one instance where substantial bets were placed that I was wrong, so utterly certain were these men. And yet with no especial credit to me, they were shown later to be wrong. I mention the matter only to reinforce my point, that the last outpost of business ignorance is concerning the consumer, and that consumer research is the direct means of remedying this ignorance.

56. Amateurish Consumer Research. — There is one type of seller of family goods who salves his conscience about keep- ing in touch with the consumer. He makes periodic trips and he proudly reports that he goes into retail stores and listens to Mrs. Consumer talk to the clerks. This is his "consumer research," casual and incidental and without design or plan. It is a tiny bit better than nothing, true, but what a travesty upon the importance of such a matter!

Another "salving" way is to hire some young domestic science graduate and make her represent the consumer to the firm. This is, indeed, a further advance, but an inadequate one, for young domestic science graduates represent the ab- stract theory of family buying, not the actual practice as it is in the shanties of "poor white trash" or the Nebraska farmer's wife or the East Side family, where the goods in ques- tion may largely be consumed. Field knowledge of Mrs. Con- sumer as she actually is and breathes and does, is needed, not the copy book maxims of the dainty school-taught art of domestic science, nor any individual's opinion, including my own. It seems such a struggle to lift people up to that level where they comprehend and act upon the great basic difference

between fact and opinion. Facts about Mrs. Consumer must almost invariably be obtained from questionnaire studies.

57. Vital Style Research. — On the question of styling, also, consumer research has been demonstrated to be a highly successful investment. Women being admittedly style-con- scious as never before, the problem of styling family goods is no small one, for makers of goods in which style never before figured much.

A telling example of consumer research on style goods is that of the DuPont Viscoloid Co., as told by C. F. Brown, sales director. In 1927 its "pyralin" toilet sets were losing ground. It was believed that it was not properly styled, and that no artists' or executives' ideas as to the new styling should prevail, but the decision of Mrs. Consumer herself. A year was spent to discover Mrs. Consumer's wishes. A cross-sec- tion of Mrs. Consumer was made up, consisting of ( 1 ) busi- ness and professional women, (2) club women, (3) college undergraduates, (4) art students and instructors. The vari- ously newly-designed sets were displayed; each was numbered and women given a ballot, on which to record, first, second and third choices. To get club women to cooperate prize sets of toilet accessories were offered. A total of 1048 votes were recorded, 71% of which were for the new "Lucite" set, and 29% for the old "Pyralin" sets. Perhaps the most interesting sequel to this is that after a year of marketing the new "Lucite" sets, the ratio of "Lucite" sales to "Pyralin" stood almost as the women had voted — 65 and 35%. Here is unassailable proof that it pays well to consult Mrs. Con- sumer, and that when she is consulted, she knows what she is talking about, and buys as she votes.

58. Rivalry in Consumer Knowledge. — Retailers have always claimed to know more about the consumer than the manufacturer. In the past this was true, but consumer re- search technique and the use of home economics consultants has changed all this. I therefore do not at all agree with Oswald W. Knauth, executive vice president of R. H. Macy & Co. when he says : "No manufacturer can possibly have the daily contact with the public nor the resources to make ade-

quate experiments which could lead him to sound conclusions concerning the effects of a given retail price. There are ques- tions of locality. There are questions of changing fashions. There are questions of relative turnover — in fact, the whole line of subjects with which the retailer is concerned is too distant from the manufacturer to enable him to form a com- petent judgment."

I think it is pure nonsense to say that the manufacturer cannot know as much about the consumer as the retailer, and isn't capable of a competent judgment of consumer de- mand. This is absolutely belied by the great trade-mark ad- vertisers' success in serving consumers. Knowledge of the consumer is gained by analytical study, research, test, con- sultation and experimental contact. No one has a monopoly on them. They require brains and resources which only a few large retailers possess even if they were inclined to use them; whereas the manufacturer, concentrating as he does upon one or a few articles has every incentive, every facility, and can hire all ability needed to make a far better consumer study than any retailer. Of course if the manufacturer stupidly refuses to research the consumer, that is another matter, and he deserves to be outwitted and out-pointed in consumer knowledge by the large retail emporiums or chains.

BOOK II

XII

Some Details of Per Capita and Per Family Consumption

One of the most useful measures possible of study of con- sumption is the application of the per capita measure. This is even more valuable than a per-f amily measure, using the 4.3 in- dividuals per family which is conventional. The per capita measure, while of course "artificial," enables one to make posi- tive applications of consumption statistics to populations in var- ious territorial units. When somebody asks me "how much sugar does the state of Iowa consume ?" neither I nor anyone else has the slightest chance of getting official figures as to pre- cisely how many pounds are passed over the counters to lowans. But if we have the per capita for the country at large there is at least a sound start possible in studying local- ized consumption.

59. A Per Capita Contrast to 1875. — There have been great changes in per capita consumption in America, for as everybody knows the changes have been far greater in the past fifteen years than in any similar period before — possibly than in any similar period in the future. But there were also many great changes between 1875 and 1910, for instance.

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For the sake of a background for the up-to-date per capita and per family figures which I present further on in this chapter, I list here some contrasts* between 1875 and 1910, showing how the pre-war period contrasted with a genera- tion or two before .

It is irresistible to draw some contrasts between these two points of relativity and the present day. Refined sugar, for instance; jumping from about 37 pounds per capita in 1875 to 79 pounds in 1910, to 108 pounds in 1929. The United States, Australia and Hawaii lead the world by far in sugar consumption per capita. And yet in Revolutionary days it was only 7j4 pounds, and in 1825 the consumption had increased only to 8.3 pounds, and stayed at this point for twenty years. For the past hundred years the increase in per capita sugar consumption has averaged about 5yi% per year, showing that sugar keeps almost the same pace of in- crease as the fifty year average rate of the country's progress (4}/2%, according to Federal Reserve figures).

If we pass to flour the per capita story is reversed; indeed there is a correlation between the two. Nearly one-fourth of the flour used 25 years ago is now replaced by sugar. There is 13% more energy in a pound of sugar than in a pound of flour; possibly this is the reason. We have stopped buying about 28,000,000 barrels of flour that were bought 25 years ago. Our consumption is one barrel per capita today. It was 142 pounds in 1910 at which time it had increased 43% since 1875. As for bread, in 1910 we were eating only 52 factory baked pound loaves per capita, and only about 38 such loaves in 1875.

The general per capita consumption of bread was then about 253 pound loaves per capita, or about 1,088 loaves per family, which is three pound loaves per day. The amount of bread baked at home was 85%, whereas today the situation is almost reversed, 67% of bread being baked in factories; a total per capita of 121 pounds of bread being consumed, or one-third of a pound per day — as contrasted with over

* Figures compiled by the Business Bourse, research organization, New York.

105

Jwo-thirds of a pound loaf in 1875! This is a reduction of more than half. In some cities, especially where foreign- born are plentiful, it should be noted that the per family daily bread consumption today reaches over two pounds. Eu- rope eats two to three times as much bread per family as America.

Quite interesting also are such old staples as rice, molasses, salt pork, and salt beef which have declined, for these have been some of the "poverty staples," together with bread, cornmeal, homny, salt fish, potatoes, etc. — all of which have declined. Salt beef was consumed to the extent of 54 pounds per family in 1910, and salt pork to the extent of 108 pounds. Both have now markedly decreased.

As for coffee, that other great staple, it was only about 6 pounds in 1875, rising to 9.33 pounds in 1910, reaching 12 pounds during 1917 and is now about 13 pounds. This is about 60 pounds per family, or a little more than a pound per week. Tea has had a contrary trend. In 1875 it was in good favor, about Ij4 pounds per capita; dropping to 0.89 pounds by 1910, reaching a high point of 1.42 pounds in 1918, and then sinking somewhat to about a stable position of 0.86 pounds, or 3.69 pounds per family.

Canned goods have increased very remarkably — 157% since 1905, as against only a 36% increase in population.

Meat, of course, is a very striking item for contrast. Meat consumption dropped during 1928 nearly two pounds per capita, or 7.3 pounds per family. It has been falling for some time. It was 138 pounds in 1928. It was 154 pounds in 1908. Beef is now at only 51.7 pounds per capita, whereas it was 77 pounds in 1907, and only about 36 pounds in 1875.

60. Curious Contrasts. — It is curious that our bill for al- coholic drink and for meat were, before prohibition, just about alike, and that both these great items have now been greatly pared down. It is a graphic truth to say that meat and alcoholics once comprised in value considerably over one- half of all that we put into our mouths. Every year these

106

two items cost us about five billion dollars. They accounted for a combined per family expenditure of about $187 at that time. If we calculate that there has been a 10% reduction in meat consumption, reducing by about 222 millions our meat bill; and if we accept Prof. Irving Fisher's estimate that the drink consumption is now only 10% of pre-prohibition, and then allow about half a billion for higher prices paid, both for liquor and meat, we arrive at this interesting calculation: that lessened drink and meat consumption has left about 2j4 billion dollars for other purchases, or about $81 per family. This is a very remarkable sum, when we consider that it is nearly six per cent, the total retail volume of purchases made in retail stores today.

Women's clothing represents, too, some interesting con- trasts. In 1875 the expenditure per adult woman for women's clothing was about $14.00, (wholesale). By 1910 it amounted to $20.37. It is now about $32.00 (about $48.00 retail) ; nearly half of which is for dresses, and one-third for coats and cloaks. Only about a tenth is for underclothing. Stocking and shoes are not included in this grouping. Allow- ing for the decline of the purchasing power of a dollar and the rise of wages and incomes since 1910, it certainly is dem- onstrated that women have cut down on their clothing budgets.

Life insurance is also a remarkable item. Even when in 1910 it had reached $6.67 per capita, this represented a rise of 73% over 1875. Today the per capita is about $52.00 which means a per family rate of $223.00. The cigarette contrast is equally remarkable. The 1910 figure was 124 cigarettes per capita which was 530% increase over 1875. Today the per capita is about 1,000, which roughly makes it about 2,200 per male of smoking age. Even so, England is ahead of us, with a per capita of 1,450 cigarettes! Our government gets about $3.25 per capita in revenue tax from tobacco smokers.

We will now proceed to list the present per capita and per family consumptions of various items of purchase :

107

Per Capita Consumption of FOOD

Per Capita Per Family Bread (total home and factory-baked ; pounds

per day) 1/3 1 1/2

Bread (total home and factory-baked pounds;

per year) 121.6 521.8

Factory Baked Bread, Rolls, Biscuit, Crackers,

Cookies, (Ibs.) 85.67 368.38

Factory Baked Bread, Rolls, Biscuit, Crackers,

Cookies, (dollars) $10.01 $43.04

Butter (Ibs.) 17.03 73.31

Butter (dollars) $ 9.34 $40.16

Peanut Butter (Ibs.) 75 3.22

Peanut Butter (dollars) $ .11 $ .47

Breakfast Food $ 1.31 $ 5.63

Wheat $ .47 $ 2.00

Oats $ .44 $ 1.84

Corn $ .25 $ 1.08

Flour (barrels) 1 4.3

Flour (dollars) $ 6.83 $29.36

Prepared Flour $ .42 $ 1.83

Baking Powder (Ibs.) 1.32 5.67

Baking Powder (dollars) $ .33 $ 1.41

Baking Powders, Yeast, etc $ 1.04 $ 4.47

Coffee (Ibs.) 13.00 55.19

Coffee Substitutes $ .078 $ .337

Coffee Roasting and Spice Grinding $ 4.29 $18.44

Refined Sugar, Hard, (Ibs.) 83.52 359.13

Soft or Brown Sugar (Ibs.) 3.93 14.57

Cane Sugar Syrup (gals.) 046 .192

All Meat (Ibs.) 138 593.4

Beef (Ibs.) 51.7 222.31

Veal (Ibs.) 6.8 29.24

Mutton and Lamb (Ibs.) 5.6 24.08

Pork (Ibs.) 73.9 317.77

Meat and Meat Products (dollars) $34.53 $148.47

All Canned Foods (cans) 31 133 1/3

Canned Foods (dollars) $ 4.49 $19.30

Condensed and Evaporated Milk $ 1.82 $ 8.12

Milk (qts.) per annum 136.87 588.54

Milk (qts.) per day 3/8 1.61

Flavoring Extracts and Flavoring Syrups $ 1.21 $ 5.20

White Potatoes (bu.) 3.93 16.89

Sweet Potatoes (bu.) 66 2.82

Rice (bu.) 34 1.46

Lard Substitutes and Cooking Fats $ 1.08 $ 4.64

Oleomargarine $ .44 $ 1.89

Cheese $ 1.31 $ 5.63

108

Per Capita Per Family

Tea in America (Ibs.) 86 3.56

Tea in Australia (Ibs.) 11.00 47.30

Tea in England (Ibs.) 8.00 34.40

Tea in Canada (Ibs.) 6.00 25.80

Spices $ .41 $ 1.76

Malt $ .32 $ 1.37

Salt $ .37 $ 1.59

Pickles $ 1.86 $ 7.99

Macaroni, Spaghetti, Noodles $ .40 $ 1.72

FRUITS, NUTS, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

Apples (bu.) 80 3.44

Oranges (Number of) 62 266.6

Lemons (Number of) 18 77.4

Peaches (bu.) 56 2.40

Canned Fruits $1.17 $4.09

Dried Fruits (Ibs.) 9.32 40.07

Dried Fruits $ .72 $3.09

Peanuts Only . $ .22 $ .94

Peanuts, Walnuts and Other Nuts '(processed) $ .63 $2.70

CANDY, CHEWING GUM, DRINKS, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

Candy of all Kinds $4.53 $19.47

Boxed Candy $ .80 $ 3.44

Bulk Candy •$ .54 $ 2.30

Chocolate Covered Bar Candy $ .66 $ 2.83

Candy Bars $ .84 $ 3.61

Hard Candy $ .41 $ 1.76

Chocolate Candy $1.47 $ 6.32

Salted Nuts $ .17 $ .73

Candy in New York (Ibs.) 16.2 67.66

Candy in Phila. (Ibs.) 14.0 60.2

Candy in Boston (Ibs.) 15.5 66.65

Candy in Pittsburgh (Ibs.) 14.0 60.2

Candy in Chicago (Ibs.) 14.5 62.35

Candy in San Francisco (Ibs.) 14.0 60.2

Chewing Gum (cakes) 94 404.2

Chewing Gum $ .69 $ 2.96

Chocolate and Cocoa Products $1.37 $ 5.89

Ice Cream (gals.) 1.98 8.51

Ice Cream (dollars) $3.38 $14.53

Miscellaneous Beverages $2.73 $11.73

Soft Drinks of all types (half pint bottles) 85 365.5

Soft Drinks (dollars) $5.00 $21.50

Ginger Ale (bottles) 51 219.3

I09

CIGARETTES, TOBACCO, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

Cigarettes $6.77 $29.14

Tobacco $5.97 $25.67

Tobacco Pipes $ .08 $ .34

Matches $ .28 $ 1.20

FURNITURE, HOUSEHOLD GOODS, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

Furniture (household) $7.01 $30.14

Furniture (store and office fixtures) $9.93 $46.69

Paint $2.57 $1 1.05

Varnishes and Lacquers $2.03 $ 8.70

Wall Paper $ .32 $ 1.37

Rag Carpets and Rugs $ .07 $ .30

Wool Carpets and Rugs (other than rag) $1.84 $ 7.91

Linoleum and Asphalted-felt Base Floor Cover- ing $ .97 $ 4.17

Oil Cloth $ .20 $ .86

Cutlery $ .91 $ 3.91

Plated Wear $ .63 $ 2.70

Clocks, Watches and Parts $ .92 $ 3.95

Sewing Machines, Cases and Attachments $ .51 $ 2.19

Lighting Equipment $2.84 $12.21

Mattresses and Bed Springs $1.11 $ 4.71

Vitreous China Plumbing Fixtures $ .28 $ 1.20

Domestic Oil Burners $ .12 $ .516

Brushes $ .53 $ 1.78

Blueing $ .02 $ .086

Kitchen Cabinets $ .14 $ .60

Washing Machines, Wringers, Driers and Iron- ing Machines for Household Use $ .84 $ 3.61

Stoves and Ranges, Domestic and Heating

Apparatus and Steam Fittings $ .53 $ 2.27

Ice Refrigerators $ .68 $ 2.92

Electric and Gas Refrigerators $1.08 $ 4.64

SOAPS, POWDERS, CLEANSERS, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

All Soap $3.23 $13.88

Toilet Soap $ .66 $ 2.83

Laundry Soap $ .98 $ 4.21

Soap Powders, Cleansing Powder, Washing

Powder (Ibs.) 4.21 18.10

Soap Powders, Cleansing Powder, Washing

Powder $ .28 $ 1.25

COSMETICS

Per Capita Per Family

Perfumes, Cosmetics and Toilet Preparations $ 1.80 $7.74

Face Creams $ .36 $1.54

Rouges $ .13 $ .56

Face Powders $ .24 $1.03

Talcum Powders $ .09 $ .38

Perfumes $ .17 $ .73

Toilet Waters $ .09 $ .38

Hair Tonics $ .13 $ .56

Hair Dyes $ .038 $ .163

Shampoos $ .05 $ .21

Depilitories $ .017 $ .073

Lipsticks (per adult woman) (number of) 2

Face Powder (per adult woman) (Ibs.) 1 1/8

Rouge Compacts (per adult woman) .(number

of) 8

Cosmetics and Beauty Culture (per adult woman) $53.00

PATENT MEDICINES, DENTIFRICES, ANTISEPTICS, Etc.

Per Capita PerFamily

Patent and Proprietary Remedies (Com- pounds) $ .93 $ 3.99

Patent Medicines $ 3.20 $13.76

Ethical Medicine Specialties $ .51 $ 2.91

Antiseptics $ .21 $ .90

Disinfectants $ .07 $ .30

Dentifrices $ .29 $ 1.24

Household Insecticides $ .15 $ .64

Household Ammonia $ .017 $ .073

Spent in Urban Drug Stores $14.91 $64.11

Spent in Rural Stores $ 5.95 $25.58

Prescriptions $ 1.45 $ 6.23

WEARING APPAREL

Per Capita Per Family

Handkerchiefs $ .35 $ 1.505

Hosiery (pairs) 10.5 45.15

Hosiery (dollars) $ 4.76 $20.46

Boots and Shoes (pairs) 2.67 11.48

Rubber Boots and Shoes $ 1.40 $ 6.02

Shoe Polish $ .33 $ 1.41

Umbrellas, Parasols, Canes $ .27 $ 1.16

Trunks, Suit Cases and Bags $ .76 $ 3.26

Millinery $ 2.36 $10.14

Dressed Furs $ .29 $ 1.247

Corsets and Allied Garments $ .87 $ 3.74

Underwear (knit) $ 1.23 $ 5.28

Women's Clothing (per adult woman) $48.00 $206.40

III

MEN'S WEAR

Per Capita Per Man*

Men's Leather Gloves $1.23

Men's Cloth Gloves $ .61

Neckties $2.93

Neckties (number of) 4.93

Pajamas ..,.. $ .41

Athletic Underwear $1.09

Men's Union Suits $ .93

Men's Union Suits (number of) .44

Men's Collars $ .62

Shirts „ $4.40

*Based upon number of men 15 years and over (total 57,000,000 men).

LUXURIES

Per Capita Per Family

Joy Riding, Pleasure Resorts, and Races ,.... $29.00 $124.70

Sport Events $20.00 $ 86.00

Sporting Goods $ .37 $ 1.59

Motion Pictures $ 1.50 $ 6.45

Motor Vehicles $32.14 $138.20

Motor Cycles and Bicycles $ .24 $ 1.03

Diamonds $ 3.44 $ 14.79

Silversmithing and Silverware $ .33 $ 1.41

Jewelry $ 1.85 $ 7.95

Musical Instruments $ .95 $ 4.08

Phonographs $ 1.07 $ 4.60

Radio Apparatus and Tubes $ 2.14 $ 9.20

Pianos, Organs and Phonographs $ 2.66 $ 11.43

Toys $ .64 $ 2.72

Fireworks $ .07 $ .301

Luxurious Foods $60.00 $258.00

Luxuries, such as Hairdressers, etc $31.00 $133.30

CULTURAL EXPENDITURES

Per Capita Per Family

Expenditure for Public Schools $102.05 $438.81

Religious Work $ 1.36 $ 5.84

Professors' Salaries $ .13 $ .55

Health Service $ .16 $ .68

Books $ 1.37 $ 5.89

Writing Ink $ .58 $ 2.49

Lead Pencils $ .27 $ 1.16

Fountain and Stylographic Pens $ .27 $ 1.16

Steel and Brass Pens $ .02 $ .86

Typewriters, Ribbons and Carbon Paper $ .77 $ 3.31

Artists Finished Work $ .08 $ .344

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INSURANCE, FIRE, Etc.

Per Capita Per Family

Insurance in Force $52.00 $223.80

Loss by Fire $ 5.00 $ 21.50

Chemical Fire Extinguishers $ .09 $ .38

MISCELLANEOUS

Per Capita Per Family

Wool (Ibs.) 5.46 23.47

Cotton (Ibs.) 31.66 136.13

Silk (unmanufactured, Ibs.) 66 2.83

Rayon and Allied Products $ 1.24 $ 5.33

Artificial Leather $ .38 $ 1.63

Rubber Heels and Soles $ .26 $ 1.14

Rubber Tires and Inner Tubes $ 9.82 $42.22

Rubber Hot Water Bags, Douches, etc $ .101 $ .444

Crude Rubber (Ibs.) 7.41 31.86

Paper and Wood Pulp $12.85 $55.26

Standard Newsprint paper (Ibs.) 51.8 222.74

Manufactured Ice $ 2.08 $ 8.94

Ice (per average family using) $42.42

Aircraft $ .23 $ .98

Guns $ .86 $ 3.69

Caskets, Coffins, Burial Cases and Morticians

Goods $ .84 $ 3.61

Cement $ 3.32 $14.27

ELECTRICAL DEVICES

Number Retail Exp.

Per Per

Family Family

Cleaners 043 $2.36

Clocks 0043 .14

Clothes Washing Machines 0288 3.87

Cookers (660 Watts and under) 003569 .03569

Corn Poppers 007138 .016125

Dishwashers (household) 000344 .05375

Egg Cookers 02795 .013975

Exercisers (motor driven health) 0005375 .06708

Fans (ceiling) 00215 .09503

Fans (desk bracket) 02795 .3956

Fans (household) 01032 .03397

Fixtures (residential) 1.8275

Fixtures (commercial) 1.0363

Flashlights (cases) .3134

Flashlights (batteries) .4515

Floor Polishers 00172 .07783

Heaters and Radiators 01419 .08684

Heating Pads

Hot Plates, Grills and Table Stoves

Ironing Machines

Incandescent Lamps (residential) 9

Incandescent Lamps (miniature) 8

Oil Burners

Percolators (copper plated)

Percolators (aluminum)

Portable Lamp Shades

Ranges

Ranges, Wall Outlet

Refrigerators (domestic)

Sewing Machines (household)

Toasters

Violet Ray Outfits

Waffle Irons ..

Number

Per Family

.01806

.01247

.00473

.072

.6688

.003311

.01677

.03569

.25026

.00473

,00043

.01677

.01333

,02795

,00516

.01763

Retail Exp.

Per Family

.1075

.07052

.4644 2.3693 1.3975 2.379

.28939

.1419 2.5413

.7912

.02021 4.6096 1.2513

.15265

.1204

.1591

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XIII

How Mrs. Consumer is Changing the American Diet

Are we eating more or less of the same foods as did our fathers or grandfathers? Are we eating new foods? If so, which and how much? How explain the causes responsible for diet changes? What are the present and probably future trends in food preferences of the American family? On no other single point in the whole food discussion is there so much interest and varying opinion.

61. The Ten Trends in American Diet. — Numerous agen- cies and individuals have concerned themselves with what the American family used to eat, what it does eat, — even what it will be eating in a couple of decades. From a large number of sources, the following broad generalizations can be made :

( 1 ) Marked decline in the total average per capita food con- sumption.

(2) Menus modified by fewer courses, and these of simpler, less rich, heavy and elaborate materials.

(3) Shift to more expensive foods generally.

(4) Tendency to still a more diversified diet. America has had for sometime the most diversified diet of any nation.

(5) Food consumption marked by stress on health, beauty, slenderizing, hygiene, etc.

(6) Decline in meat consumption except bacon, liver, poultry.

(7) Marked strong increase in consumption of fresh and green vegetables and fruits and their canned or packed equiva- lents; with corresponding decline in use of potatoes and all starchy vegetables.

(8) Marked increase in milk, cheese and all dairy products.

(9) Increase in sugars, confectionery, sweet and soft drinks and ice cream.

(10) Marked decline in all flour foods, breads, cakes, corn- meal, etc.

62. Decline in Total Average Per Capita Food Consump- tion.— It is a significant fact that we are all eating less. The country over, we do not eat as much, nor is what we do eat as rich and elaborately prepared, as the meal of the nineties or before. This holds true both for the hotel and the home table. It is laughable to glance at a menu card of the "mauve decade" — say at the Waldorf — and compare it with one, say even from the Biltmore, of today. The former groaning menu ranged over the entire animal and vegetable kingdoms with its 20 courses including terrapin, canvas back, oysters, venison, joints, roasts, and desserts of towering height. Even a formal dinner today seldom includes more than six main courses, each simple and restrained.

The home table is also following much simpler meal serv- ice, and the change in home cooking can quickly be seen by contrasting a cook book of the old regime with one of the moment. Picking at random a recipe from a well-known cook book of olden days we find these terrorizing directions: "Take six chickens from yesterday . . . place in a copper basin the yolks of 10 eggs, add four gills of wine ... and whisk six gills of thick cream to a stiff froth." To the modern house- wife accustomed to think in terms of economical simplicity, such recipes are appaling, and she wonders (as do we all) just how people of those days managed to be well and to work after eating meals which seem staggering to even the most sturdy trencherman of today. Europe and the rest of the

116

world still averages about 48.9% of its income spent on food, according to most recent estimates, whereas only on our pov- erty level do we go so high. This is significant, for economists agree that when food expenditure approaches 50% of income we are at a dangerously low standard of living.

63. Why the American Family Is Eating Less Each Year. — We do eat less, and here are some of the explanations for the why of it :

(1) Fewer persons (in ratio to the population) are doing heavy manual, muscular or outdoor work.

(2) Fewer persons are affected by climate and cold, now better controlled by modern heating methods in home, office and industrial plants.

(3) Less leisure and time is allotted to eating, owing to com- plications of commuting, transportation, etc.; general "speed- ing up" affects eating as well as other habits.

(4) Eating as an amusement and pleasure is largely super- seded by other amusements, automobiling, movies, travel, etc.

(5) There is today wider acceptance of educational direc- tion on matters of dietetic, health and nutritive food values.

(6) There is a marked fashion trend for the slender figure and accompanying slenderizing, reducing, etc., particularly by women.

(7) The "servant problem" lessens possibility of elaborate home entertaining and complicated cooking.

(8) Women, when themselves doing housework, cook less and spend less time in the kitchen because of a desire for more leisure; what they do cook is simpler and prepared in a shorter period.

(9) Present kitchen and storage space is limited and confined and not conductive to elaborate meal preparation.

(10) Cooking is no longer a means of "showing off" or emu- lation by "conspicuous consumption."

(11) More women in industry, professional and business fields lessens the amount of former "free help" in the home devoting itself to cooking and household duties.

64. Changes in Occupation and Climate Affect Diet. — As long as America was a pioneer agricultural country, with

117

hardships and many types of manual, muscular work to be per- formed, the diet was naturally (and rightly) "hearty." The village blacksmith of Longfellow's day could without doubt do justice to blueberry pie for breakfast, hot cakes and maple syrup, codfish cakes, with some leftover baked beans, and start his work with a song. But it is a wager whether his grandson catching the 7:59 for his desk in the city would have either the time or the inclination — or the stomach — for more than a fruit-coffee-toast-egg breakfast while scanning the morning headlines.

Transportation, the almost universal replacement of slow moving deliveries by speedy automobiles, causes fewer and fewer persons to need large intakes of heavy food because of climate and work demands. We are fast becoming a sedentary nation, an indoor nation, and probably unconsciously we are adjusting our eating to the greatly lessened food intake re- quired by the sedentary worker. Where formerly a worker, in cold factories had to stamp his feet and keep his arms swing- ing, and thus burn up enough calories to justify onslaught upon a heavy dumpling, meat pie and substantial pudding meal, — today the modern office and factory are likely to be overheated, and thus the desire and need for more and heavier food to withstand low temperatures, becomes constantly less.

This important point, the effect of temperature and climate upon food requirements and demands, is clearly shown by a con- trast between present day menus in America and in England. In this country, the American, thinking of his abundant fresh vegetables, salads and delicate gelatin desserts or fruit cup or melons and ice creams, scoffs at the heavy rather stodgy fare of the present day Britton. This latter is still enjoying all the heavy foods so familiar in the pages of Dickens, — the beef- and-kidney pie, the boiled joint, the suet pudding, the heavy rhubarb tart, in short, a menu remarkable for its emphasis on starchy foods and its absence of fresh vegetables and fresh fruits. But a fairer estimate of the British menu can be made by any one, who like the author, has lived for a while in Lon- don, in an virtually unheated hotel rooms, chilled by gloomy fog and penetrating mist. With such a chill climate, and a

118

common absence of the comfort of American "central heat- ing," it is no wonder they turn to puddings and meat pies for warmth, and to endless cups of tea for consolation !

65. Speeding Up Provides Less Leisure for Eating. — Since so many other habits of this modern age have been "stepped up," it would be surprising if eating alone remained unaffected by the general speed mania. The truth is, that more American people today keep definite office hours, definite time schedules and plans than anywhere else in the world. We are busier, we have more "drive," have more things to do, and thus we find less leisure for lingering meals. The office employee required to eat and be back at work within an hour is not going to dally with many dishes — as contrasted with the French plan of shutting down business for two hours for lunch. Even the American executive may be found at the stand-up quick lunch.

Many business women who want to have time to shop in their noon hour cut down their lunch to a request of a soda fountain clerk, "a malted milk and a cheese sandwich, please," or "a cup of coffee and a slice of chocolate cake." There are so many things to do, to see, to visit, that it seems a waste of time to spend it in mere eating; of lunch, at least.

At one time eating was Mrs. Consumer's "indoor sport" or amusement, or at least a pastime in those dark eras before the auto, the movie, the radio, and other inventions came to provide more interests. Undoubtedly for this reason women no longer cook so abundantly and so often. For them, too, cooking used to be a social accomplishment, one of the few creative expressions possible for women in that drab era when girls remained girls and daughters faced a life choice between marrying or entering a convent. What else was there for women to do ?

This influx of women into modern business and industry has and will continue to have a marked affect on our food consumption. As long as daughters stayed home, cooking was not only a source of "escape" but parents used the free help of their daughters, maiden aunts and other females in keeping up a large and generous hospitality and an attention to cook- ing details that is almost unbelievable today. The author re-

119

calls that in a house with six colored servants, nevertheless it was her mother who made the beef and kidney pie, the black fruit cake requiring hours of preparation, the delectable con- serves which were the boast of grandmother's hospitality. When women stayed home, their services free to their families, cookery was purposely and preferably complicated, and the menus elaborate. It was a way to apply surplus time and brains. But with daughters away at school or entering business early, with hired servants scarce and astoundingly higher priced than in the days of $20 a month cooks, food preparation just natu- rally becomes simple if not "sketchy" or "delicatessen" in type.

Thus it follows quite logically that cooking is still most in- tensive only in those sections where women have the most free time or leisure, and where there are not so many other inter- ests or amusements to take its place. This is illustrated by the greater response of the small town woman to cooking classes, schools and recipe contests as contrasted with the slackened interest of her sister in the large town or metropolis, where only the women on a lower social level are equally keenly interested in cookery.

66. Cooking No Longer "Conspicuous Consumption." — Cooking in general is thus no longer a means of "conspicuous consumption," to use Veblen's excellent phrase. Cooking is not now regarded by the housewife of the upper middle classes as a means of expressing emulation of some other housewife, home or family, as was formerly the case. Emulation is a natural and a persisting human quality in all of us. The dis- play of expensive goods or unusual possessions testifies to the economic distinction and pride of the owner or person making the display. Thus, the old time housewife making a display of her cooking skill, her elaborate menu, her rich dishes, did so as a means of expressing the "conspicuous consumption" of her particular family and herself as contrasted with the persons or family or woman to whom she was making the display. We have "conspicuous consumption" today, but its objects have changed, thus we have or make displays in the kind and elabo- rateness of the clothes we wear, in the furniture or jewels or furs we possess, and above all, in the car we drive and the home

120

we occupy, or our way of life and living. Food display has become less and less important as a means of announcing family wealth and distinction, even when a caterer or hotel keeper does the job for us. The housewife expresses family distinction in foods not by quantity, or even by expense, but in choosing foods of certain types and offering them in an unusual service or style or setting.

67. Marked Tendency Toward Diversified Diet. — Geo- graphic environment and local resources are responsible for original differences in diet. The Southerner reveled in sweet potatoes or yams, hot cornmeal breads, oysters, chicken; the Yankee throve on "the sacred cod," clams, cramberries, turkey and baked beans in the pot. The Midwesterner went in for pork and corn on the cob; the Californian feasted on oranges, grapefruit, asparagus, avocado and the popular prune. Thus each section, if not also each state, originally was distinguished by special food tastes, based on native products and what might be called "sectional food habits."

It is natural that as a result of improved transportation and refrigerating facilities, the food tastes of any one area or section would become blended and exchanged with food tastes of other sections. And this is exactly what has happened; baked beans are as often to be found in the West or South as they are in Boston; grapefruit has become national, asparagus has come East, and sweet potatoes invade the Northern mar- kets by carloads. In short, we may say that we have today a "diffusion of foods" resulting from the interchange of prod- ucts, section with section.

There are in addition some minor, but nevertheless to be reckoned with factors further increasing this unusual diversity of the American diet. They are :

( 1 ) Foreign foods and dishes contributed by races in the na- tional "melting pot," — spaghetti, chili con carne, chop suey, borscht, goulash, etc.

(2) Foreign cooking technique and service, as adapted from hotels, restaurants, etc.

(3) Unusual receptivity of the American housewife toward new food products.

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Many, many countries have contributed foods — until the present day American bill-of-fare can be truly said to be the most cosmopolitan in the world. Here is a fact-picture of this diversification in an office worker's Sunday dinner: A leg of lamb from Idaho, potatoes from Maine, pepper from Dutch Indies, olive oil from Italy, tomatoes from Florida, lettuce from Arizona, vinegar from California, butter from Wiscon- sin, flour from North Dakota, apples from Oregon, raisins from Spain, onions from Bermuda, spinach from Texas, cheese from Switzerland, sauce from England, peas from France, pre- serves from England, figs from Smyrna, dates from Turkey.

68. Hotel Influence on Home Cookery. — No less marked has been the influence of hotel cooking and service upon the American family table. Based on the traditional French cook- ing hotel cookery has influenced the family table both in cook- ing trends and in service. Millions of Americans travel about their country, to a degree no other country practices. Contacts with large hotel service, almost always in the hands of French chefs and dining staffs, have opened the eyes of the housewife as to new or sophisticated ways in which familiar foods might be prepared or served. The importance of the vegetable, the possible variety of the sauce, the more extended use of the appetizer or hors d'ceuvre, the greater charm of garnished in- dividual service as contrasted with the older manner of large bulk family serving, the vastly increased use of the salad, the greater complexity and decoration of the garnish — these are only a few of the points which have been consciously or un- consciously imitated in the home after the style set by the large hotel of smart hospitality.

69. The Neglect of Native or Sectional Dishes. — All these imitations or adaptations make for added diversity in diet, and are thus to be commended. But, contrariwise, in many cases the native and excellent bill-of-fare has been rudely cast aside in favor of poor imitations of supposed French cooking. It has been the greatest mistake for a locality noted for some special food or dish to deprecate it or fail to make it a local feature, and instead, ape — on a lower scale — what it supposes is hotel cooking. Nothing can ever be superior to certain

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native American foods at their best — pumpkin pie, roast tur- key, corn-on-the-cob, baked potatoes, melons, clam chowder, fricasee chicken, and other dishes every American has at his tongue's end for which he longs when overseas. In including those of other nations, the American should not forget or fail to make full use of his own distinctive and delicious foods. (Elsewhere in this book I present typical sectional menus.)

70. Mrs. Consumer's Great Receptivity to Food Sugges- tions.— The adaptability of the American housewife, and her willingness to test, taste and try new foods should be stressed in any discussion of changing food trends. The American housewife, more perhaps than any other in the world, can be said to be "open-minded" and unshackled by tradition. Neither the traditionally conservative British woman, nor the tenaciously individualistic French woman, let us say, would be as receptive to try an alligator pear, to taste chop suey, or to prepare a lima bean loaf, as her American sister housewife. Born, or bred, in an atmosphere which seems to encourage the doing of anything new, American housewives present a con- stantly open mind, or a "I'll try anything once" attitude. This perhaps explains her support of and interest in household experiment stations. It accounts for the stupendous circulation of woman's magazines, with their featured food and household departments. It further explains her eagerness and partici- pation in the countless recipe contests held under various aus- pices, and in cooking schools where an attendance of 5,000 is not unusual. The author cannot imagine 500, to saying noth- ing of 5,000, British housewives attending a lecture to learn how new foods are being used. The British diet is as stodgy and as settled as the House of Lords. No one thinks it could be improved; indeed hardly anyone there realizes that there is such a thing as diet !

71. The Story of Broccoli. — Many examples could be given of the acceptance of new foods on the part of the con- sumer. Take Broccoli — its story reads like a fiction romance. Familiar for years as a staple vegetable in Italy, it is only about five years ago that it was first introduced to the Ameri- can public. One man, then chief steward with the famed Wal-

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dorf, New York, remembered that in his boyhood he had tasted in Italy this vegetable which looks like an overly green, loosely headed cauliflower. Looking for new dishes, he won- dered if the Waldorf s patrons had tasted it. Says he : "I searched all over New York. I interested one of the leading producers in my search. Finally we found two Italian broth- ers who knew it and promised to grow it from seed specially sent from Italy. They picked Long Island with its cool, moist climate. The first crop was raised, cut and sent to the Wal- dorf. The waiters were instructed to say that broccoli was a vegetable related to cauliflower, of the cabbage family, and that it was pronounced 4brok-kolee.' Watching through the door, I saw the first guest eat broccoli. The waiters brought back favorable reports — the guests liked it — it would be a

success."

Within a week other hotels were asking where it could be secured. Now it is grown by the truck load on L. I. in sum- mer, and in Texas in winter. Hotel menus boast broccoli not only hollandaise, but au gratin, in salads, and as originally eaten in Italy, fried with bread crumbs. Five carloads come in each day in winter to New York alone, and each is worth $2,000 to $10,000; a day's total for a vegetable that three years ago was entirely unknown to the consumer !

Now it is no longer restricted to the menus of hotels, but is found in markets and used generously by housewives only five years after it was an utter stranger here. Thus a new vegetable has helped to further diversify the diet of the American table.

Grapefruit, first placed like apples on a dish in the center of that same Waldorf table thirty years ago, have since been universally accepted and are seen on the table of all classes. Recently the writer was buying eggs from a very humble peasant-type "egg-woman" on Long Island. In the midst of a sale, a wagon selling groceries pulled up and the driver called out to the woman what she wanted today. "Oh, give me six big grapefruit," she replied. She was a Polish woman who couldn't write her name — but that humble farm home

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knew grapefruit on the table; had connected up somehow with the modern fruit dietary principle.

72. The Psychological Method of Establishing New Food Habits. — The psychologists call eating "an habitual in- terest." Our food preferences have entered our lives by way of nerve currents passing from the outer world to our brains. Frequently this habitual interest refuses to change

DIAGRAMS SHOWING How BASIC FOOD TRAITS LOGICALLY^ DEVELOP. IN THE DIA- GRAM TO THE LEFT Is SHOWN How FROM THE LIKING FOR SALAD, AS A BASIC TRAIT, EASILY SPROUT LIKINGS FOR OTHER SALADS. IN THE DIAGRAM TO THE RIGHT Is SHOWN A PROGRESSIVE SERIES LEADING FROM CABBAGE TO BROCCOLI.

even though we move to a totally new locality — as witness some Americans visiting France, who in the midst of the world capital of superior cooking, nevertheless persist in wishing for the baked beans, griddle cakes and ham and eggs of their familiar menu !

Any people — even the open-minded American people —

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tend to cling to old diets and hesitate to try new foods. On the other hand, new foods will be more easily liked and as- similated into the dietary if they even slightly resemble famil- iar foods. This is based on the explanation that one "trait" or habit will lead to another which has something in common with it. If a possible similarity to the old trait can be found, then the new trait can travel part of the way by a habit-road al- ready made. It is easy to understand how broccoli was ac- cepted, because it resembled cauliflower (already known and accepted). If it had looked like the brush of a pineapple, which we have never eaten, we would have been much more hesitant. The psychological system which this follows is made graphic in the accompanying diagram.

On the other hand, we may come to like new foods for an entirely different, or second explanation. Once a new "trait" has become established, it is likely to enlarge, expand, and send out subsidiary branches from the original basic trait. A good example of this is the present widespread liking for many different kinds of salads. Once the individual overcame any resistance to, and decided to accept salads as an important dish in his meal, then this basic salad trait rapidly became a "salad culture" with branches ending in meat-salads, fish- salads, fruit-salads, salad-desserts and so on. What was at first only a "basic salad acceptance" has become a flourishing "salad culture" because of association in the individual's mind. Similarly, if we could induce a person to enjoy one Chinese dish, he would more easily come to relish other Chinese dishes; once show the housewife how to make (and enjoy) one refrigerator dessert, and the time will soon arrive when she will make (and enjoy even more greatly) all desserts of this type.

Another psychological slant on foods is that there must be nothing connected with foods which to the particular person seems unpleasant, unsavory, or associated with an unfavor- able experience. Some people do not like mushrooms because they think of them growing near decaying material; others are deterred from eating all Oriental food because of a hesitancy about "bird's nests soup." An eel may taste deli-

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cious to the person who has never seen one pitchforked un- der his feet into the bottom of a rowboat. No matter if a "rose by any other name would smell as sweet,'' a "food by any other name" is vastly more relished. The government recognized this by recently changing the name of "dogfish" to "grayfish" — when more people instantly began to use it. Similarly common "haddock" of no great repute, is now more frequently and euphoniously sold as "fish fillets." It is axio- matic that foods either uncooked or prepared, must never be associated with names which are unsavory. The positive form of this statement explains the multitude of "delights," "ambrosia," "fluffs," "French," "a la king," "supreme," and titles of honor which mask plain apples, potatoes or veal stew I 73. What's Next in Food? — Granted that we cling to old food forms, and that we also are willing to try new foods if they resemble those to which we have been familiar, what are the possible food trends which may culminate in our food habits for 1940?

( 1 ) Increased stress on luxury foods and emphasis on im- ported and tropical delicacies, with continued demand for diversified diet on the part of more and more families and groups.

(2) Increased stress on food selection because of aesthetic appeal; the gradual recognition of eating as a social art, thus emphasizing "style" in foods as related to flavor, novelty, appearance, and unusual modes of service.

(3) Continued interest in health, vitamin and beauty appeals, especially for children and women.

(4) Continued demand for milk products, uncooked vege- tables and fruits and their canned or processed equivalents; stressing smaller vegetables and meat cuts easily cooked in- stead of large, long-cooking kinds heretofore more widely used.

(5) Increased demand for foods which are so packaged or prepared as to save time, effort or fuel in their preparation; demand for smaller sizes, new and better styled containers; demand for more efficient containers or weight to allow more

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economical and adaptable service to the smaller family or consumer group.

The level of appreciation and diversity in eating is con- stantly rising. In one generation the children of foreign born are likely to turn from their native polenta, borscht or ravioli to expensive beef cuts, lamb chops, grapefruit and a generally more luxurious diet. The family formerly satisfied with lettuce served with a sprinkling of salt and vinegar from the cruet now prefer a stuffed "tomato surprise." Families who begin on cabbage, end on broccoli; homes where cornstarch ivory cream was considered the most dressy of desserts now scorn starchy puddings in favor of refrigerator dainties, ice-box cakes, and complex fruit salads topped with whipped cream mayonnaise. Both in ingredients and in style, there is a leaving behind of former simple, hearty and crude foods.

More and more hostesses are demanding and using what were formerly classed as "luxury foods,'* tropical and imported luxuries. Today there is a marked preference for smart and unusual foods, often popularized because of a snob appeal due to their imported origin. It is not only the foreign label in gowns that traps the consumer — she falls just as readily for the imported food label on chocolate, cracker or cheese! The avocado was thus popularized because of its original smart appeal. The English biscuit, Dalmatian honey, guava jelly, and hosts of cheeses whose very names were known only to a few chance epicures — grenadine syrups, marrons, pastes and pate, hearts of palm, anchovies, fastidious fish and fruit in glasine or styled containers. Little by little they are creeping into the general diet of the comfortable and well-to-do families. Even though the middle class housewife may use such foods but seldom, she is becoming as aware of aesthetics in food as the gustatory French have ever known it. She uses these delicacies as garnish, as trimming on some "company salad" or in imitation of a tearoom "special" which she may have eaten or read about in her favorite magazine. For the specialty of the fine hotel cuisine of today becomes the guest recipe of the better class home of tomorrow, and the family dish of the average home of the year after next.

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XIV

"Feeding" versus "Cooking"

For years I have been a speaker before women's clubs and other important women's organizations. In connection with my lecture "Feeding the Family,1' given many times be- fore audiences, I have always taken occasion to describe graphically the distinction between "feeding" and "cooking." Making the gestures, I have traced dramatically the cave- man dragging the dead buck to the cave, where he turned over its preparation to the cavewoman. And she, bending low, with constant basting and turning and watching of the fire, gave it undivided attention for hours. This is cooking.

In contrast, I have called attention to the young farm girl of today in a western state who raised a prize pig as part of our splendid agricultural extension work. This girl gave her "Buster" just precisely so much cornmeal to eat, just so much buttermilk, just so much shorts; carefully measured amounts and kinds of foods at proper intervals, — foods that were selected for definite nutritive value. Her prize pig received "rations," or a "balanced meal," and became a prize pig because he was fe d, and not merely cooked for ! "Feeding," and not "cooking" has long been the slogan of the stock raiser

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desirous of producing a prize pig or any other animal. But it is only very recently that the housewife has learned to feed her family, and stop just cooking for it. Feeding implies a knowledge of nutritive values, while cooking implies nothing more than an appeal to taste.

74. Buying Food for Family Nutritive Values. — This dis- tinction is of vast importance because, broadly speaking, the present American family can be said to be feeding more but cooking and eating less. The old-fashioned housewife cooked and cooked because she supposed that only by a multiplicity of dishes would her family have "enough" to eat. She thought that anything less than soup, pot roast, heavy vegetables, a stout pudding, pie, jam, pickles and hot biscuits would stamp her as a poor provider. Her job was to "fill them up." But today the granddaughter of such a woman knows that it is not in the number or the elaborateness of dishes that true "food'* is to be found, but in the nutrients and values which even a single dish may contain. In short, the present day housewife "knows her calories" and has become food-con- scious, where her grandmother was invariably cooking-con- scious. If she does not know the technique, she knows the practical method.

75. How the Housewife Came to "Know Her Calories." —Starting as an accompaniment of the Great War, we may say that all food work was pushed on a full ten years, possibly even twenty, because of the vast amount of food information put out and assimilated by the public generally during the war years. "Save the sugars, save the fats, save the wheat," — that was the first time that many a housewife knew that there were distinctions between fats or sugars, or that eating a potato was not the same thing as eating a tomato. Canteen work, leaflets, bulletins, lectures, information on foods, poured in upon the home and the housewife. Lecturers a-plenty scoured the country explaining, showing charts, teaching the whole subject of food values. And so today, while the housewife is no longer interested in making an eggless-butterless-cake, there remains a generally diffused high level mark of intelli- gence on the whole subject of nutrition.

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What the government commenced as special food infor- mation as a war measure, has been extended in broad scope by the advertiser and the periodical and' newspaper press. Today no woman's magazine worthy the name that does not carry page after page of material and articles on foods, their nutritive values, on diet, on health, and on cooking in relation to family feeding. Most newspapers have a "woman's page" where experienced writers and specialists daily inform readers how to use foods in relation to their weight, age or occupation, — in short, the whole story of modern "feeding" as against old fashioned cooking, or put in another way, "calories" as against "cooking."

76. Influence of Health, Vegetarian, and Beauty Trends. — What the government started to make popular knowledge, and what the press has continued to keep before the aver- age reader, has been given further impetus by certain special groups and trends. The vegetarians, classed as cranks and faddists but a few years back, have been able to watch the gradual acceptance of many of their preferences for fresh and green vegetables, fruits and other health foods. Health and right feeding have been made almost synonomous, and added to it all has come a powerful motive — a specific desire on the part of women to keep thin, to hold or gain beauty through foods. Probably in no other country has this unusual combination affected choice in foods. Where else do women think so much before they eat? Or in what other land will they sit down to a rare lamb chop and a slice of pineapple while all the time craving chicken salad and mayonnaise, a slice of cocoanut cake and a cup of chocolate with whipped cream?

Certainly "grandmother" had little knowledge or suspi- cion of the close relation of feeding to health and beauty. Health in their day came by way of strange bottles of "tonics," elixirs, compounds, pills, potions and patent medicines galore. The idea of taking a tonic by way of fresh orange juice, plenty of spinach and a daily ration of yeast, would have utterly astounded grandmother. But not so her grand- daughter. And if the former accepted with resignation the

approach of the "high butter balls'* and the "middle-aged spread" of the hips which made her fat, fair and forty, not so her granddaughter who at once watches her weight, buys an electric exerciser, eats less, and in many cases counts her calories daily. Thus both the health and the slenderizing factors effect diet for the modern woman, and she refuses those foods or those dishes which are acknowledged to defeat both health and slenderness.

There is a wide group of foods which have come to the fore almost solely because of their health, vitamin or beauty values ; among them are :

Milk in all forms, and dairy prod- Tomatoes, fresh, canned, and to-

ucts mato juice

Oranges, lemons, grapefruit Yeast

Spinach, lettuce, 'greens' of all Liver

kinds, 'roughage* vegetables, fruits Codliver oils, olive oil

and cereals (bran products) Sauerkraut and its juice

Raisins

No other single food item in our diversified bill of fare is more valuable or deserves so well a star rating and justifies popularity than our milk products. America stands alone in her use of milk as a beverage for adults as well as for children, and we now use 68% more milk than in the period twenty years previous. It is cause for thanks that each year sees more consumers appreciating the high nutritive value of milk whether fresh, evaporated, condensed or in dry form, and that milk plays such an important part in home cooking. One quart of milk yielding 675 calories is the equivalent of one pound of steak, 9 eggs, or 1 solid quart of oysters. Owing to the activity of child welfare and health that she should provide "a quart of milk per day for every child." Milk will continue to be in demand by more and more persons; and even now the housewife is demanding that the bakers use some 120,000 pounds of dry skim milk each year to improve the nutrition and add to the appearance of baked goods.

77. Vitamins and Their Relation to Vegetables, Vitality and Vim. — The bulk of foods selected for health reasons are fruits and vegetables. Let us discover why. The one com-

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mon denominator of all "health foods" is vitamins. Oranges, tomatoes, milk, codliver oil, liver, yeast — each is a vitamin- bearing food. "What is a vitamin ?" might sound like a teas- ing conundrum were it not for the fact that it has already been answered and utilized by a large number of consumers and those planning family menus. Ask Mrs. Jones "What is a vitamin?" and she may not be able to explain it any more than she can scientifically answer "what is a vacuum?" But that does not prevent her from intuitively understanding and using to advantage the fact of vitamin value.

So too, Mrs. Jones cannot visualize a vitamin (who really can?) ; but she has a pretty clear idea of what it does, what its results are in health. And this, after all, is the only thing that counts; practical use. So Mrs. Jones buys expen- sive fresh spinach in winter for her two-year-old, and includes oranges on every shopping list, and dutifully buys liver and chooses cereals from which the bran has not been removed.

In brief, there has come about an amazingly widespread popular connection and consumer acceptance between vitamins and health, vitamins and resistance to disease. Health work in schools, food exhibits, and even posters made by the chil- dren themselves, aid this by constantly stressing the connection between "vitamins and vim," etc. Only last autumn, when a speaker in Dayton, Ohio, before the Parent-Teachers' Asso- ciation, I was at once conducted to a special "Health Ex- hibit" entirely arranged by grade children. There on one table was a prize assortment of actual bottles and boxes of patent nostrums, "pink pills for pale persons," "tonics," "swamp-root," etc. In striking contrast on the walls were gay posters made from clipped advertisements showing health foods, and how they were the best tonics. Moreover, in the window was a vivid eye-attracting exhibit of two white rats. Poor Rat A had been fed only coffee and a cracker daily, and showed it by his lassitude, his patchy pelt and weak growth. But Rat B, fed on milk and lettuce leaves, was fat with thick glossy fur, and so extremely active that it was a joy to watch him. Such an exhibit told, more plainly than wordy lectures, to both parents and pupils, that "vitamins"

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do something to you — and how ! These important food facts are becoming subconscious knowledge for the growing and new on-coming generation through the schools, and together with the periodical and the accurately stated food advertise- ment, are continuing to influence the consumer in her choice of foods for health reasons.

78. The History of Vitamins. — For the past twenty years indeed, the word "vitamin" has been before the public, even though previous to that date we ate vitamins but did not know it. The progressive discovery of these invisible growth qualities in foods is another chapter in the romance of applied science. In 1906 Prof. F. Gowland Hopkins, of Cambridge University, England, started a series of laboratory studies in nutrition which were to lay the foundation of an entirely new science of human feeding. Prof. Hopkins deserves the credit for first stating the need of ''accessory food factors" in nutrition. He was followed by the American investigators Osborne and Mendel working in New Haven. Many other experiments on both animals and humans were conducted abroad and in this country. In 1915 Prof. E. V. McCollum (of Johns Hopkins) proved by elaborate studies using rice, milk-sugar and butter fat, that "there are at least two 'de- terminants' in the nutrition of growth : one in protein-free milk, the other in butter fat or codliver oil or egg yolk." Vit- amins A and B were discovered!

Later, other series of studies using generations of white rats convinced investigators that foods contained a third sub- stance, Vitamin C. Followed the very interesting correlation between light and diet until almost simultaneously was pre- sented a body of evidence (1925) linking up light with food factors in nutrition. This research of the greatest significance for human welfare resulted in Vitamin D taking its place as a "regulatory factor" in human nutrition. Last, (1923) Evans and Bishop disclosed by their studies a still different factor, designated Vitamin E.

79. What Foods Contain Vitamins. — If a strict definition of these food qualities is desired, I can suggest none better than this one given by McCollum:

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"Vitamins are secondary dietary essentials or substances exerting a marked effect on health and growth. TEey can- not be manufactured by the animal organism (the body) but must be secured from special foods of which the body needs but a small amount. But this small amount is abso- lutely necessary for growth in the young, and for the main- tenance of health in the adult."

Practically, these "secondary essentials" have been proved to counteract such nutritional diseases and scourges as beri- beri, rickets, scurvy, defective teeth, popthalmia (sore eyes), anemia, etc. Each vitamin is so distinct and so isolated, that it is possible to say in exactly which foods each vitamin is found and what its results will produce in the human body. Without giving an exhaustive scientific table, the following outlines will be helpful in classifying the vitamins and show- ing the main food stuffs containing each:

Functions and Sources of the Vitamins

VITAMIN A Milk (In animal fats, loses po- (fat-soluble A) Animal fats tency gradually on ex- Growth - producing ; pre- Butter posure to air, especially vention and cure of eye Egg yolk if temperature be raised; diseases ; physiologic well- Codliver oil withstand drying and or- being; resistance to infec- Cabbage dinary cooking tempera- tion. Spinach tures without marked

Lettuce loss.)

Green string beans

Carrots

Liver

VITAMIN B Milk (If raised above the boil- ( '*o at er- soluble B) Natural cereal grains ing point destruction pro- Prevention and cure of Dried peas and beans ceeds rapidly. The longer beri-beri and polyneuri- Yeast the cooking the greater tis ; promotion of growth ; Spinach the loss. Addition of maintenance of appetite Cabbage soda increases loss. Dry- and digestive health. Tomato ing does not affect this

Orange, lemon, grapefruit vitamin unfavorably.)

Turnips

Celery

Onions

Liver

VITAMIN C Milk (Easily destroyed ; varies ;

(anti-scorbutic) Lemon and orange loses its qualities rapidly

Prevention and cure of (juices) under heat; when dried

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scurvy; increases nutri- Tomato (juice) below boiling point, loses

tional activity; counter- Potatoes (cooked) power.)

acts irritability, anemia, Cabbage (raw) weakness, pains in joints, Apples (raw) laziness. Peas (canned)

Onion

VITAMIN D Butter (Variable according to (anti-rachitic) Milk diet of animal supplying Prevention and cure of Codliver oil and other it or to extent of ex- rickets; promotion and fish livers posure to sunlight.) growth of teeth ; assists Egg yolk normal growth of all Green-leafed plants, bony structure. stems, shoots, etc.

VITAMIN E Oil of wheat germ (Remarkable stability,

Important in reproduction Seeds and green leaves not easily destroyed or

and fertility; and animal Milk affected by steam, light,

lactation. or acids.)

(Adapted from Rose, "Foundations of Nutrition," 1927, pgs. 237-299.)

80. The Future of Vitamins in Food Selling. — This subject is here treated at some length because it is my opinion that 'Vitamins" have come to stay and that they will remain an increasing factor in the choice of food, and therefore must loom large in the selling of food. The further researches of science, particularly in the field of child nutrition and disease, will undoubtedly bring forward still more data of interest and guidance to the mother, the housewife, the pregnant mother, and all concerned in any phase of child welfare. It has already given impetus to sun ray lamps, which make vitamins more active in the body.

The relation of vitamins to growth opens up problems in feeding which will continue to interest each succeeding crop of new mothers and young housewives. That it has already done so in a popular and remarkable degree is proved by the rising purchase curves of oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, milk, all green vegetables and fresh fruits and other special foods. The woman who believes that a certain foodstuff contains vitamins, and thus is a guarantee of family health values, is willing to pay for that value. Incidentally, much of the money which formerly went for a bottle of drugstore "tonic" is now handed over for a peck of grocery store spinach. In the consumer's mind, vitamins are synonomous with "vim" and "vitality."

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81. Low-Cost Diet "Miracles." — The average man who is unacquainted with the statistics of the American woman's home management rarely appreciates the skill with which women dispense a dollar, and still provide ample nourishment. Many men do not see how it is done. Just as the American business man has an international reputation for his business management, Mrs. Consumer in America has also a reputation for domestic management, although I will admit that in sheer, downright economy and hard work the foreign housewife can surpass her. The American Mrs. Consumer, I think, manages to get more out of life.

One of the main methods by which the Mrs. Consumers operating low budgets manage is to use the low cost diet as against the high cost diet. It is amazing what is the difference in cost between two diets of precisely the same nutrition. This was graphically shown at the home economics conference held at the University of Chicago late in 1928. A standard for an adequate diet for a 150 pound man was worked out (3,000 calories, 75 gms. protein, 0.68 gm. calcium, 1.32 gms. phos- phorous, 0.015 gm. iron vitamins ) . Here are the two diets :

CHEAP DIET: EXPENSIVE DIET:

Cost, 51 cents per day Cost $1.26 per day

$3.57 per week QUANTITY $8.82per week

$185.64- per year AND KIND $458.64 per year

Milk 1 Pint Milk

Banana 1 Raw Fruit Orange

Apple Sauce 1 Raw Fruit Baked Apple

Cabbage 1 Raw Vegetable Lettuce

Carrots 1 Cooked Vegetable Brussels Sprouts

Oatmeal 1 Whole Wheat Cereal Puffed Wheat

Round Steak Meat Lamp Chop

Beans Other Protein Food Egg

On exhibit at the conference were these menus, and the cabbage at two cents a dish was contrasted with brussels sprouts at 39 cents a dish. Facts like these provide the answer to what some people call the "mystery" of how the other half manages to get along. It is no mystery, the way Mrs. Con- sumer figures it out, whether by literate intelligence or by native intelligence and common sense.

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82. The Working Girl's Budget.-— There is also the "mys- tery'* of how the "working girl" who lives away from home can manage. This is also often a bit of clever work by Miss Consumer! It is notorious that the "midinettes" of Paris, and the shop girls and office girls of New York and other large cities dress remarkably well on very little money, but they are popularly supposed to accomplish this by eating a skimping, inadequate soda fountain lunch. This is another popular fal- lacy, for even if they eat a soda fountain lunch, it is not exactly inadequate. Milk and ice cream, lettuce and tomato sand- wiches, etc. are very wise and excellent lunch items.

The Chicago Home Economics conference worked out a budget such as the intelligent business girl who earns $1,800 a year ($150 a month) would operate. It is worth showing here. If the girl earns only $1,200 a year or $25 a week, naturally a third must be deducted from each item, except food, the differential being subtracted from the savings item. The $1,8 00 budget follows:

Rent, $37.50 month $ 450.00

Telephone, $1.50 month 18.00

Board, $3 week 156.00

Lunch, 35 cents day 110.00

Carfare, 14 cents day 51.00

Recreation, $1.75 week 91.00

Health „ 30.00

Income tax 5.00

Cosmetics 27.90

Beauty treatment 24.50

Lingerie 84.12

Dresses 102.90

Hats 36.25

Coats 182.69

Shoes 51.60

Accessories 24.90

Miscellaneous ., 14.14

Grand Total $1,550.00

Savings 250.00

INCOME $1,800.00

83. What Is America's Most Popular Dish? — An inter- esting sideline as to what are the 20 leading dishes which the

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American public prefers, is embodied in an informative re- port.* Some dozen cooking authorities and editors of women's publications were asked to secure, through the aid of their correspondents, the ranking preferences in foods, both as to popularity and method of cooking. The following are a few of the high spots in this report — all the details of which would be illuminating to any person interested in food distribution :

Times Mentioned

Beef 20

Steak 8

Roast 6

Pot Roast .. 1

Stew Pork

1 12

Fried Ham 5

Hash 3

Frankfurts 1

Stew 1

Vegetables 30

Potatoes (mashed) 6

Baked Beans 5

Cole Slaw 2

Cakes of all kinds 26

Gingerbread, 'cakes' and Choc- olate Cake, each 5

Fruit Shortcake 4

Loaf Cake 1

Pies

Apple 8

Lemon 4

Custard 1

Pumpkin 1

Times Mentioned

Breads and Biscuit

Baking Powder Biscuit 8

Muffins 4

White Bread 3

Special Dishes 21

Corn Beef and Cabbage 4

Macaroni and Cheese 2

Beefsteak and Fried Potatoes 3

Poultry 16

Fried Chicken 4

Fricasee 2

Fruits

Cranberries 3

Puddings

Rice 5

Salads

Potato 5

Soups

Tomato Soup 4

Griddle Cakes 7

Ice Cream 7

Doughnuts 5

Fudge 3

Waffles .. 3

The curious will welcome the single fact that of all dishes chosen :

Steak received 8 votes

Apple Pie 8

Baking Powder Biscuits 8 "

Griddle Cakes 7

Ice Cream , 7

Egg Dishes 7 "

Fried Ham 5 "

* Report prepared for the Research Dept., American Stove Co., Lorain, Ohio.

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Corned Beef and Cabbage 4 "

Hash 3

Macaroni and Cheese 2

Boiled Ham and a long list of other foods receiving only 1 vote apiece.

This should surely point the way to keeping husbands happy, and settle, once for all, what is the American National Dish!

84. Typical "Sectional" Meals. — That menus are largely the result of geographic latitude, and food tastes governed by climate, is amply proved by these six holiday menus taken re- spectively from a New England farmhouse, a Virginia planta- tion, a suburban villa way down in Mississippi, a Creole home- stead, a far Texan ranch and a bungalo in sunny California.

North — New England Holiday Menu

Oyster Stew Roast Goose, Spiced Apples, Giblet Gravy

Cranberry Sauce or Jelly Mashed Potatoes, Boiled Onions, Baked Hubbard Squash

Cabbage Cole Slaw

Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce, Mince Pie Nuts, Apples, Molasses Candy

Middle West — Holiday Menu Celery, Tomato Juice, Cocktail

Brown Onion Soup

Roast Capon, Sausage Garnish, Raisin Sauce Brown Rice and Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts

Glazed White Turnips Fig and Orange Salad, French Dressing

Cottage Pudding Raisins, Nuts, Dates, Coffee

South — (Virginia) Holiday Menu

Oyster Soup, Crackers and Chow-Chow

Roast Poultry, Crumbled Biscuit and Celery Stuffing

Baked Spiced Ham

Mashed Potato Mound, Candied Sweets

Corn Pudding, Macaroni and Cheese

Beaten Biscuit

Fruit Salad

Cherry Roll, Hard Sauce Mince Pie, Brown Coffee

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Far Southwest — (Texas) Holiday Dinner

Gumbo Soup

Pompano, Creole Sauce

Stuffed Quail, White Rice

Biscuit, Grits, Gravy

Baked Sweets in Caramel Sauce

Avocado Salad, French Dressing

Custard Float, Pecan Cake, Drip Coffee

Far South — (Louisiana) Creole Holiday Dinner

Bouillabaisse, Crusty Bread

Roast Turkey, Rice and Herb Stuffing, Giblet Gravy

Sweet Potato Pone, Buttered Artichokes

White Dumplings, Creole Cabbage Salad

Frozen Eggnog, Mocha Cake, Butter Icing and Crushed Pecans

Far West — Pacific (California) Holiday Menu Assorted Hors d'ceuvres

Chicken Consomme Roast Turkey, Cranberry Garnish

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Buttered Artichokes, Baked Creamed Cauliflower

Fruit Salad, Marshmallow Dressing

Frozen Plum Pudding

Fruits, Nuts, Raisins

4> OL

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Family Expenditure for Food

Before considering any expenditure for food, and its rela- tion to the family budget, we must consider as factors: — (1) Location of family; (2) Its occupation; (3) Its class; (4) Its income ; ( 5 ) Its standards or scale of living.

85. Food Cost in Relation to Family Budgets. — For many families, cost is a large factor in the feeding problem. It is accepted as axiomatic (although proved only approximately true in many studies) by home economists, that: — (1) The smaller the income, the larger the percent of it which must be spent for food and necessities (and the less for higher life and luxuries) ; (2) The larger the income, the less the pro- portion of it which must be spent for food (and the relatively more given for higher life and luxuries).

These are two of the well-known generalizations or "laws" made by Ernst Engel in about 1855 when he first published his "Cost of Living of Belgian Workingmen's Families" — a book in which for the first time there was made a statistical analysis of family expenditures on a large scale. Engel's estimate for Belgium in 1852 was that from 50-62% of the total working- man's income was spent for food alone. Many excellent studies

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have since been made both abroad and in the United States. In 1900-1902 the U. S. Bureau of Labor made a study on the expenditures of 25,440 families in 33 states. In 1918-1919 the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics made a study of 12,096 wage earner's families in 42 states. The U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture, working with some of the agricultural colleges, made a number of studies of rural standards of living. Some studies are among special groups as clerical workers in Washington, D. C. ; and a study of the expenditures of 96 members of the faculty of the University of California.

In "The Consumption of Wealth," Elizabeth Hoyt gives the percentage of the total national consumption for food as 27 % . On the basis of the 1926 income figures of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the estimate of 21% of the national income spent for food is equivalent to $207.90 per person, per year, or $4.00 per person per week, or 57c per person a day. This means an expenditure of 70c per day per adult for food. Further, Prof. Henry Sherman, analyzing from various investigations, gives the following distribution to the main items of the American food budget. He believes these estimates are representative of the expenditures of typical families as well as of the American national food expenditure as a whole :

Consumption of Main Articles of Food in Terms of

Percentage Distribution * Items of Food % of Expense

Meats, poultry, fish, eggs 35-45

Dairy and all fats 20

Grains 15—20

Sugars 5

Vegetables and fruits 15

Unclassified 5

95-110

86. Tables Showing Percentages Spent for Food. — The following tables compiled from figures of 1918-1919 from estimates made by U. S. Department of Labor, Agriculture, and data from various sources, show food expenditures in wage earners and farm families, or in the lower income groups.

* "Food Products," Henry Sherman, 1924, pg. 553.

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Percent of Expenditure for Food in Families of Various Income Groups (Wage-earners Families — White, taken in 1918)

Number Number Average Proportion of Total of of Value in Income for FOOD

Income Group Families Persons Dollars

Below $900 332 4.3

$ 900-$1,199 2,423 4.5

$1,200-$1,499 3,959 4.7

$1,500-$1,799 2,730 5.0

$1,800-42,099 1,594 5.2

$2,100-$2,499 705 5.7

$2,500 and over 353 6.4

Totals 12,096 4.9 1,434 38.2

Farm Families — White, taken in 1924

Number Number Average Proportion of Total of of Value in Income for FOOD

Income Group Families Persons Dollars

Below $600 58 3.3

$ 600-$899 230 3.6

$ 900-$1,199 579 4.0

$1,200-$1,499 614 4.5

$1,500-$1,799 492 5.1

$1,800-42,099 332 5.3

$2,100-$2,399 196 5.9

$2,400-$2,699 116 6.0

$2,700-$2,699 83 6.5

$3,000 and over 136 7.0

Totals 2,886 4.8 1,598 41.2

87. Food Expenditure Per Person Per Day. — From the first table, it will be seen that (in 1918) the average adult wage-earner was spending about 38c per day for food. The average farm adult (in 1924) was spending about 47c per day.

The estimate of 70c per day per adult for food, given above by Prof. Sherman, coincides strikingly with the estimate as taken from the actual costs of food items from the budget of a professional family having an annual income of $6,500. In this group, the food cost absorbs only 16% of the total family expenditures. Also, in 1921, Dr. Meyer Jaffa, of the University of California, prepared the food items and quanti- ties of a cost of living survey. It was Dr. Jaffa's theory that

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"the kinds and amounts of foodstuffs appearing in the allot- ment for the executive met all requirements for energy and vigor, and allowed, in addition, certain expenditures for variety to tempt the appetite." This estimate for feeding the family of an executive, slightly revised and fitted to 1927 prices, has been used in making the statements of the following table of food costs in a professional family. In this group the number of persons fed at home is assumed at $3.78 per day, counting the husband away for lunch except Sunday, and allowing help or a guest present at a meal twice a week. This average cost of food per capita per diem works out at 65c. (It is further interesting to note that this 65c estimate, reached by the quan- tity-cost method, checks with a home account book tally kept among twelve professional families in their study of food con- sumption.)

88. Amount of the Chief Classes of Foodstuffs Used Dur- ing One Month (With Monthly and Annual Costs).* —

1. Meals at home : Pounds Price Total

Class I: per month per pound cost

Meat and fish 52 .371 $19.29

Milk 120 .065 7.80

Eggs 12 .394 4.73

Class II:

Flour and bread 43 .095 4.08

Other cereals 22 .119 2.62

Class III:

Vegetables 115 .055 6.32

Fruit 64 .097 6.21

Class IV:

Butter 10 .605 6.05

Other oils and fats 8 .250 2.00

Class V:

Sugar 24 .073 1.75

* California State Civil Service Commission — Cost of Living Survey, Sacre- mento 1923, table 43, page 61.

Cost of Living Studies of the Professional Class — Peixotto, Jessica B. — Heller Research Committee, University of California, 1928.

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Pounds Price Total

Per month per pound cost Class VI:

Coffee, tea 6 .624 3.74

Sundries 9.85

Total cost per month $ 74.44

Total per year for meals at home 893.28

2. Meals away from home:

Husband's lunches — 6 days a week, 50 weeks, at $.50 150.00

Total food per year $1,043.28

Families in Higher Income Groups (estimates)

Income Food

Group (including food for servants)

$ 5,000 17%

15,000 12

25,000 10

35,000 8

50,000 6

Percentages Spent for Food at Different Income Levels

Incomes under $2,000, 37%. From $2,000 to $3,000, 36%. From $3,000 to $5,000, 31%. Incomes from $5,000 to $10,000, 25%. Incomes over $10,000, 20%.

89. Calories and Family Food Expenditure. — As was pointed out in connection with Engel's Laws, and as is shown clearly from all the above tables, the percentage of money ex- penditure for food falls definitely with increase in income. A family cannot go on eating more than it needs. It may (and does) turn to luxury type foods, or to expensive foods chosen because of some special appeal, but in general it may be said that the American family is spending its extra income in prod- ucts other than foods, while at the same time selecting a gen- erous, diversified table.

Says Mary Swartz Rose, in her excellent book "Feeding the Family" : "A family food budget of $2.50 per day means that $900 is spent yearly on this item alone. To justify such

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an outlay, an income of at least three times this amount will be required, if the family is to have clothing and shelter com- mensurate with their food and opportunity to satisfy its 'higher life.' . . . The majority of housewives not having $3,000 or more per year, they must spend less than 1 J4 to 2 cents per 100 calories on their food in order to have money for clothing, shelter and any higher life at all. Yet these families wish to be well nourished and to enjoy some of the pleasures of a wellset table. To reduce the food cost from $2.50 per day to about $1.75 to $2.10 per day, the housewife will need to select from foods costing 1 % to 1 J^ cents per 100 calories."

Cost of Calorie Value of Foods *

Costing Less than £4 cents

(per 100 calories) Beans (dried) Lima beans (dried) Butter (24 cents Ib.) Farina Lentils Macaroni Rice

Corn syrup Cornmeal Margarine

2 to 5 cents

(per 100 calories) Apples (fresh) Beans (string) Carrots (young) Tomatoes Oranges Halibut Ham Beef loin Corn (green)

ll/2 cents to 2 cents

(per 100 calories) Baked Beans (canned) Baked Lima beans (canned) Butter (over 35 cents) Beets (fresh) Corn (canned) Pineapple (canned) Lemon meringue pie Codfish (salt)

Over 5 cents

(per 100 calories) Beefsteak (choice cuts) Asparagus (canned) Celery

Cranberries (fresh) Gelatin Lettuce Mushrooms Olives

Peaches (canned) Peas (canned) Salmon (canned) Spinach Veal, loin Pears (canned) Peppers (green)

*Rose, Mary Swartz — "Feeding the Family" 1916, page 428.

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In order to make this point clear, it is well to include at this point several tables or lists of common food products and their cost per 100 calorie portion. From these it will be seen that cornmeal, for example, at less than £4c per 100 calories, is the equivalent in value to veal at five cents, choice beefsteak, or mushrooms. There is no direct connection between food cost, and food nutritional value, since generally the cheapest foods are also the most nutritious. Thus one quart of milk costing 12 cents is the equivalent in food value of one pound of lean steak at 48 cents or one quart of oysters at 60 cents.

90. Providing Mrs. Consumer With Food Recipes. — Does Mrs. Consumer appreciate food recipes? Does she wish to be bombarded with manufacturer's food recipe booklets? How should food recipes be planned to prove most helpful in the use of the food product? A recent survey among food advertisers brought out the facts that food recipe booklets in the following quantity are distributed by advertisers: The Certo Co., 25,000,000; The Welch Grape Juice Co., 50,000 to 100,000 ; Armour & Co., 250,000 to 300,000 ; Borden Sales Co., 200,000; Association of Pineapple Canners, 150,000 to 200,000.

The distribution of recipe booklets is increasing because ( 1 ) women are finding out how helpful and suggestive in new uses of food products the manufacturer's booklet may be to them; (2) because booklets and recipes are better, being more closely linked with the work of domestic science specialists. I do not believe there can be much doubt that women greatly appreciate good recipe booklets.

While the exact best method of distribution depends on the product (sampling; house-to-house; demonstrators; direct mail, etc.), there is general agreement among food manufac- turers that the booklet should be changed every two years. This is reasonable, because if a housewife has been led to send for a firm's booklet, she will not do so again unless she is ad- vised that there is a "new booklet" or a "special booklet." It is my feeling that the cheap or common broadcast recipe booklet, while excellent for low grade populations, does not appeal to the discriminating housewife. She falls into the

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habit of tossing away a cheap, unattractive and commonplace booklet. It is not up to her standard. The food manufacturer should not seek merely wide distribution of his booklet, but rather stress putting out better recipe booklets.

91. Specifications for a Good Recipe Booklet. — From the consumer's point of view, what is a good recipe booklet?

1. It should relate the food product to the entire meal plan or menu, and not consist merely of a lot of commonplace, more or less familiar recipes.

2. It should relate the food product to the housewife's famil- iar cooking technique.

3. It should show the product in use and in connection with other table appointments and service.

4. It should be suggestive of new uses, especially hospitality and entertainment uses.

5. It should be linked up wherever possible with some general food, dietetic, or health story.

6. It may contain additional informative material such as text on table setting, table etiquette, party plans, uses of the prod- uct on holiday and special occasions, etc.

92. Requirements of Good Recipes. — The recipes which the booklet consists of should: (a) be tested and accurate, (b) be written in accepted standardized recipe form; (c) state the exact materials required; (d) state simple but ex- plicit technique of cooking or using product; (e) state preparing time; cooking time; temperature or freezing period, if any; (f) state approximate cost; (g) state how many persons the recipe serves; as "serves four"; (h) show many dishes using product in close-up illustration, which will permit details of service, garnishing, etc., to be clearly distinguished; (i) give "master recipes" with several variations, wherever that is pos- sible; (j) illustrate the recipe in natural colors; (k) print text so as to make clipping recipes for household card file easy; (1) use type, wherever possible, of a size large enough to be read- able while recipe rests on the cookbook holder of a kitchen cabinet.

It is most important that every recipe state the number of persons for whom it will serve or make portions. Every

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housewife, before tackling a new recipe, wants to be assured that it will result in a certain quantity, and not find that it makes up for a small army. This statement of number of servings is most urgent when the ingredients called for are expensive. Today the manufacturer should know that all re- cipes are preferably standardized on a "serves six" basis.

Anything said here about recipes in a booklet holds equally true for the recipes featured in general advertising. There is no doubt that women still want recipes, only they are de- manding more accurate, more suggestive and more sophisti- cated recipes. The simple "recipe book" of hit-and-miss re- cipes which used to be compiled, without subheading or general plan, has gone into the wastebasket for good. It is extremely important that the recipes featured in general magazine ad- vertising be unusual, distinctive, and suggestive of new uses, to the end that the housewife will wish to send for whatever booklet, card index, etc. is featured in the three line mention of "booklet on request." I may add that while more and more women begin to see the efficiency of having recipes on cards, and keeping them in a card cookbook file, I believe that the Mrs. Average Consumer is still better satisfied with a well written and illustrated color booklet/

93. Good Food Photographs. — As one with long practical experience in directing the taking of food photos for maga- zine use I will add a few suggestions about the food recipe illustration. Too many foods prepared for art work are over-crowded and over-garnished. Accessories should be at- tractive and unusual, but never too prominent; they need not be shown entirely in the composition, but only suggested. What the manufacturer should hope to do is to sell his prod- uct in use ; therefore the food itself should always be clear in outline. Platters, vases, and table accessories should be sub- ordinate to the dish, which is the star attraction — otherwise the woman's interest may wander to the platter or the flow- ers and let the food product sink into insignificance.

The "properties" must all harmonize and present a unity of atmosphere ; we cannot have a piece of delicate glass shown on a checked peasant table cloth, nor an informal casserole

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resting on an elaborate centerpiece. Too often Mrs. Con- sumer is not sure whether she is looking at the food served on a side-table, on the dining table, the kitchen preparing surface, or what not. The placement of the food dish de- pends on the audience the manufacturer is trying to reach, and the uses to which his particular product may be put. The right background will throw out the product into relief and make its outline definite. Dark food should have a light background, and vice versa. Uninteresting foods of simple texture can be given form and design when shown shaped in interesting molds, or placed in glass or other good-looking serving dishes. The growing tendency to "shoot" with a straight-down perspective on a food dish is smart and modern, and is excellent for sophisticated foods and certain hospitality service. But I feel that the great majority of women are not yet ready for this too bizarre and revolutionary art form ; and that the housewife will gain more real help and suggestion in visualizing the product as a finished dish when it is rep- resented to her in the picture just as she hopes to finally see it on her family table — horizontally. Black and white is smart, but more suited, in my opinion, to products with def- inite design in themselves, such as bottled beverages, and their accompanying refreshment glasses. Color is not only an attention-getter for the recipe the moment the housewife lays eyes on it, but it points out the texture, the contrast in color food values, the relief of the garnishes, in a way to enable her to use the manufacturer's food product with the utmost satisfaction and success.

94. Some Menus of Mid- West Mechanics' Families. — There is so much misconception of the standard of living and feeding of the average levels of people that, as one economist puts it, all the better classes can say by way of comment is "how* do they manage to live?" It is all a mys- tery. To dispel this mystery with concrete evidence I have made a survey among groups of skilled mechanics of some western cities of middle size. I reproduce some typical menus from specific families : The figures represent different meals.

Family A : BREAKFAST — (1) Creamed eggs on toast, bacon, cereal, coffee; (2) Eggs, bacon, cereal, coffee, toast; (3) Toast, cereal, coffee; (4) Bacon, toast, coffee; (5) Eggs, toast, coffee. LUNCH — (1) Pork roast, potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery,, lettuce, dried peaches and prunes cooked together, pie, cake, coffee; (2) Hash made from pork roast, creamed peas, bread and butter, cocoa; (3) Pancakes; (4) Bacon, peas, potatoes, bread, butter, cocoa; (5) Warmed up food left from supper. SUPPER — ( 1 ) We just had the foods warmed up from dinner except we had tea; (2) Pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, coffee, bread and but- ter, peaches; (3) Steak, gravy, potatoes, tea, bread, butter, pie; (4) Ham, butter beans, cornstarch pudding, tea, biscuits; (5) Vegetable soup, celery, pickles, cocoa, bread, butter.

Family B: BREAKFAST — (1) Coffee, coffee cake, milk; (2) Coffee, sugar rolls, milk; (3) Coffee, sugar rolls and milk; (4) Coffee, coffee cake and milk; (5) Coffee, coffee cake, milk. LUNCH — (1) Sauted potatoes, pork chops, lettuce, corn, pie, cake, bread and butter; (2) Roast pork sandwiches and coffee; (3) Minced ham sandwiches and coffee; (4) Sauted potatoes, apple sauce; (5) Mashed potatoes, sauerkraut. SUPPER — (1) Bread and butter, cocoa; (2) Sauted potatoes, roast pork, lettuce, bread and butter; (3) Baked potatoes, cheese, bread and butter; (4) Mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, pork; (5) Carrots, bread and butter, coffee, milk.

Family C: BREAKFAST — (1) Toast, coffee; (2) Eggs, tea, bread and butter; (3) Toast, tea, bread and butter; (4) Coffee cake, milk, crackers; (5) Eggs, toast, tea. LUNCH — (1) Mashed potatoes, potato salad, roast pork, coffee, tea, bread and butter, cake; (2) Baked potatoes, cold boiled ham, milk, bread and butter; (3) Fried potatoes, minced ham, tea, bread and butter; (4) Vegetable soup, beef, boiled potatoes, bread and butter, crackers, tea; (5) Fried potatoes, steak. SUPPER —

(1) Potato patties, cold pork, tea, bread and butter; (2) Fried pota- toes, pork chops, beans, coffee, bread and butter, jello; (3) Potatoes baked with roast beef, gravy, coffee, bread, butter, pie; (4) Vegetable soup, beef, crackers, coffee, bread and butter, cakes; (5) Fried potatoes, steak, gravy, baked beans, bread and butter, coffee.

Family D: BREAKFAST — (1) Cocoa, coffee cake, eggs; (2) Eggs, toast, milk, grapefruit; (3) Eggs, bacon, pancakes, oranges ; (4) Puffed rice, milk, toast; (5) Puffed rice, milk. LUNCH — (1) Steak, spinach, potatoes, head lettuce salad, milk, bread, butter, pudding; (2) Eggs, bread, butter, minced ham, potatoes, milk, lettuce; (3) Spinach, pota- toes, bread, butter, celery, milk, steak; (4) Plums, bread, butter, potatoes, ham; (5) French fried potatoes, bread, butter, cheese, milk. SUPPER — (1) Bread, butter, milk, potato salad, celery, baked beans, pressed ham; (2) Bread, butter, milk, potato salad, frankfurters, slaw; (3) Bread, butter, milk, potatoes, steak, lettuce, pickles; (4) Roast pork, bread, butter, milk, potatoes, lettuce, spinach; (5) Meat loaf, bread, butter, pickles, jello, milk.

Family E: BREAKFAST — (1) Griddle cakes, fruit, milk, coffee;

(2) Fruit, milk, toast, griddle cakes, coffee; (3) Hot rolls, coffee, fruit, cereal, milk, eggs; (4) Cream of wheat, griddle cakes, coffee, toast,

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milk; (5) Cereal, milk, coffee, eggs, fruit. LUNCH— (1) Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, baked beans, baked macaroni and cheese, butter- fly salad, celery, fresh onions, jello with whipped cream, cake, coffee; (2) Scrambled eggs, baked beans, potato cakes, bread, cakes, coffee and milk; (3) Sauted minced ham, creamed peas, parkerhouse rolls, milk and coffee; (4) Griddle cakes, coffee; (5) Boiled ham sandwiches, root beer, beans. SUPPER — (1) Left-overs; (2) Hamburger cakes, creamed peas, mashed potatoes, lettuce salad, coffee, milk; (3) Sauteing ham, baked macaroni and cheese, lettuce and tomato salad, spinach, fruit, cake, pie; (4) Spareribs, sauerkraut, potatoes, dumplings, coffee; (5) Pork chops, candied sweet potatoes, creamed corn and green peppers, fruit, tea, chocolate pudding.

Family H: BREAKFAST— (1) Cocoa; (2) Milk; (3) Rolls, milk; (4) Nothing; (5) Rolls, cocoa. LUNCH. — (1) Chicken, red beets, slaw, white and sweet potatoes, gravy, noodles, green beans, lettuce, celery, date salad, bread and butter, pie; (2) Ham, sweet potatoes, bread and butter, milk, noodles; (3) Nothing; (4) Spinach, potatoes (left over from supper), milk; (5) Nothing. SUPPER — (1) Ham, baked; cheese, pie, bread and butter, milk and coffee, potato* salad, peaches and whipped cream, cake, salad, slaw (that was left over from dinner); (2) Chicken, gravy, white potatoes, pie; (3) Steak, white potatoes (mashed), plums, bread and butter; (4) Pork chops, white potatoes, apricots, lettuce and mayonnaise; (5) Sauted potatoes, steak, prunes, spinach.

Menus of a $125 a Month Clerk in California. — Thinking to present some menus from a different part of the country I asked my good friend Winifred McCormack of Glendale, Cal., to obtain some examples of the menu of a clerk's family, with one child, whose monthly food budget is $35.00. Here are a week's typical menus :

Sunday: (Breakfast) — Sliced oranges, waffles and honey, coffee; (Dinner) — Pot roast of beef shoulder clod, spinach, carrots, potatoes, cream rice pudding; (Supper) — Potato salad, rolls, white cake.

Monday: (Breakfast) — Sliced oranges, shredded wheat, top of milk, toast, coffee; (Luncheon) — Fruit salad, hot rolls, tea; (Dinner) — Meat pie made from leftover vegetables and meat, hot ginger bread.

Tuesday: (Breakfast) — Half grapefruit, steamed rice with raisins and milk, toasted rolls and coffee; (Luncheon) — Leftover from Mon- day dinner; (Dinner) — Heart of lettuce salad, asparagus on toast, strawberry shortcake.

Wednesday: (Breakfast) — Oranges, hot cakes, honey, coffee; (Luncheon) — Corn chowder, crackers, and cocoa; (Dinner) — Casse- role of lamb and vegetables, bread, butter, tea, cornstarch pudding with strawberry whip.

Thursday: (Breakfast) — Half grapefruit, shredded wheat, bananas, milk, cookies, coffee; (Luncheon) — Remains of last night's dinner;

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(Dinner) — Lettuce, tomato salad, creamed dried beef, baked potatoes, hot rolls, tea, cottage pudding.

Friday: (Breakfast) — Sliced oranges, hot cakes, honey, coffee; (Luncheon) — Hot corn bread, cocoa; (Dinner) — Combination salad, codfish cakes, buttered beets, jello with banana whip.

Saturday. (Breakfast) — Grapefruit, milk toast, doughnuts, coffee; (Luncheon) — Dutch apple cake, cocoa; (Dinner) — Boston baked beans and brown bread, apple pie.

95. The Foods of the Foreign Language Americans. — There are in the United States about 14,000,000 foreign- born people, most of whom cling to their own national food customs. The second generation of these people retain only a part of these national food customs. Thus, although the orthodox Jews of New York do not eat ham or bacon, the second generation in considerable proportion ignore the old food taboos and eat what is a fairly standard American diet, except perhaps on certain religious festivals.

A very brief summary of some of the various national foods and dietary characteristics is as follows :

Scandinavian: fishballs; peppered mutton stew with cab- bage (faarikool) ; goat milk cheeses; sauerkraut.

Hungarian: fricassee of pork, beef or lamb (gulyas) with potatoes, onions, paprika, and vegetables; also noodles with cottage cheese, etc.

Czech : pork loin with sauerkraut and dumplings ; buchty, cake with cottage cheese or jam fillings; sausages, cheese.

German : Schweinsbraten with red cabbage ; sauerbraten and pot roasts; calves or pigs feet in jelly; apple turnovers; vegetables cooked with meat; roast goose; sausages; sauer- kraut.

Southern Italians: plenty of fish; spaghetti, fruit cake; sausages.

Italians: spaghetti, ravioli, broccoli, artichokes, lamb and young goat meat; sausages; minestroni soup; cheese, olive oil; garlic, onions, noodles, cornmeal mush, apple pie with nuts, raisins, pignalias.

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XVI

Mrs. Consumer and the Tin Can

There is a point in one of my lectures when I say, as a bit of persiflage, "the American woman is no longer a cook — she is a can-opener!"

This is never meant, however, as a disparagement of the tin can. We American housewives would set up an instanteous clamor if we were deprived of tinned foods. We owe a great deal to, and our preference for them is certainly fully reflected in the statistics. In 1865 the tin can was a weak and sickly infant industry — the annual consumption amounted to only one can for every seven people. To appreciate this, imagine your family using just one can of peas with your dinner on just one day of the year, but only every other year I This was the extent to which canned goods were eaten then.

By 1925 we had attained the huge total of 25 cans per person per year, which means 107 J^ cans per family per year, or about a can of tinned food every other day. But in the three years since 1925 further gains have been made, and the 1928 figures indicate a per capita consumption of 31 cans, or 133 1/3 cans per family. Thus it will be seen that the growth is much faster than the population, and this growth

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would indicate a still more rapid pace if we confined the cal- culation to the "big six" of canned foods — peas, milk, beans, salmon, peaches, soup. The 1928 increase on six canned foods over 1927 was the enormous total of 235 million cans. And of course the variety of foods offered in cans is now be- yond the dream of anyone in 1865. No other country con- sumes anywhere near the vast volume or per capita of canned foods that America does. What is the explanation?

96. What the Tin Can Does for Mrs. Consumer.-— What does the tin can accomplish and how does it serve the con- sumer? The answer may be given in the following points:

(1) It eliminates the labor of hand picking, scraping, clean- ing, and cutting into convenient portions necessitated by raw products, — thus saving the housewife's time.

(2) It affords a ready-to-serve quick-cooking food, thus sav- ing the household fuel.

(3) It is adapted to compressed living conditions, taking less shelf and bin space and requiring no special temperature con- trol, thus saving the housewife's attention and inspection and making easier storage.

(4) It aids and increases the general diversity of diet as well as increasing health and providing more balanced meals.

(5) It extends the seasons, making it possible to have many more vegetables and fruits at moderate costs, even in winter when raw products are unattainable or prohibitive in price, — thus saving money.

97. Failure of Many Canners to Set Grades. — Granted this important service to the consumer, yet how can the tin can be made to still further assist the housewife in her food and meal problems? I have said that what the trained consumer wants more than anything else to assist her in better buying, is reliable information as to values. And here is exactly where many canned goods manufacturers have failed us, — failed us inexcusably, I think, considering their extent, importance and power as an industry. I agree with Miss Corbett * "that it is safe to say that the average buyer for the home knows more of

* "Canned Foods, Fruits and Vegetables," Florence Corbett, Teachers Col- lege Bulletin No. 18—1915.

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the grades and values of almost any other foods than she does of canned foods . . ." Why? The canners themselves are at fault, and the officials of the canner's associations admit it. I shall now point out why.

At present, even the most intelligent of consumers, by look- ing at the outside of a tin can, can discover too little as to its probable contents. How much will it contain — enough for two persons, or for three? Will it hold a cup of pulp and a cup of liquid, or two cups of solid? What thickness or rich- ness is the syrup — medium, heavy, or thin? How many slices or pieces can she hope to find on opening? In short, what the canners have forgotten is, to study the tin can and relate it to the housewife's actual cooking and serving needs. It is the same story that this book exists to tell — the widespread oper- ation of a business of serving the family, without taking the trouble to research consumer needs. The can Fs put out from a production, not a consumption point of view; and often a pretty poor production point of view at that. The canning industry has not yet had the courage to separate the sheep from the goats, the sub-standard canner and the quality can- ner, the honest from the dishonest canner. Nor has it intro- duced sound grading policies.

The reply may be that every can carries a "net weight'* some where on its label. This is well enough, so far as it goes, but unfortunately the housewife does not cook by net weight, nor any other kind of weight. She cooks by pints, quarts, gallons or suitable fractions. Thus any familiar standard re- cipe reads: "Take two cups crushed pineapple, — one cup of string beans — one pint tomato stock — " etc., etc. The fact that any particular can is labeled outside, "net weight 1 Ib." means practically nothing to aid her in estimating quantities. What she should know is: the amount of the pack, both solid and liquid, in terms of a known and familiar cooking measure, preferably pints and its greater and less multiples — exactly like a recipe.

A tin can is literally a dark, sealed mystery until it is opened. Mrs. Consumer must depend either on the canner's reputation, the dealer's word or the label. When the can is

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opened, and then only, does Mrs. Consumer secure accurate knowledge. If the can which she bought in expectation of its being "choice," reveals itself as a "second," or a sub-standard grade, she receives another discouragement in her purchase of canned foods. She has had plenty of these discouragements. Chief of all of these is that at present she is unable to know the grade of the contents before opening the can. Price is almost the only thing she can know in relation to the average tin can. She knows her tomatoes only as being 18c per can; 15c, two cans for a quarter; or 20c a can, etc. Long ago she learned that cost of the goods bears no reliable relation to the value of the contents.

98. Grading as Known to the Trade. — The packer him- self, however, knows a great deal about the contents, and its grade. In fruits the lowest grade is called "pie" by the trade. Next rank fruits having the lightest syrups with relatively inferior fruits as regards size, color, flavor and texture. These are called "Standard." Above this are the higher grades spoken of as "Extra Standard," "Extra," "Fancy," etc. In vegetables the same terms are used. Sub-standard tomatoes are called "pulp," and "puree." Peas are "seconds" and "soaked." Those peas called "sifted" are higher in price. Fruits packed in syrups are (to the packer) very definitely graded according to the density of the syrup — as 30-34 for fancy peaches, plums, etc.; 25-28 for high grade fruits; 20-25 for a less grade, and 10-20 for a light syrup suitable only for very sweet fruits.

But these standards, familiar to the trade, are kept en- tirely hidden from the consumer. The most that she is offered is a label showing a giant vegetable or painted fruit such as never grew on land or sea — pictures of children, historical scenes, etc., with the small and un-informative net weight hid- den in the corner. Buying such a can, literally "sight unseen," is equivalent to the disastrous method of asking for "ten cents worth of meat," or "twenty cents worth of cotton."

99. Mrs. Consumer Demands Reform. — I affirm that it is high time that the canners as an industry take steps to right this misleading and really dishonest condition. That women

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buy so much canned goods now, in the face of such discourage- ments, is proof of the vitality of the tin can. Why should buy- ing canned goods be a lottery, when it can be made as straight- forward and intelligent as buying any other food stuff or home product? If the manufacturers who are putting out foods in glass instead of tin are making rapid and popular headway, their rise may be attributed solely to the fact that now the consumer can see before she buys — and she is delighted with the privilege.

It is up to the packer of the tin can to prepare a label which will tell the consumer what every housewife wants to know. This is far from a mystery, as I will now specifically indicate.

100. What the Consumer Hopes to See on the Tin Can Label. — Here are the precise things Mrs. Consumer wants to know:

( 1 ) The amount of the pack, both solid and liquid, in terms of a familiar standard cooking measure, preferably pints.

(2) The grade of the pack, whether choice, standard, fancy, etc., indicating the size, shape, cut and number of the pieces for easiest identification; also the quality or density of the syrup as heavy, medium, light.

(3) The number of the can to indicate its size or capacity — as 1s, 2s, 2j^s, 3s, and 10s with such numerals always corre- sponding to definite weight.

(4) The date when packed.

(5) The serial number of the guarantee which vouches for the accuracy of the information and the absence of preserva- tives and artificial coloring.

( 6 ) The number of portions or persons served.

(7) The name of the packing company and the place of packing.

(8) The name and address of the jobber or distributor.

(9) Distinguishing labels for each class of goods — white label for highest quality; red, blue, green, yellow for grades of decreasing quality, or other approved grading plan.

(10) Suggested uses of the product, sometimes with illustra- tive dish and accompanying recipes.

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Among packers, can sizes are spoken of in relation to weight expressed by pounds. The common sizes, 1 lb., 2 Ibs., 3 Ibs., etc., are designated No. 1s, No. 2s, No. 3s, etc. Orig- inally these sized containers might have had weights to corre- spond. But such has been the demand for price in this field, that can sizes and capacities have shrunk. It is no unusual thing to find a 2 lb. can or No. 2s containing only "1 lb. 12 oz." (as does the can of Jones' pears I have just opened as a test sample). A No. 3s often contains but 2 Ibs. 8 ounces, or 8 ounces "short" of its supposed weight value. Thus the whole plan of using net weight as a guide is a delusion and a snare. Frequently a can holds one cup and just a little over — too little to make use of, too much to waste. Again it may hold y$ cup of pulp when the recipe calls for a whole cup — and it will be necessary to open two whole cans just to secure the addi- tional y^ cup. All these inaccuracies hinder the housewife and make her distrustful of all canned goods.

Since there is no longer synchronization between capacity and weight and number — why not drop the net weight en- tirely and re-organize on a new basis? As has already been pointed out, that basis should be a volume capacity with pints as the unit. Every housewife knows that two cups equals one pint, and her recipes are invariably patterned after this standard of measurement. Let us do away with a pseudo weight basis, and enable the housewife to translate cans into cooking I

101. Simplification of Grades. — It would be a further great step forward if the packers could eliminate the number of grades packed, both for their own and the consumer's benefit. This would be in line with the Hoover simplification program. The excess refining and grading for size which now obtains is not justified by its benefits. The business of determining grades would have to be decided jointly by a committee rep- resenting the different interests of the producers, packers, Federal authorities — and, I insist, the consumer I But all the progressive work and prestige of the packing industry would be multiplied many times if it could combine to carry out these suggestions as to a more informative label. Dole, famous

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pineapple grower, has just announced a plan to mark grades 1, 2, and 3 on the bottoms of his cans. Bravo !

No less a person than Roy L. Davidson, President of the National Wholesale Grocers Association, says: "the more plainly the label describes the contents of the package, the more confidence will the consumer have in canned foods." And Miss Ruth Atwater, director of the home economics of the canners themselves, is quoted as saying: "Women want to know relative food values and are interested in laboratory findings of the nutritive value of canned foods. Women want to have the label tell them more about the contents of the tin can." If there is any public distrust of the tin can (and I shall point out in a moment that there is), it is because the label has failed to inform the consumer frankly, accurately and reliably what she may expect to find when the can is opened.

102. Increasing Per Family Volume. — I believe that the present day consumer is using canned foods not only direct out of the can as a main ingredient but is going further — she is using imagination, and utilizing the convenient can to secure accessory and garnish foods for souffles, chowders, salads and as sauces. Mention of sauce brings up the point that many years ago, I suggested to the Campbell's Soup Company that they feature the use of their soups as sauces for spaghetti, left-overs and made dishes. It was at once done very successfully. This is the kind of thing I mean — imagination applied to the tin can, increasing per family con- sumption and distribution, as well as giving the housewife additional and welcome service from a familiar product. All packers of foods should research and encourage this new trend of widening the uses of an article.

There is other educational work called for. Let the canner tell the consumer, for example, not to throw away the liquor, but to heat contents in liquor to give greater taste and avoid loss of mineral salts; tell her how to remove con- tents before use and allow to "aerate" and avoid the tinny taste. Let him stop telling her to "place whole can in water and bring to boil" which is a practice most wasteful of fuel

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and thus money. Let him also place directions for opening and serving on every can sold.

103. Consumer Attitude Toward Tinned Foods.— What is the consumer's own reaction towards canned foods? How much does she consume ? Does she buy more in certain class groups than in others? Does she buy by brand or by a de- scriptive term such as "Fancy," "Standard," etc.? These and other interesting and enlightening facts about the consumption of canned foods were brought out in a rather comprehensive and impartial survey* made in the summer of 1926 by the Department of Commerce. About 775 records were taken from housewives, restaurants and hotels to determine the extent to which canned and raw products compete, and the reason why one is preferred to the other. Since the survey was made in three distinct localities — a mixed large city group, an industrial town, and a rural community — the conclusions have considerable value. Some of the generalizations made are as follows:

(1) There was a 100% agreement that canned goods are most convenient, — and this was the most important reason given for their use.

(2) On the question of flavor, there was an overwhelming preference for raw products.

(3) On the point of food value, over half the consumers believed that fresh products had a higher food value than canned goods.

(4) Lower income groups (between $1,500-$2,000), such as v unskilled laborers, consume more canned goods than higher

income groups, the notable exception being the foreign groups (Italians, Slovaks, Germans, Hebrews) who as a class are the lowest consumers of canned goods. Tenement and apart- ment dwellers, outside of these groups, are among the high- est consumers.

(5) The consumption in winter is from two to eight times as great as in summer.

*E. G. Montgomery — Points Brought Out by Canned Food Survey, Dept. of Commerce, 1926.

R. S. Hollinghead,— The Consumption of Canned Foods— National Can- ner's Convention, Chicago, 1928. (U. S. Dept. of Commerce.)

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A further survey, made at the request of the canning in- dustry itself, continued this work, and added the reactions of agricultural agents, grocers, and hospital dietitians. In this survey not only city dwellers were visited, but textile mill towns in the south and farms in southern regions. In dis- cussing the question of prejudice with housewives, it was found that there were two main groups of objections — those directed towards canned goods as a whole, and more specific objections.

The chief general prejudice was directed towards "fear of sickness," 80%; next "loss of food value," 45%; and "fear of metallic contamination," 34% of those interviewed. This heading, "fear of sickness," accounts for half of the total prejudice, and though vague is strongly held and cer- tainly accounts for a very large amount of possible consump- tion of canned goods which would be consumed if this fear and dissatisfaction were removed. It must be noted, further, that these prejudices came largely from the "southeast cot- ton belt" and from New England, although no great difference is shown in the various parts of the country. The fear of metallic contamination and of the loss of food value are about equally prominent, and together are nearly as prominent as the fear of sickness. Housewives with low incomes think more of metallic contamination, while those with larger in- comes think more of food value, probably to be accounted for by a general higher standard of education.

Objections to the pack were confined chiefly to vegetables. A frequent objection was made to foreign materials, corn silk, cob, drops of solder, etc. Many vegetables like beets were held to present an unpleasant chunk appearance; vege- tables were held not cut to give a good form when served as salads. It is a striking fact that canned fish were held chief among foods which created "fear of sickness," and that canned meats also were held objectionable for this reason. These are doubtless reverberations of the Spanish-American war canned beef scandals.

All of this clearly indicates that there is still a great deal of room for the canners to improve, even to bring themselves

up to the level of other food seller's standards, or to the standards of the high quality packers of canned goods. It will be a very profitable, even though a slow and expensive task, to reduce the amount of distrust of canned products. The first and simplest step toward consumer confidence will be the use of informative labels on the tins, and by standard- izing grades, packs, and sizes better suited to the consumer's real cooking and table needs.

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XVII

The Household Equipment Revo- lution

Ask any foreigner what is the most vivid association which first leaps to his mind at mention of America, and you will find that it is equipment. Men in other countries think of America and factory efficiency in the same breath; and visual- ize huge plants, giant cranes, endless moving belts, — auto- matic machinery replacing hand labor on a mammoth scale. (American workers use 47 hp. per man — twice that of 1899.) In quite the same way women in other countries now think America and household efficiency are synonomous; and are very eagerly noting our automatic cooking devices, wringer- less washing, dustless cleaning, power ironing, and houses which are marvels of compact comfort, equipped for saving woman's time, steps, and effort. In short, America stands preeminent throughout the entire world for its development of mechanical aids and its use of power, both in household and in factory, together with its adoption of house construc- tions which make for ease, comfort, convenience, sanitation, warmth, and labor-saving.

104. Our Household Revolution. — When I was asked a

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a few years ago to visit England and give a series of lectures for the Electrical Association for Women of which Lady Astor is the president, I submitted a list of twenty subjects covering the fields of women's interests — feminism, eco- nomics, foods, child care, home management, etc. Out of these twenty subjects the one selected and the lecture which I repeated over a three-months' tour was called "How the American Woman Achieves Leisure Through Labor-Saving Appliances 1" That was what British women were most in- terested in hearing. And my first British reporter, who met me in a chill, foggy dawn at Plymouth, England, asked me abruptly: "Are you coming over to advocate central heat- ing?" Similarly, in France or in whatever other one of six countries I traveled in, the main eagerness and interest was in American home-equipment.

I speak of this foreign view of us because it provides a perspective on ourselves. This whole American household efficiency movement was conceived and attained its present gigantic stature in the last twenty years. In this time there has grown almost universal in America the consumer acceptance of "efficiency" and "labor-saving" as principles of household practice and management. Twenty years ago few women thought much about whether the kitchen should be or could be either convenient or colorful; whether tables, sinks and iron- ing boards could be placed at a height to reduce fatigue; whether sweeping should be done other than by raising a cloud of dust in the room; whether clothes could be cleansed without bending backs or swollen hands ; whether rooms could be warm and illuminated without necessitating hours of unpleasant manual drudgery for the housewife. In this special develop- ment I have the satisfaction of being the pioneer, as my first book, "The New Housekeeping," published in 1912, it is- generally admitted, was largely instrumental in interesting women in this new and more scientific attitude toward their households. Appearing as a serial in the pages of the Ladies' Home Journal (of which later I was the Consulting House- hold Editor for nine years) it was read by thousands of women who, after five or six years of much lecturing, discus-

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sion and publicity, accepted this "new housekeeping," partic- ularly as it applied to choosing household equipment, and as it was first outlined by me under the heads "time-savers," "labor-savers," "fuel-savers," and "step-savers" in the chapter "The Efficient Tool." At that period, and in connection with my advancement of this idea, my Ladies' Home Journal mail often totaled nearly a thousand letters weekly, the majority of them asking questions about devices and appliances with which to make possible this "new housekeeping."

105. The Three Stages of Advance. — Further, in my per- sonal experience as a purchasing housewife, and also in my professional experience as Director of the Applecroft House- keeping Experiment Station (which I began at the request of Mr. Edward Bok, in order to test and discover for the Ladies' Home Journal what devices and installations would improve and make work easier for the housewife) I myself have passed through stage-after-stage of what I am pleased to call our American household revolution.

Here is a description of the first stage: Exactly eighteen years ago, in our country home on Long Island, it required almost an hour for me to daily clean and fill seven portable oil lamps. I operated a hand pump to secure water from the cistern, placed my soup in a box fireless cooker, washed the children's rompers in an unwieldy "dolly" type washer by plunging its lever up and down, and smoothed these garments with a coal-heated hand "sad-iron." I used a broom and an oil mop on the floors.

Now the second stage: About six years later I lighted the house's lamps with burning gasolene under pressure, went to the basement each morning to start the gas-engine which pumped our daily water, cooked on a 3-burner oil range, pressed the clothes with a self-heating alcohol hand iron, and tried to clean the heavy floor coverings with a clumsy bellows- type suction carpet-sweeper.

Finally the third stage: Today I can wink on 60 electric lights, fed from our own electric plant; and at the touch of a snap-switch, leave my wash to rock itself clean in the battery of two electric washers in my laundry while I busy myself

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upstairs in pleasantly extracting the dust from a few light- weight rugs, with the aid of a new type high-powered vacuum cleaner, then proceed to start a meal which will automatically continue to cook in the oven during the period until I return. I sit down comfortably while I guide the clean linen as it unrolls from beneath the revolving cylinder of my power ironer. This is both evolution and revolution!

It is because I have so intimately been a participant in this "household revolution" which has overthrown dirt, drudgery, and even woman's despair because "woman's work was never done," — that I am unusually and deeply interested in selling household equipment to Mrs. Consumer.

106. The Ten Factors of Change. — The widespread use of household equipment is closely related to important and basic changes in our economic and social life. If other coun- tries, up to the present time, have not achieved a similar progress and acceptance of labor-saving home utilities, it is precisely because in these countries there has not been a similar or parallel set of economic changes and conditions. What are these factors?

(1) Great shortage of household servants, making for exorbitant rise in their wages, resulting in 98% of American women doing their own household tasks. The home with a servant in America, we must realize, is very exceptional.

(2) Increasing high cost of all technical labor services in connection with the human operation, repair and maintenance of the household.

(3) Economic entry of women into business fields, with correspond- ing appreciation of the cash value of their time.

(4) Rise of organized social and cultural movements such as charity, politics and suffrage child welfare, women's clubs, etc., with parallel desire on the part of women for a "margin of leisure" to devote to such activities.

(5) Acceptance by American business and industry of the efficiency and business systems principles involving "routed work," "time-studies," modern machinery and scientific management — with its accompanying transfer or adaptation for solving the tasks and problems of the house- hold.

(6) Widespread availability of cheap electric power at an almost universally uniform standard 110 voltage.

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(7) Easy possibility of individual ownership of land and home by lower and middle class groups, and higher income levels, thus encourag- ing incentive to great numbers of home owners to make permanent and modernized installations.

(8) Accompanying rise of the home economics movement, involving teaching of new scientific truths on dietetics, hygiene, building, installa- tions, furnishings and housekeeping technique.

(9) Generous and open-minded attitude toward household research on the part of the manufacturer, distributor and advertiser of appliances, and of public utility corporations toward the popular education of the consumer in the more intelligent utilization of their fuels and appliances.

(10) American democracy and general standardized living, favoring emulation and purchase of uniform household equipment (especially the expensive appliances) which have come to be regarded as important" means of expressing the family's "conspicuous consumption" or wealth.

107. Dependence on Devices in Lieu of Servants. — It was the American industrial revolution, and later the Great War, which tempted almost every Bridget, Maggie, Hulda or An- nushka away from the kitchen and into the factory, and quite suddenly precipitated our household revolution. Almost over- night the demand rose to ever new heights for appliances and mechanisms to replace the fast vanishing human labor in the home. As long as the mistress had a life-lease on slaves, as in the South, or an abundance of cheap labor, as during the years before the immigration quota, she saw little reason to increase her household budget through buying for servants' use expensive cooking, cleaning or washing appliances, appli- ances, alas I which all too often they refused to operate or of which they were afraid. I myself have had a servant who used the washboard in preference to my up-to-date electric washer.

But when the wife herself was forced to take up serv- ants' tasks, then she became eager for tools and mechanisms which would save her own hands, her own muscles, her per- sonal time or conserve her appearance. By all odds this is the most powerful incentive for comfortable and well-to-do middle class women to purchase equipment, if it meets her needs as to size, weight, convenience, finish and appearance. The sale of any household utility will always be greatest, and more money willingly spent for it, among consumers who are in that in-

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between class who have surplus but not enough to hire much household help.

108. Home Appliances and Woman's Time. — It is im- possible to overlook the importance of woman's entry into business as it affects her realization of the worth of her own time. I recall once having as a dinner companion a well- known man who turned to me and remarked: "Well, I see, Mrs. Frederick, that you have written a book showing women how they can save effort, steps and time in their housework. Can you tell me what a woman's time is worth when she does save it? What value do you think she should set on an hour saved?" I paused to reflect, but he went on : "Let me tell you of two farmers who raised fine pigs. A few years back one of the men decided to invest in a new type of feeding trough by which the pigs could eat more conveniently and in more rapid time. Proud of the new arrangement, the owner in- vited his friend over to see the device work and asked him what he thought of it. After considerable reflection the other pulled at his beard and demanded: 'Wall, John, what dew you calcalate a hog's time is worth if you dew save it?' Now Mrs. Frederick, isn't it like that with women?"

A "dirty dig," this! Quite typical of the old-time view of the valuelessness of women's time. It was sadly too true that woman's time wasn't worth saving because there was nothing worth doing with one's leisure, or no way of turning it into cash. Today the consumer has countless interests and ways of employing her freedom from household responsibilities. This then is the second strong appeal which the seller must always keep in mind when offering household equipment: does this tool, device, or appliance give Mrs. Consumer more leisure? What she does with her leisure is nobody's business, but she surely wants it. Practically speaking, as one corporation suc- cinctly puts it — "any woman who washes the dishes or clothes by hand, sweeps a rug or stokes a furnace, etc. is doing work that an electrical utility can do for three cents an hour — any woman who does by hand any task that electricity can do is working for a few cents a day. New minutes; leisure hours result from electrical laborsavers. Some women put electri-

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city to work and use the time saved to rest, to play, to stay young — to widen the circle of pleasant social contact. Why not you?"*

It is of great importance that the American husband, ac- customed to pride in his office files, appliances, bookkeeping and adding machines; accustomed to "scrap" it whenever something better appears, has lent the full force of his ap- proval to his wife's similar attitude in regard to equipment for her workshop. As my local garage man so clearly stated it, "I got me a new electrical welder, so I thought the Missus ought to have an electric refrigerator if she wanted it."

109. Is Mrs. Consumer Mechanically Minded? — I am convinced that Mrs. Consumer is not mechanically minded. I say this with due regard for the fact that women distinguished themselves in war factory work, that women are skilled auto drivers, and that countless women use apparatus and tinker with tools and can drive a nail straight on the head. Never- theless, there is a bit of truth in the saying that girl babies are born with a needle and a thimble in their hands, while boy babies start life equipped with a screwdriver and a Stillson. The average Mrs. Consumer does not naturally think in terms of pressure, voltage, leverage, vacuums, valves or screw-nuts. She learns the mechanical "patter" from men, but I am posi- tive it is in small or large degree meaningless to her and fails to register.

Women are supremely practical ; they understand use and not construction. They want to know what an appliance does, and NOT how it works or is made. It seems a fundamental distinction; a selling distinction between the sexes that every manufacturer, distributor and salesman should remember and observe. If men only realized this, how many millions of dollars they would have refrained from wasting in expensive sales talks and advertising copy couched in man's mechanical language! I assert that it is idiotic to tell a woman prospect: "this washer is made of 26-gauge steel, and is gear-driven throughout; its gears are machined to closest precision; the

* Electricity and the American Public, Bulletin No. 10, Published by General Electric Co.

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helical cut gears operate — the dryer is rotated by spiral cut bevel gears . . . the centrifugal pump is connected directly to the motor shaft without gears or belts."

Not a Mrs. Consumer in 500 understands a single word of this expensive washing machine leaflet, or believes that it matters a tinker's damn. The consumer does not want to learn about the washer's anatomy — she takes it for granted. She wants to be told if it will cleanse her dainty lingerie with safety, how many sheets it will hold at one load, and if it can be counted on to remove the black band of mourning from the edge of Mr.'s cuffs and collars.

Similarly in selling any other appliance of a complicated mechanical nature, Mrs. Consumer wants to know its practical results and help in relation to solving some special house- keeping problem. She does not care for or understand techni- cally worded descriptions which may be perfectly appropriate language for the inventor's patent claim, but is singularly out of place in a description for women. If selling a range, don't stress how the oven hood is lined or that the burners "are cast, cored and drilled," but the efficiency with which the oven browns the bread. If selling a vacuum, don't rhapsodize about "this fan-type machine where the vacuum is produced by a turbine fan with suction due to the great volume of air 60 cu. ft. per minute displaced," but emphasize the safety to the rugs, the lessened labor over hand sweeping, the freedom of the room air from germs. Little wonder that some auto- matic refrigerators have selling difficulties if they use the language of this leaflet: "The new compressor is remarkable. The crankshaft, connecting rods and pistons are of the same type that give years of service in a motor car. The valves are of a new type . . . the new mechanical seal . . . eliminates any packing of stuffing boxes and is self-compensating for wear." Instead the advertiser should tell how the new refrig- erator will safeguard family health, prepare more refreshing foods, enable less frequent and thus more economical market- ing. Use, use, and results constitute the bull's eye of every consumer's buying target.

110. Study the Consumer's Appliance Needs. — Failure to

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do this sincerely, scientifically and practically, has flooded the equipment market with scores of clap-trap, clumsy, badly de- signed devices and gadgets, resulted in millions of wasted industrial dollars, and hampered the housewife by offering her inadequate, unsatisfactory and useless mechanisms.

In this connection I must relate my classic examples of the duck-press and the bean-slicer sent me for test by their re- spective proud, admiring manufacturers. The, duck-press, ah, that was a wonderful invention! Heavy, massive, with an ingenious revolving screw which pressed the last ounce of juice from the duck carcass placed in its capacious hopper. — Did it work? Perfectly! Did it do all its loving manu- facturers claimed for it? Unquestionably! But my practical consumer consideration was, — how many times do I buy a duck and press it? The answer was, just once a year; there- fore, while doubtless a good thing for some restaurants it was a space-taking, expensive folly for family use.

Again, take the bean-slicer, a remarkable mechanism of considerable size which trickily sliced string beans in half lengthwise in the wink of an eye. Did it work and save labor, time, effort? Certainly! But it isn't worth the space it takes or its $10 cost in modern small kitchens for the sake of the average small quantity of time it saves.

Elsewhere I have also mentioned the cake-cutter example, even more impractical. These and countless other contrap- tions I could mention, are an economic waste, straight through from factory to kitchen. The only possible explanation for this surfeit of badly designed, impractical merchandise is that a manufacturer or inventor seems suddenly struck with a clever mechanical idea, and straightway rushes to its manu- facture, thinking he can sell every consumer in the land by announcing its new principle.

111. Appliances Which Should Never Have Been Born. — In a typically male way, such a manufacturer believes women should use it because it is a clever mechanism, or even because it saves a little time or energy. He is naively blind to the fact, which women know, that it often takes twice as much time to clean a device as the time it saves in operation \

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Little wonder then that a household experiment station like mine has a large space called familiarly, "the cemetery." Here we lay to rest — awaiting the junk man — the many tippy pans with narrow bottoms, the badly finished tinware, the clumsy and overweight polishers, can-openers resembling nothing so much as tools from the Inquisition, ugly ironware, badly handled cutlery — in short a host of inefficient, unscien- tific, unneeded home merchandise!

To paraphrase Kipling — "It's clever, but is it useful?" In my philosophy on buying household equipment, every item must be a sound, productive investment, and never an expense. If Mrs. Consumer develops a notion that a particular toaster, washer, refrigerator, or potato peeler is "an added expense," the manufacturer never gets far with her, nor she with aiding herself in her household tasks.

112. The Cost of Appliance Per Use-Unit. — Appliances should be judged on an investment basis. Let me make this point clear with a simple illustration. Passing a tinware counter, the housewife may be attracted by a novel cherry- seeder, costing only $1. How clever, and how cheap! So she buys it, cheerfully paying its small price. Further along in the store she may notice a double-decked wheel-tray tagged at $20. How nice to have it but how expensive for just a tray! So she passes on. But compared on an investment or "use" basis here are the facts:

Cost per

First Cost Use-unit Cherry seeder, used a possible 10 times in Cherry

season $1.00 $.10

Serving Wheel Tray, used 3 times daily 365 days $20.00 $.018

The apparently "cheap" utility costs exactly 10 times as much per unit of use as the supposedly "expensive" utility at the higher price.

I find that too many consumers buy on a basis of cost only, and that they often mistakenly hesitate in purchasing the higher price utilities because they do not take this wise, long-distance investment point of view. They buy egg-beater after egg-beater, for instance, because they seem cheap and

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ingenious. Further, in selling utilities, the manufacturer must not allow the consumer to say to herself: uOh, $100 for a washer, I can't possibly afford it!"; but point out to her how a washer which costs $100 a year and on which the interest and depreciation may be set about $20, costs less than two cents per unit of use. Similarly, he can translate for her the cost of a flatiron into 2.5 cents per hour of use, a vacuum into 1.05 cents per hour of use. Then the question is not whether or no the consumer can afford $100, but whether she can fail to afford only two cents each unit of use; a real in- vestment point of view.

113. Equipment in Relation to Household Budgets. — Right here I wish to take up what I consider a new point of view in the relation between equipment buying and the house- hold budget. It is well known that the typical household budget is divided into seven main groups, viz.: Shelter, Food, Clothing, Operating, Savings, Luxury, Advancement. Under the term "Operating" are supposed to be listed all expenses necessitated for "running the home," particularly such items as fuel costs, ice, service, purchase of furnishings and equipment, and also their upkeep, repair and replacement.

This division, I hold, was arranged by older economists when household equipment was almost unknown. I believe that this is a traditional, and an unfair classification. I pro- pose that both the first cost and also the maintenance costs of appliances for the household be transferred from the divi- sion of "Operating" into the division of "Advancement" in the household budget. These utilities bring education, com- fort, convenience, beauty, youth, into the home, and as such are quite as justifiably put under "Advancement" as movie tickets or toilet creams. The current and the electric lamp which make for restful, study facilities, are just as truly "edu- cation" as the Latin Grammar. The laundry, equipped with power washer and ironer which prevent back-breaking, wrinkles, and unsightly hands, is just as definitely "advance- ment" as a beauty parlor or facial treatments or manicures. Indeed, what items could more fittingly be classed as real and true "advancement?"

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This change of classification is important for this reason: I find that too many housekeepers still have a penny-pinching point of view in regard to the use of gas, electricity, and even appliance buying. They become indignant if "the gas bill is frightfully large this month," or if the electric bill is a few cents more than expected. Persons who spill and waste quarts of gasolene in connection with their autos, or who run up staggering butcher and grocer bills without a moment's worry, get positively dramatic when the bill for their gas or current is opened.

I think this attitude unfair and unwise ; a hang-over from the time when all house expenses were much lower. In other budget items we have become accustomed to a natural rise, while in the case of fuel or appliance costs, we still must be educated. I hold that such items as washer, ironer, portable heater, lamps, power kitchen devices, and indeed the entire catalog of useful labor-savers should be set down under "Ad- vancement," and their costs charged under this heading. I say, further, that it is time, once for all, to expect to pay more for heat, lighty and power, in the household budget; just as the business man most cheerfully pays nowadays for five or six times as much "power" as he once did. If anyone thinks we are paying too much, let him look at this startling fact; the average annual monthly electric bill is exactly $2.75. This is only about 8j4 cents per day. It should be three times as much. Contrast this with $53.00 per year per woman spent for cosmetics and beauty services. It is an interesting speculation to note that in the tallow candle period a man would have had to work 24 hours per day to earn, in candles, the amount of light he now uses and pays for with 10 minutes of his labor!

By taking the first cost of all appliances out of "Operat- ing," and placing them under "Advancement," we shall be able to give them their just place as "Investment."

XVIII

Practical Points in Selling Equip- ment to Mrs. Consumer

There should be vastly more household equipment sold. At present only 13% of families have washing machines, only 17% vacuum cleaners, only 15% have even common ice re- frigerators. Far fewer still have other modern devices.

It is surprising what large numbers of women are still unpersuaded of the comfort and economies in various devices. 70% of electrically wired homes are without an electric fan, and 72% without electric toasters. Only 6.4% of wired homes as yet have electric refrigerators. Quite obviously there is still a long way to go in relieving Mrs. Consumer of household burdens. 17,700,000 of electrically wired homes operate electric irons; which should provide a fair measure of the possibilities of productive household equipment.

It is a question, I believe, of so focusing and dramatizing the appeal and the educational ideas that women's desires will be stimulated for those things which only the leisure achieved by the help of equipment will bring. I would advocate a gen- eral strategic campaign along such lines, displacing the frontal

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attack so common now, of mere good looks, technical excel- lence, etc. Some of these strategic appeals I will describe.

114. Appeals Which Sell Household Equipment. — Briefly these are the important appeals in selling household equipment to women,- and the order of importance in which I rank them. Mrs. Consumer buys :

(1) To replace the human worker who is expensive or difficult to secure and a psychological strain to keep satisfied.

(2) To save her own effort, steps, time, beauty and physical appearance.

(3) To make the home more convenient, comfortable, safe and beauti- ful.

(4) To increase sanitation and freedom from unpleasant features such as smoke, soot, steam, odors, etc.

(5) To conserve and promote individual health, particularly of her children.

(6) To improve wholesomeness or appetizing qualities in foods.

(7) To gain leisure for chosen activities and pursuits.

(8) To be able to follow better, shorter, more improved methods in a particular task.

(9) To lower fuel or operating costs, repair or upkeep of any kind. (10) To emulate other families making similar equipment purchases.

115. More Power in the Home. — Why should we not be as eager to see the consumption of power in the home rise higher, as we are to see it rise in the factory, which has made great strides? Expressed in other terms it simply means more results at less cost in time and energy. The average use of current in wired homes in 1925 was but one kilowatt hour per day, or 365 per year, with an average expenditure for elec- tricity of $27.89 per home per year. In short, the consumer was paying only as much for the magical results of electrical housekeeping as she was paying pennies for the daily news- paper. This surely is too trifling. In the last three years, the figure has crept up slightly, it raised to 450 kilowatt hours in 1928, with an average expenditure of almost $30 per year per domestic consumer* But this figure is small in proportion to the benefits electricity brings the homemaker.

116. Selling for Use. — I have long contended that while many a consumer buys electric equipment, a large number fail to get anything like maximum use out of it\ Mrs. Consumer may buy a waffle iron around the holidays, use it a few times,

and then lay it in the buffet, to be brought out only at rare intervals. She may be fascinated by some tricky table stove, chafing dish, or other small cooking accessory, but after the first thrill has worn off, how often does she prepare meals on it? Doesn't she again and again purchase an expensive and beautiful set of coffee percolator and matching creamer and sugar, only to let is stand — a dead "object d'art" on the din- ing room sideboard while she goes back to making coffee in the old open coffee pot? Just the other day a prominent woman proudly conducted me to her kitchen and laundry and while standing in the latter pointed to an elaborate display of washer, ironer, etc., but vouchsafed the information: "of course we don't often use the washer or mangle; we find it so much easier to send clothes to the commercial laundry than bother with a laundress in the house!" Again bobs up my point of use I Why had she made this expensive investment in the first place?

I can do no better than list here the chief reasons why consumers are not getting the most out of their electrical equip- ment, as found by consumer survey made by electrical inter- ests— reasons with which I heartily agree :

"(1) — There is no evidence that the housewives interviewed had ever been approached with any definite plan to introduce the use of electricity in a comprehensive way.

(2) — Inadequate instruction to educate the housewife in the effective use of the appliances she now possesses, is generally reflected in many abandoned appliances found in the homes.

(3) — That, with few exceptions, the absence of a rate graduated to volume is discouraging to the acquisition of more appliances, and produc- tive in many cases of a lack of sympathetic teamwork between the light and power companies and their domestic customers. (4) — In countless cases the wiring of the house is inadequate and un- satisfactory to a full utilization of lighting, heating and power uses." *

117. Education in the Effective Use of the Appliance. — I wish that I might write this statement in letters of fire so that it could be seen and noted by every manufacturer of household appliances from coast to coast: "The consumer must be educated!" This one command is the pivotal point on

* Consumer Survey under the Society for Electrical Development.

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which depends success and maximum satisfied use in appliances, or the reverse — failure to purchase, dissatisfaction after pur- chase, entirely or partly abandoned devices. The reason why some women gets results with a certain machine, and another woman does not, is not any difference in the machines or utili- ties, but a difference between the women who use them. The dissatisfaction which may be found with any certain appliance is due generally not to any real failure in the performance of the machine, but in a failure of the woman operator to use it in a trained, intelligent, educated way.

What every manufacturer should grasp is this: that in trying to sell his particular machine, he must first sell the woman on the general principles back of all machines in his class. Thus, before trying to sell the consumer a particular Lily-White Washer, the manufacturer must sell her the prin- ciples of machine cleansing of clothing as against hand clean- ing, to which she is accustomed. The manufacturer must edu- cate, train, and transfer a worker from a hand and craft tech- nique, over into a tool technique. And this is a difficult job — and takes time, training, and an alteration in the woman's

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