By any material measure, city workers and their families in the United States today have remarkably higher living standards than they did at the beginning of this century. Perhaps the most evident indications are that they earn more and they buy more and have thus become the most important group of consumers of the products of the Nation's economy.
The 20th century American, said Henry Adams in 1904, would be a product of "incalculable coal power, chemical power, electric power, and radiating energy, as well as of new forces yet undetermined. . . . At the rate of progress since 1800, every American who lived into the year 2000 would know how to control unlimited power. He would think in complexities unimaginable to an earlier mind. He would deal with problems altogether beyond the range of earlier society.
Electric air conditioners, blankets, fans, and mixers, and a multitude of other aids to housekeeping and home living, not excepting the power lawnmower, were within the range of the worker's family budget.
Of course, the personal debt outstanding on the house and on much of what was in it, as well as on the automobile parked outside, might be considerable. But the chief breadwinner's income, with increasing frequency augmented by the earnings of a working wife, plus comparatively cheap credit, carried the burden. In this respect, as in so many others, the worker's family differed little from many in higher income groups. With the shortening of the workweek by 15 hours between 1900 and 1956, the wage earner (with exceptions and variations) now has weekend leisure. He also has several paid holidays annually and a paid vacation. His car or his outboard motor or his home workshop offers the mobility or opportunity to develop and indulge his hobbies. More important as a concomitant of this leisure is the opportunity for the wage earner to participate in the social life of the family.
Based on James P. Mitchell HOW AMERICAN BUYING HABITS CHANGE.