The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979

by Daniel Horowitz

A wide--ranging exploration of conflicting American attitudes toward affluence.

Genres: History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Daniel Horowitz is a historian whose work focuses on the history of consumer culture and social criticism in the U.S. At Smith College (1989–2012), he directed the American studies program for 18 years and was, for a time, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of American Studies. Before coming to Smith, he taught at Scripps College in Claremont, California (1972–88), where he eventually was Nathaniel Wright Stephenson Professor of History and Biography.
For 2010–11, he was the Ray A. Billington Visiting Professor of U.S. History at Occidental College and Huntington Library. He has also taught at the University of Michigan (1983–84), Carleton College (1980), Harvard (1964–66 and 1967–70), Skidmore College (1970–72), and Wellesley College (1966–67).
Among the honors Horowitz has received are two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and one from the National Humanities Center; an appointment as Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Harvard University; and for 2008–09 he received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 1997, the American Studies Association awarded him the Constance Rourke Prize for his 1996 article “Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America,” American Quarterly. The American Studies Association awarded him its 2003 Mary C. Turpie Prize for “outstanding abilities and achievement in American Studies teaching, advising, and program development at the local or regional level.”
Among his publications are The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875–1940 (1985), selected by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books of 1985; Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (1994); Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique: The American Left, The Cold War, Modern Feminism (1998); The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939–1979 (2004), selected by Choice as one of the outstanding books of 2004 and winner of the Eugene M. Kayden Prize for the best book published in the humanities in 2004 by a university press; Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World (2012); On the Cusp: Yale College Class of 1960 and a World on the Verge of Change (2015); and Happier?: The History of A Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America (2018).
His book on the Reality TV show “Shark Tank” will be published by University of North Carolina Press in late 2020. He has edited two books for Bedford: Suburban Life in the 1950s: Selections from Vance Packard’s Status Seekers (1995) and Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970: The “Crisis of Confidence” Speech of July 15, 1979.

Reviews

[Evan Ash]

very interesting when horowitz is offering an original argument but loses some of the sheen when he is doing a literature review (which, like his other book, is most of it)

[Luke Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

Daniel Horowitz's primer charts the slow failure of leftist radicalism to confront consumerism in any concrete way, plus formerly leftist critiques sliding to the right. The intellectual biographies of Paul Goodman and Christopher Lasch specially point to the way rising inequality effects us and shapes how we spend our time.

In the 1960s, Goodman's *Growing Up Absurd* "brought attention to young men, a group that previous critics of affluence had neglected...(and) breathed new life into the familiar critique of consumer culture...." 20 years prior, Goodman forged his philosophy in anarchist journals, and by the '50s, "given his politics and sexuality, it was a difficult time..." *Growing Up Absurd* is a book by a "conservative anarchist." and Goodman is urging society to create "genuine work" for people, which "involved the production of 'necessary food and shelter,' (and) was creative, dignified, and essential, characteristics he could not apply to the activities for those involved in 'salesmanship, entertainment, business management, promotion, and advertising.'" He asserts "Our present poor are absolute sheep and suckers for the popular culture they cannot afford." (130-133).

For Lasch, who saw a society "suffused with narcissism," follows a similar trajectory. The realm of production had caused "routinized work" which was "alienating and separating from family life. Reformers, the state, and the professions had invaded the family, in the process of undermining its authority and the realm of private life. Feminists had fully contributed to the undermining of the the family and the fostering of a false sense of liberation. Elites, especially those on the left, and isolated themselves form the people they claimed to be helping. Consumer cultures, the compensation offered by capitalists and liberals who believed in liberation offered in place of meaningful work and family life, further eroded psychological integrity. Thus left individuals with a sense of empty yearing that was impossible to fulfill," (215).

Instead, "the will to build a better society survives along with traditions of localism, self-help, and community action that only need the vision of a new society, a decent society to give them new vigor. " And it is here where Horowitz's book ends off. A focus on moral responsibility and self-restraint, Lasch's faith in the "moral realism of the lower middle class."

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, not overly academic look at the critics and theorists of the consumer society in the 20th century.