BOOZE, BABE, AND THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS

A marketing and advertising executive reevaluates the history and legacy of the Roaring ’20s.

While the focus of this book is on the second decade of the 20th century, it begins and ends inside contemporary Target and Costco stores. Its central argument contends that the roots of our “modern shopping experience” lie in transformations that occurred a century ago. Voiovich asserts that central aspects of contemporary consumer culture, including customized options at varying price points for the same base product, informational advertising that sells a product by teaching consumers how to use it, and in-store retail credit, all started in the ’20s. Innovators in consumer culture, from Coco Chanel to the creative minds behind the fictional Betty Crocker, are given ample attention, as are those who brought branding to sports and entertainment, such as Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin. The lengthy book is particularly adept at putting cultural transformations of the decade into a larger historical context. Voiovich, the author of Marketer in Chief: How Each President Sold the American Idea (2021), has a firm grasp on his subject, as reflected in the book’s ample references to historians, scholars, and primary-source research. Moreover, as the son of an advertising director, the great-grandson of an inventor, and a product designer and adman himself, he offers readers a sense of enthusiasm rarely found in more academic historical texts. The book’s strength lies in its engaging, accessible style that captures the titillating, over-the-top cultural milieu of the decade. And while it’s generally optimistic in tone, the book doesn’t ignore the dark side of consumer culture, noting the environmental impacts of mass consumption and how modern shopping has become “a drug that’s addicted the American public.”

A well-researched and engrossing survey of consumer culture.