Standard of Living: The Measure of the Middle Class in Modern America (review)

Marina Moskowitz's well-written and extensively researched book investigates how the concept of the "standard of living" became the measure of middle-class well-being and the material expression of middle-class identity during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. By the 1920s, Moskowitz contends, national marketing and well-organized distribution channels had helped to make the standard of living a shared national cultural ideal that transcended urban, small town, and rural boundaries. Moskowitz explores these transformations in four chapter-long case studies, each devoted to a product or practice that revised the material expectations of those who claimed middle-class status or aspired to be middle class. Her first two chapters analyze goods that shaped the intimate settings of private life—silverplate flatware and bathroom fixtures—while her next two tackle goods and practices that remapped the physical contours of middle-class life: mail-order homes and zoning plans. As these chapters make clear, the standard of living encompassed taste as well as ways of organizing public and private space.

Moskowitz concentrates much of her detailed analysis on how key firms sought to capture a broad middle-class market, discussing innovations in production, design, distribution, and marketing. But like other recent consumer-culture studies that stress the role of cultural intermediaries in the creation of mass markets, Moskowitz argues that the standard of living emerged from interactions among producers, consumers, and a variety of cultural arbiters. Ownership of a matching set of silverplate flatware became standard in middle-class households, for example, because etiquette counselors, hoteliers, and restaurateurs, as well as silverware firms like Reed & Barton, persuaded Americans that such possessions were not an indulgence but rather appropriate for everyday dining. Similarly, Kohler's promotion of bathroom fixtures—and a private space to contain them—got an indirect boost from Progressive Era social reformers, civic officials, and physicians who saw cleanliness and good hygiene as the foundation of improved public health. Architects and plumbers, both crucial links in the distribution chain, also helped convince Americans that the sanitary living conditions afforded by a bathtub, toilet, and sink were essential components of the standard of living.

The standard of living also extended to the built environment. Widespread adoption of zoning ordinances in the 1920s fulfilled expectations that a well-ordered city would be organized into separate residential, commercial, and industrial sections. But homeownership itself was perhaps an even more important indicator of middle-class status. In a fascinating chapter, Moskowitz explains how mail-order homes, which represented a significant portion of new houses built in the 1910s and 1920s, helped a broad base of Americans attain middle-class status. Purchased from a catalogue, these relatively inexpensive kits were shipped to buyers, who then assembled the houses themselves. The Aladdin Company, a key manufacturer, kept prices low by requiring full payment in cash, and the low cost of the houses in turn made it easier to obtain bank loans. Federal government tracts, mass-market magazines, and popular novelists all echoed the Aladdin Company's marketing message—that the long-term savings and independence enjoyed by homeowners was preferable to renting. Aladdin homeowners, however, did not always absorb such sentiments passively; in some cases they became active cooperators in championing homeownership and drumming up business for the company. Some received modest commissions for supplying names of people who might be in the market for a mail-order home; others contributed testimonials and personalized stories to the company's newsletter, or participated in contests that awarded prizes for the best interior decor—all later used in the company's own advertising and publicity. Through such activities, Aladdin homeowners helped solidify the notion that homeownership was a crucial investment toward achieving the national standard of living.

Moskowitz's creative use of literary sources yields important insights. Passages from novels by Sinclair Lewis, Kathleen...