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Inter-war Britain saw a boom in 'mass markets' for consumer durables, such as new suites of furniture, radios, and electrical and gas appliances, while items like refrigerators, telephones, and automobiles didn't reach the mass market until the 1950s. Peter Scott explores these 'market makers' and how US innovations influenced British markets.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction
- 2: The economic and social background to the consumer durables revolution
- 3: Furniture - Britain's first mass-marketed consumer durable
- 4: A home of one's own - marketing owner-occupation
- 5: America's route to a mass market in radio
- 6: Britain's inter-war radio industry
- 7: British radio marketing, distribution, and retailing
- 8: Bringing power to the people - marketing electric and gas labour-saving appliances
- 9: The hard sell - marketing vacuum cleaners in the United States
- 10: `Pushing' vacuum cleaners in interwar Britain
- 11: Failure to accelerate: Britain's stalled mass market for cars
- 12: Failure to connect: the slow diffusion of the telephone
- 13: Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Peter Scott is Professor of International Business History at the University of Reading's Henley Business School. He has written extensively on the history of consumer durables' industries, household consumption, retailing, consumer marketing, and housing, during the first half of the twentieth century. His previous books include The Making of the Modern British Home: The Suburban Semi and Family Life between the Wars; Triumph of the South: A Regional Economic History of Britain During the Early Twentieth Century (awarded the 2007 Wadsworth Prize for the best book in British business history), and The Property Masters: A History of the British Commercial Property Sector.
Summary
Inter-war Britain saw a boom in 'mass markets' for consumer durables, such as new suites of furniture, radios, and electrical and gas appliances, while items like refrigerators, telephones, and automobiles didn't reach the mass market until the 1950s. Peter Scott explores these 'market makers' and how US innovations influenced British markets.
Additional text
This hugely impressive monograph is essential reading for economic historians of modern Britain. It will also prove to be of great use to social historians and historians of technology.
