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We live in a world of seemingly limitless consumer choice. Yet, as every shopper knows without thinking about it, many everyday goods - from beds to batteries to printer paper - are available in a finite number of "standard sizes." What makes these sizes "standard" is an agreement among competing firms to make or sell products with the same limited dimensions. But how did firms - often hotly competing firms - reach such collective agreements?
In exploring this question, Colleen Dunlavy puts the history of mass production and distribution in an entirely new light. She reveals that, despite the widely publicized model offered by Henry Ford, mass production techniques did not naturally diffuse throughout the U.S. economy. On the contrary, formidable market forces blocked their diffusion. It was only under the cover of collectively agreed-upon, industrywide standard sizes - orchestrated by the federal government - that competing firms were able to break free of market forces and transition to mass production and distribution. Without government promotion of standard sizes, the twentieth-century American variety of capitalism would have looked markedly less "Fordist."
Small, Medium, Large will make all of us think differently about the everyday consumer choices we take for granted.
Also available as an audiobook.
List of contents
Preface and AcknowledgmentsList of Illustrations1 The Puzzle of Standard Sizes
2 "A Profusion of Styles" on the Eve of the Great War
3 Suppressing Product Diversity in the Great War
4 Product Diversity Resurgent, 1918-1921
5 Hoover's "Fostering Hand": Simplified Practice in Peacetime
6 Diffusing Mass Production
Afterword
NotesIndex
About the author
Colleen Dunlavy is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research explores the historical relationship between political and economic change in the U.S. and Europe. Her publications include the prize-winning
Politics and Industrialization: Early Railroads in the United States and Prussia. She lives in Washington, DC.
Summary
We live in a world of seemingly limitless consumer choice. Yet, as every shopper knows without thinking about it, many everyday goods - from beds to batteries to printer paper - are available in a finite number of "standard sizes." What makes these sizes "standard" is an agreement among competing firms to make or sell products with the same limited dimensions. But how did firms - often hotly competing firms - reach such collective agreements?
In exploring this question, Colleen Dunlavy puts the history of mass production and consumption in an entirely new light. She reveals that, despite the widely publicized model offered by Henry Ford, mass production techniques did not naturally diffuse throughout the U.S. economy. On the contrary, formidable market forces blocked their diffusion. It was only under the cover of collectively agreed-upon, industrywide standard sizes - orchestrated by the federal government - that competing firms were able to break free of market forces and transition to mass production and consumption. Without government promotion of standard sizes, the twentieth-century American variety of capitalism would have looked markedly less "Fordist."
An engrossing new work of economic history, Small, Medium, Large will make scholars, students, and general readers alike think differently about the history of mass production and consumption.
