Corporate advertising promised affordable futuristic homes within average families’ reach

Evidence

“Methods developed by war will improve products and shortcut their manufacture,” the Sparton Company advertised in 1942. “An abundance of materials, new and old, will make things plentiful.” The result would be a chance to regain lost comforts – and more. “Home will be truly a House of Wonders in this after-Victory world. Science already knows how to make it comfortable beyond our dreams. Invention will fill it with conveniences we have never known.” The Celotex Corporation agreed. “As America drives under war’s incentive,” the company promised, “the products of our future greatness are being shaped. Housing will undergo tremendous change… . Out of undreamed-of progress … will emerge your ‘Miracle House’ of tomorrow.” Best of all, the miracles would be “within reach of the average family.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 137

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Households are pushed into financial markets that promise lifestyle advancement. — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 34

Broader Connections

• Households are pushed into financial markets that promise lifestyle advancement. #expands (0.78) — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 34