Raising Consumers : Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century

Historians and social commentators have typically assumed that the child consumer became significant during the postwar television age.

But the child consumer was already an important phenomenon in the early twentieth century.

At that time, the family, traditionally the primary institution of child socialization, began to face an array of new competitors who sought to put their own imprint on children's acculturation to consumer capitalism.

It was an era during which there were dramatic changes in family life and business behavior, and advertisers courted children in juvenile magazines and radio broadcasts.

Middle-class parents debated the merits of allowances and worried about their "movie-mad" children.

Experts proposed new styles of parenting to combat the allures of commercial recreation. And the public schools adopted school savings banks while welcoming advertising into their lesson plans.