1.3 Changes in the Set of Objects Tested and in the Guide to Testing
A significant percentage of the products tested by consumer organizations in the prewar era were perishables. Increasingly in the postwar era, however, testing shifted to consumer durables. The obvious explanation for this is that as incomes increased, consumer durables came to form an increasingly important part of household consumption. Indeed, the relatively greater amount of attention paid to testing perishables and other nondurable goods in the early issues of CR could be interpreted as just a reflection of the dismal economic conditions of the 1930s. However, Consumer Reports in its early years, as noted, very much catered to a middle-class readership, which was therefore relatively insulated from the economic ravages of the Depression. Moreover, the great era of expansion of the market for consumer durables—the so-called consumer durables revolution—took place roughly between 1910 and 1940 (Olney 1990, 1998). Even against the background of deteriorating economic conditions in the 1930s, demand for consumer durables remained high, and continued to increase. And if we compare the post-Depression period to later periods, the same trend is evident. For example, in the 1947 Consumer Reports Buyers Guide, the annual compendium of test results, out of 373 pages, 75 were devoted to food, and a further 136 pages were taken up by pharmaceuticals and personal care products, leaving only 129 pages of tests of durable goods. By comparison, in the 1985 Buyer’s Guide 375 out of a total of 385 pages were devoted to tests of consumer durables.
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Time for Things