{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":163,"pdf_page":171,"physical_index":171,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"926366a732af6df03fd72a372c830142868a455f9ff571d8e9848fd77da47eaf"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"3. Standardization of Products\n\nStandardized techniques of production thus yielded standardized products, and standardization was most often justified by the supposedly superior characteristics of those products. For some, the benefits of standardized products were continuous with those of standardized production—uniform products would make society as a whole more eficient. Herbert Hoover, for example, felt that the standard of living for the American people would be raised if they could be persuaded to buy a smaller range of more standardized products. He consequently advocated a great “elimination of styles” of consumer goods in order to increase the overall eficiency of the economy and improve living standards.43 As president, Hoover continued to advocate strongly for standardization, defending the practice in trenchant terms during a 1931 radio talk: “Critics talk about the evils of standardization. Well standardization helps individualism; the standardization of bathtubs and radios, motor cars and a thousand other things actually built up individualism by increasing the horizon of the individual; by adding to his chances, his comforts and his opportunities.”44 P. G. Agnew, secretary of the American Standards Association, made explicit the connection between the standardization of commodities and raising the living standards of the population to middle-class levels. Standardized products, endowed with substantial and precisely measured amounts of utility, would, according to Agnew, facilitate a felicitous embourgeoisement of the population. Agnew consequently urged that all products be made to conform to national specifications, averring that “such a regulation would constitute a major advance in national economy.”45 The National Bureau of Standards certainly made a heroic efort to comply with Agnew’s wishes. In 1931, it published a ten-volume encyclopedia of product specifications, while ofering a certification program for manufacturers whose products were in compliance with the specifications.46 Lyman Briggs (1934, p. 154), director of the NBS, claimed that the advantage of specification standards for consumers was that they “established quality as a basis for competition among manufacturers.” The Bureau of Home Economics, a division of the Department of Agriculture established in 1923, with responsibility for “homemaking,” went even further, pushing specifically for government imposed specifications for consumer commodities (Lynd 1933, p.  884). By the late 1930s, the Federal Trade Commission was actively promoting what it described as “permissive standards” for goods—those arrived at and policed by associations of producers—as part of its efort to establish fair trade practices.47\n\nStandardization of Consumption, Work, and Wages\n\n163","previous_page":162,"next_page":164}