{"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":199,"pdf_page":207,"physical_index":207,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"aa1c16f0185eae0352337e039cd8d2e2c2f5cf5768b9ef850b0634549dca5df3"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"That interpretation certainly captures one dimension of the ascent of product testing, for testing was indeed connected to the broader project to make production more rational and scientific. A lineage can be traced between the early eforts to test consumer products and the activities of testing laboratories established by corporations such as American Telegraph and Telephone, General Electric, Dupont and Westinghouse.3 The function of these corporate labs, in addition to developing new products, was to establish standards for materials used in production and to test batches of the materials purchased by the company to ensure that those standards were met. This was similar to the idea behind early consumer product testing by Consumers Union and Consumers’ Research, which was to set standards for consumer goods and police those standards by way of an ongoing program of product testing.\n\nAs with standardized production, the origins of product testing lay in the passionate work of proselytizing eficiency engineers, who were inspired by a rationalist vision of optimized production. The eficiency movement had a significant presence in civil society over the first three decades of the twentieth century. It encompassed the home economics movement, which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, and assimilated the household (and therefore mass consumption) to its grand vision of optimized economic eficiency. The Home Economics Association (HEA), founded in 1908, took an active role in creating and promoting standards for household products such as sheets and blankets (Ayres 1934). The point of standards, as seen in Chapter 6, was to safeguard the use value of consumer commodities. Home economist Rosalind Cook (1927) gave a succinct statement of this perspective: “It is a commonly conceded fact that service value is an important factor in practically every product we buy. In certain cases we speak of quality as durability, and in others as work value; some speak of it as economic value; but whatever term we may use in describing the quality, we recognize it as fundamental and inherent in the product itself. How can we assure ourselves that such a quality exists in the product and the degree in which it is present? The answer seems to be through the use of established measurements which have the accuracy and authority of a standard .  .  . standard specifications assure the purchaser of a measured amount of the factors which make for durability or service quality.” The HEA’s mission was to educate the wider public about the meaning and value of the work of enlightened experts in establishing standards for consumer goods. Max Getz, chairman of the Committee on Ultimate Consumer Goods of the American Standards Association, writing in the Journal of Home Economics, described the work of home economists as filling an “urgent need among consumers for more examples, ideals, rules, for more types, models, or examples for comparison, yes even for more ‘tests,’ . . . [for] standards [are a] language that must be taught” (Getz 1940, pp. 520–21). But standards without systematic testing would be inefectual. As early as 1910, the women’s magazine Good Housekeeping, under the influence of the home economics movement, established a research institute that featured a model kitchen and testing station for household devices, along with a “domestic science laboratory.”4 The “Good Housekeeping Research Institute” bestowed the magazine’s “seal of approval” on goods that passed its tests, which was backed by a two-year limited warranty. For home economists, promoting consumer product testing and standardized specifications was a part of its broader pedagogical agenda, which was to make consumers “conscious of the characteristics of consumer goods.”5 The idea was for consumption to be a field of technical knowledge, which would be disseminated to the public. Homes, in this vision, would eventually come to be managed by expert home makers, “household engineers,” who would practice a “science of ultimate consumption” (Goldstein 1997).6\n\nProduct Testing and Product Regularization\n\n199","previous_page":198,"next_page":200}