Land of Desire, , covers a lot of the same territory as Satisfaction... but more vividly.
Strasser's books, taken together, describe the changes in household habits that moved the US to modernity; from a producer society to a consumer society. Satisfaction Guaranteed and Land of Desire both describe the changes in opinion, as well as production and retail, that made this possible. Packaging, advertising, pure-food laws, the parcel post, the idea that the 'good life' is made of goods, and the acceptance of credit - all rose together. Credit might be the most surprising one; that a nation proud of its Puritans managed to accommodate itself to the easy extension of credit at all, let alone for frivolities, is surprising.
Strasser is clear on the practical impediments to selling and buying
in the modern way, and how they were overcome. Leach's book is more
interesting when he's making clear how dreamy, hypnotic, seductive, and
new advertising and the big department stores were. Some of the
department-store pictures are breathtaking now, and put fancy modern
stores to shame. There was a higher standard set by the decorative
standards of the magnificoes and the decorative possibilities
of swoony Orientalism; without gilding and pneumatic tubes and
white-gloved ranks of attendants, I am not going to be impressed. I am
also never going to read quite as innocently; he was an
advertising man, and Leach's description of Oz as shopping-land is
persuasive. I do want to see the beautifully color-printed edition of
The Wizard of Oz, though. I read a bit of The Gardens of
Allah, which Leach mentioned as symbolic of the new indulgence,
but the characters were too irritating to go on with.
So wrote clew in
History (19th c.).