Reference no: EM132853478

During the late 19th and early 20th century the United States witnessed an explosion in industry and production. More production, meant more goods being produced, which, in turn, meant more products being available to the American public. It also fueled a reliance on wages and money. Industrialization created thousands of new urban (at that time) jobs to create these consumer goods. These new goods needed to be marketed and sold, so urban Americans became much more reliant on currency instead of trade. We call this new economy 'consumerism' and it has been a staple of the industrialized world for nearly 150 years.

Discussion 1: Think about how our economy works today. If you have a job, why do you work? To make money. Why do you need money? To buy the things you need and want. Why do companies want your money? To make the things we we want and need so they can produce more. So, we work to make money, give that money to businesses to make more products, who market and sell their products, so we will buy the products, so they can make more products, so we work more to make more money... and on and on. That is the consumer economy (consumerism). Consumerism was substantially augmented (increased) by industrialization during the Gilded Age and the early 20th century. The reasons are simple: factories make more products than the traditional hand-made industries of the 18th and early 19th centuries. If you make more products, you have to sell more products, etc.