The Pressure of Events. How Consumers and Building Suppliers Framed Each Other, 1920s–50s

The rise of a consumer society has depended on a new interplay between producer and consumer. Some writers claim that manufacturers manipulate consumers; most argue that consumers are king (or queen). The rise of home improvement, including Do-It-Yourself (DIY), 1920s-1950s, shows that demand and supply mattered equally; that retailers were vital, if neglected; and that the consumer-supplier interplay was shaped more by events than by design.
The rise of DIY depended on changes in demand and supply. For demand, key factors were rising home ownership (1920s, 1940s-1950s); the emergence of masculine domesticity; the obsolescence of older housing as gas or oil furnaces, piped water, sewers, electricity, and appliances became standard (1900-1940); and rising incomes (1945-). For supply, critical influences were the emergence of lumber ‘substitutes’ and of their manufacturers; mail-order competition; and competition for the consumer’s dollar from automobiles. These encouraged lumber dealers, the main building retailers, to turn from contractors to the consumer market.
               Neither consumers nor suppliers predicted, nor did they seek, the rise of DIY. Instead, this practice emerged as each responded to two major periods of change. Between 1927-1934 a perfect economic storm devastated home building. This compelled lumber dealers to foster a home improvement business driven by consumers. They were encouraged by a marketing campaign mounted by Johns-Manville, and then by Title I FHA loans. Then, in the decade after 1945, a shortage of housing and of building tradesmen fueled a huge boom in owner-building. Dealers had unwittingly prepared themselves to service amateurs, whose successes at home building demonstrated the feasibility of DIY for both men and women. Responding to unforeseen events, consumers and building suppliers had redefined themselves and thereby created a new industry.