Giving Consumers a Fair Chance: The Ideological Battle over Mandatory Grading in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

This article explores the more than decade‐long fight to establish quality standards for consumer products. Drawing on archival collections, trade publications, congressional hearings, and relevant secondary literature, it traces the ongoing debates over grading standards for consumer commodities in the 1930s and 1940s. It explores the arguments behind the creation of a mandatory grading system that would have aided citizens in their role as consumers, helped fight monopolistic tendencies during a severe economic depression, and supported government economic policies during a time of national crisis. While consumer advocates and a majority of the American public applauded the idea, advertisers, believing that the system would undermine their advertising claims, fought the proposals tooth and nail.

I Will Give You My Vote but Not My Money: Preferences for Public versus Private Action in Addressing Social Issues

“…Some of these publications were from groups independent of the industries, and others were produced by the industries themselves, in part to make mandatory grading seem unnecessary. Despite this private provision of information, pressure for mandatory grading persisted and was actually employed during World War II (Stole 2014). This is a case where the consumer desire for product information was forcing changes in both the private and public sectors, but because neither sector would provide the same information, it created constant conflict.…”