In the middle of the twentieth century a new class of marketing expert emerged beyond the
familiar ad men of Madison Avenue. Working as commercial designers consumer psychologists
sales managers and market researchers these professionals were self-defined consumer
engineers and their rise heralded a new era of marketing. To what extent did these efforts to
engineer consumers shape consumption practices? And to what extent was the phenomenon itself a
product of broader social and cultural forces? This collection considers consumer engineering
in the context of the longer history of transatlantic marketing. Contributors offer case
studies on the roles of individual consumer engineers on both sides of the Atlantic the impact
of such marketing practices on European economies during World War II and after and the
conflicted relationship between consumer activists and the ideas of consumer engineering. By
connecting consumer engineering to a web of social processes in the twentieth century this
volume contributes to a reassessment of consumer history more broadly.
