“See the USA in Your Chevrolet!”

Context

After World War II, the United States entered an era of unprecedented mass consumption. A combination of wartime savings, easier access to consumer credit, and a generally strong economy, bolstered by government spending, enabled Americans to buying everything from homes in the suburbs to TV dinners and disposable diapers. By 1959, Americans owned “44 million homeowners, 56 million cars, 50 million television sets, and 143 million radios” (Cohen 126, 118-129). The key medium for selling all of these products was television. Between 1948 and 1960, television industry’s revenues increased from almost nothing to $1.5 billion dollars per year. That year the “typical viewer” watched 10,000 commercials from 376 advertisers (Samuel 154). No company was more associated with the consumer boom than General Motors, a corporation so large that its President, Charles Wilson, stated, without irony, that “What was good for our country was good for General Motors-and vice versa. The difference did not exist.” when he was nominated as Secretary of Defense (Cray 6-7). The following is one of the best-known advertisements from the early age of television (1952), featuring a memorable jingle sung by Dinah Shore.

See the USA in your Chevrolet
America is asking you to call
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA
America's the greatest land of all

On a highway, or a road along the levy
Performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her
Life is completer in a Chevy

So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet

Traveling East, Traveling West
Wherever you go Chevy service is best
Southward or North, near place or far
There's a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car

So make a date today to see the USA
And see it in your Chevrolet (Vintage Chevrolet Archive).

Here is the Film:



Discussion Questions:

How does the ad link, both explicitly and implicity, consumption and patriotism?

If you lived in the 1950s, would you agree that “what was good General Motors” good for the United States as well?

How is this commercial both similar and differ from an ads that are aired in the present day? Why do you think that advertising has changed?

Sources
Lizabeth Cohen, The Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
Ed Cray, Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).
Lawrence R Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Vintage Chevrolet Archive