This chapter outlines some ways in which “child” and “consumer” came to be put into cultural conversation with one another in the 1900–1930 period. During this time, a convergence was evident of children’s rights, consumer psychology, and retail practice. Mirroring a general shift in parental governance away from punishment and toward reward, both the language of children’s rights and of the psychology of advertising at the turn of the twentieth century embraced a demeanor of ingratiation. In this mounting worldview, gaining the favor of the child, the consumer or, as we will see, the child-consumer required a tactical pursuit of the agreeable. Retail sales personnel were encouraged to study and know the child customers just as mothers of an earlier era were encouraged to do. The impetus to ingratiate the child or otherwise defer to children’s interests and pleasures positioned the young ones as a kind of authority over these interests and pleasures, leaving parents ever in danger of sliding into indulgence and positioning market actors as key figures in child guidance.
A study in retail sales person effectiveness
