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The emergence of a consumer market for electrical household appliances
in 1950s Japan was spectacular because most Japanese were entirely
unfamiliar with such luxurious items. As Partner explains, Japan was at the
time by any objective measure an underdeveloped nation, with average
earnings only a fraction of American incomes and much lower than those
in Western Europe, including the defeated Germany. 17 The economic
recovery and the rhetoric of ‘bright life’, which followed a decade of
extreme deprivation, turned electrical appliances into symbols of affluence,
providing irresistible stimulus for their purchase.
The proliferation of refrigerators in Japanese households went hand
in hand with the rapid popularization of frozen foods. Their production
increased from 5,000 tonnes in 1960 to 141,000 tonnes in 1970, 562,000
tonnes in 1980, and in 1990 surpassed a million tonnes. The spread of
160
An advertisement
for various electric
kitchen appliances
of the Toshiba brand,
1962.