PRODUCT INNOVATION IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
             There were a few new products included on the mass market in the 1920s. The automobile was one of those products. The Ford assembly line premiered in 1913. Consumers started buying automobiles in masses during the early 1920s. By 1929 one out of five Americans owned a car. In the mid 1920s saturation to be a problem. GM introduced new styles in an attempt to make consumers want to trade in their cars. But this was not enough to overcome the saturation of the first time buyer's market. Auto sales and production began to fall in March 1929, several months before the economy as a whole began to decline.
             The first simple household appliance such as irons had emerged in the early 1920s and almost all households with electricity possessed one by the late 1920s. The more complex washing machines and vacuum cleaners were introduced during the late 1920s, but the affluent first time market for these products had been saturated by 1929.
             All durable goods producers were not affected by the market saturation on the eve of the depression. The demand for radios grew slowly but steadily in the interwar years, because radio adoption followed electrification. Most homes in the rural area were without radios, until the mass rural electrification projects of the 1930s. Because of major improvements in size, appearance, and quality of radio apparatus encouraged a better and healthier repurchase market. There were still drastic reductions in the cost of radio production during the 1920s and 30s. This ensured that value of production and employment fell steadily from 1929.
             During the 1920s the rayon industry exploded and provided substitutes for products that were more labor intensive in production (such as cotton or wool materials) There were research efforts devoted to lowering the cost of chemicals needed to produce similar or identical to those already being used.
             There were a few new technolog...