Answer:
What were people buying?
People were buying all sorts of newer consumer goods that mass production techniques like the assembly line were making available for more and more people. Household appliances like vacuum cleaners and refrigerators were particularly in high demand.
Why were people able to buy more?
Mainly because of two reasons: 1) consumer goods were becoming cheaper for the reasons explained above, 2) the monetary policy of the era was very loose, and the banks had a lot of spare cash that they used to grant cheap credit to its customers. People then used this cheap loans to buy more stuff.
What are the pros and cons of this rise in a mass consumer culture?
The main pro is that people can raise their material standard of living. The main con or danger is that mass consumerism can create economic bubbles that when they burst cause a lot of harm. This is precisely what happened in 1929, that ended up in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
