Historians and the Homemaker Image

Hill addresses the homemaker portrayal of women multiple times in his book and even has a section on teaching daughters at a young age how to be a homemaker, mother and beauty all at once. It is obvious to him that the portrayal exists, because it is in almost every appliance ad made in that time period. Posted are advertisements from 1929 (General Electric) and 1960 (Kelvinator). Even though they were made 31 years apart the portrayal of the women as the homemaker, not to mention care taker of the children, is obvious. Due to these ads it is nearly impossible for historians not to note that the portrayal of “Betty Homemaker” was taking place. In a later blog entry, I will transcribe parts of my interview with my grandmother, who gives her views of the homemaker image of women in advertisements.

Hill writes in his chapter entitled “Home, Hearth and Housekeeping” that because women have historically all shared one thing in common, cooking, it is clear that women would be in advertisements with appliances to show other women how to make the sometimes strenuous job easier (Hill, 38). There have been ads since 1900 for freestanding case iron stoves that would make cooking easier, and of course a woman is cooking in it. Hill notes that because housekeeping is second in importance after cooking, that is why there are a great number of ads for washers and dryers, vacuums and dishwashers, among other items. Men were supposed to be out of the house working and earning the money and women were supposed to be homemakers and cook, clean and care for the family. That was just the division of labor for so long.

My grandmother hit on an interesting point in her interview, which is that during World War II, women worked in jobs that were normally dominated by men because so many men went to fight and there was a lack of laborers to keep industries running smoothly while they were gone. After women had gotten experience at a real job, learning a new skill, making money and having financial freedom, it was harder to go back to homemaker life when the military men returned. From that point on, many women showed discontent for the homemaker life. However, ads continued to portray it because a women cooking in the kitchen was much more attractive than a pre-made dinner thrown in the oven and an unkempt house because the woman was hard at work outside the home.

In his chapter on Achieving Independence, Hill dates the catalyst for the feminist movement back to a conference in 1848 where the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments was drawn up. By the 1950s, the feminist movement was roaring and women were upset about having the freedom to work real jobs and make real money during World War II taken away. Advertisements started responding to the feminist movement early on, and by the 1930s there were ads for career women followed by ads with women picking out their own cars, having diverse jobs and going to college in the coming years. Women were gaining independence in their advertisements and by the 1970s there were ads featuring female telephone operators, radio DJs and even a businesswoman. The appliance ads with Betty Homemaker had started to decrease and change to adjust to women having college educations and working out of the home (Hill, 167-190). According to Hill “by the close of the 1990s, the working woman had become such an integral part of the social and economic matrices of America that advertisers took her for granted and seldom depicted her on the job” (Hill, 190). Even though the working woman wasn’t depicted doing her job, it still was a reference to more women working and the shift of Betty Homemaker to the working mothers and soccer moms advertisements of today.

Advertising in the recent years depicts a lifestyle. It is about fitting the appliance into your life, on your schedule and making sure you use your time more efficiently, since Americans are constantly on the go. I will examine this change from Betty Homemaker to what I believe is the “working mom and soccer mom” portrayal through looking at past appliance ads with women and comparing them to a more current ad campaign from 2005 and 2007 that LG Appliances produced.