Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 126
122
Popular Culture Review
Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post,
New York Times, Time, and Collier's. In general, the advertising
images of women found in these publications can be grouped into five
categories: the flapper, the society woman, the wife/homemaker,
the mother, and the working girl, llu s article focuses on the image of
the wife/homemaker.
Judging from the advertising images, advertisers incorporated a
number of contradictory images in their portrayals of the housewife:
seductress, capable homemaker and consumer, and woman in need of
expert male guidance. There were also some ads which depicted
women as being involved in significant decision-making. For
example, an ad for Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company which
appeared in Good Housekeeping showed a woman with a worried
frown on her face. "For Wives whose husbands don’t save money" was
a testimonial written "by a wife." A sub-head in the ad proclaimed
that "Single Women Too may want to know-how to retire with an
income—how to save money scientifically—how to end money
worries."^ The message was that it was possible for a woman who
had no man or had an irresponsible man to take charge of her
financial future with, of course, a little help from the advertiser's
company. Nonetheless, the tone of the ad implied that these women
were the objects of pity: the successful woman had a husband she
could count on.
Ads in general interest magazines which were obviously directed
at men also depicted women sharing in the financial decision nrtaking.
A Saturday Evening Post ad for Bankers Supply Company included an
illustration of a man showing a woman how to balance a checkbook.
A Time ad read, "This information... will help any man or woman . . .
get ahead financially." Yet another ad read, "Her father showed
them the way to safety and 7%." A young blond woman bends her
head close to her balding father as her husband looks on in this ad for
the F.H. Smith Company. In an ad for Henry L. Doherty & Co.
investment house, a wife sits at a desk poring over a ledger ntarked
"budget" as her husband leans over her shoulder. The copy explained
that the key to financial success was to save m o n e y C l e a r l y these
ads reinforced the idea that women were financially dependent on
men, needing male guidance and advice in their financial decisions.
However, these women were being shown as active participants in
the decision-making process, a considerable improvement over being