Event Title

Depictions of the American Woman in 1950s Food Advertising

Location

Diamond 146

Start Date

30-4-2015 2:30 PM

End Date

30-4-2015 3:25 PM

Project Type

Presentation- Restricted to Campus Access

Description

Women of the 1950s lived in a time of great social change. As World War II ended men returned home to enter the working world and women were asked to return to the kitchen. Often with little prior cooking experience and a growing pressure to please their new husbands and growing families, women where faced with doubts advertisers were quick to exploit. A time of ever increasing paradoxes, advertising touted packaged, canned, and frozen food to save time to allow women to work or do other activities outside the home, yet still usually depicted women at home. What visual devices did advertisers use to resolve such paradoxes? What logic did companies use in the creation of their ads and their depictions of women? This presentation will explore these questions by analyzing depictions of the American woman in 1950s food advertising and the historical background of the era they came from.

Faculty Sponsor

Veronique Plesch

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Art Dept.

CLAS Field of Study

Humanities

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

939

Share

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Apr 30th, 2:30 PM Apr 30th, 3:25 PM

Depictions of the American Woman in 1950s Food Advertising

Diamond 146

Women of the 1950s lived in a time of great social change. As World War II ended men returned home to enter the working world and women were asked to return to the kitchen. Often with little prior cooking experience and a growing pressure to please their new husbands and growing families, women where faced with doubts advertisers were quick to exploit. A time of ever increasing paradoxes, advertising touted packaged, canned, and frozen food to save time to allow women to work or do other activities outside the home, yet still usually depicted women at home. What visual devices did advertisers use to resolve such paradoxes? What logic did companies use in the creation of their ads and their depictions of women? This presentation will explore these questions by analyzing depictions of the American woman in 1950s food advertising and the historical background of the era they came from.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/419