The New Yorker, October 16th, 1943; p.58
This wartime Pennsylvania Railroad ad is a nice depiction of the efforts on the home front. The woman is wearing masculine clothes, an overall, a flannel shirt and work gloves while at the same time covering her hair with a bandana that matches the colors of her shirt. She shoulders some heavy looking tools and compared to other women in advertisements that I came across during my research, her features seem almost masculine. This ambiguity is also reflected in the ad’s caption “Meet MRS. Casey Jones” that capitalizes the address and presents us the woman on the picture via her husband’s name. The following text seems to be aiming at raising awareness and appreciation of working women. With many of the men gone to war, the increased demand of work force to keep the country’s economy going caused women to enter economic life in all fields – even the ones that were considered unfeminine at the time. The text below the picture advocates for women working in every job and emphasizes their capability to do so (“she is doing scores of different jobs…and doing them well”). During the war, the railroad companies had larger profits than ever due to the jobs done for the government and they needed the women to be able to satisfy the demand. The ad that also asks readers to buy war bonds is an appeal to Americans’ morale to support the war with every possible means and shows the unified efforts of American society. Women are accepted as equal in the working environment even though the ad mentions that this is unusual (“You will find these women, not merely in expected places, such as offices…”) stating that there was indeed a female work sphere in which women were to be expected.
"See what a G-E Upright Freezer will do for your family"
Life, July 12th, 1954;p.62https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/jcohencole/web/Cold-War-Media/LIFE%2012July1954%20p.62.jpg?uniq=y5jpm9
A decade later, the depiction of women at work is a whole different one. The sphere that is now (re-)assigned to them is the domestic sphere. I chose this ad to contrast the depiction of women in their working environment because it shows society’s expectations that women were supposed to fulfill in the 50s. The husband has returned from war and reclaimed his role as the bread owner providing for his family. The woman is depicted to be very feminine, always wearing dresses and heels, while organizing family life. Prosperity has made life easier with the fridge being a symbol for the technological innovations of the time and a second income is not necessarily needed anymore, excluding women from “unusual” jobs. The gender roles are fortified by the baby boom and the emergence of suburban life. Women’s role is to care for the family which becomes a shelter for democratic thought in times of the Cold War. With the change from hot to cold war, the home front for women changes as well from fighting the enemy with a hands-on approach to establishing an ideological fortress within the family. This development mostly restricts them to the domestic sphere which could be seen as their work sphere at that time as the majority of white middle class women was expected to take care of the family’s home.
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