Selling women's history : packaging feminism in twentieth-century American popular culture / Emily Westkaemper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Westkaemper, Emily, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Advertising.

Graphic arts.

Popular culture.

Popular Culture.

Women's studies.

Feminism--United States--History.

Feminism.

Women--United States--History.

Women.

History in advertising--United States--History.

History in advertising.

Women in advertising--United States--History.

Women in advertising.

History in popular culture--United States--History.

History in popular culture.

Women in popular culture--United States--History.

Women in popular culture.

Medical Subjects:

Popular Culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 pages) : illustrations, portraits

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Only in recent decades has the American academic profession taken women's history seriously. But the very concept of women's history has a much longer past, one that's intimately entwined with the development of American advertising and consumer culture. Selling Women's History reveals how, from the 1900s to the 1970s, popular culture helped teach Americans about the accomplishments of their foremothers, promoting an awareness of women's wide-ranging capabilities. On one hand, Emily Westkaemper examines how this was a marketing ploy, as Madison Avenue co-opted women's history to sell everything from Betsy Ross Red lipstick to Virginia Slims cigarettes. But she also shows how pioneering adwomen and female historians used consumer culture to publicize histories that were ignored elsewhere. Their feminist work challenged sexist assumptions about women's subordinate roles. Assessing a dazzling array of media, including soap operas, advertisements, films, magazines, calendars, and greeting cards, Selling Women's History offers a new perspective on how early- and mid-twentieth-century women saw themselves. Rather than presuming a drought of female agency between the first and second waves of American feminism, it reveals the subtle messages about women's empowerment that flooded the marketplace.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Martha Washington (Would Have) Shopped Here: Women's History in Magazines and Ephemera, 1910-1935

2. "The Quaker Girl Turns Modern": How Adwomen Promoted History, 1910-1940

3. Broadcasting Yesteryear: Women's History on Commercial Radio, 1930-1945

4. Gallant American Women: Feminist Historians and the Mass Media, 1935-1950

5. Betsy Ross Red Lipstick: Products as Artifacts and Inspiration, 1940-1950

6. "You've Come a Long Way, Baby": Women's History in Consumer Culture from World War II to Women's Liberation

Epilogue

Notes

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 04. Sep 2019)

ISBN:

9780813576350

0813576350

9780813576343

0813576342

OCLC:

965828519