Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds : Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR / Diana Cucuz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cucuz, Diana, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consumption (Economics)--United States--History--20th century.

Consumption (Economics).

Cultural diplomacy--United States--History--20th century.

Cultural diplomacy.

Popular literature--United States--History and criticism.

Popular literature.

Propaganda, American--Soviet Union--History--20th century.

Propaganda, American.

Women consumers--United States--History--20th century.

Women consumers.

Women--Soviet Union--Social conditions.

Women.

Women's periodicals, American--History--20th century.

Women's periodicals, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (336 p.) : 39 b&w illustrations, 3 b&w tables

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Throughout the Cold War, Russian citizens had limited access to US life and culture. Amerika, a glossy Russian-language magazine similar to Life, provided a rare exception. Produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA), America’s first peacetime propaganda organization, Amerika was used to influence Russians, and convince women in particular that an American-style consumer culture and conservative gender norms could better their lives. Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds relies on USIA archives, issues of Amerika, and American women’s magazines such as the Ladies’ Home Journal to show how, during the postwar period, USIA officials deployed idealized images of American women as happy, fulfilled, and feminine wives, mothers, and homemakers. This study analyses how Amerika was used to appeal to Russian women. Portrayed in the US media as "babushkas," they were considered unfeminine, overworked, and deprived of consumer goods and services by a repressive regime. Diana Cucuz provides a gendered analysis of the USIA and of Amerika, whose propaganda campaign relied heavily on postwar conservative gender norms and images of domestic contentment to convey positive messages about the American way of life in the hopes of undermining that Soviet regime. Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds sheds light on the significance of women, gender, and consumption to international politics during the Cold War.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Figures and Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why Women, Cold War Cultural Diplomacy, and Amerika?

PART ONE Shaping Women, Gender, and the Communist Threat through the Ladies’ Home Journal

Chapter One. The “Modern Woman”: The “Special Privileges” of American Womanhood in the Ladies’ Home Journal

Chapter Two. The “Babushka”: The “Special Hardships” of Russian Womanhood in the Ladies’ Home Journal

PART TWO Selling Women, Gender, and Consumer Culture through Amerika

Chapter Three. Selling the American Way Abroad: The Beginnings of Cold War Cultural Diplomacy in the Soviet Union

Chapter Four. Modelling the American Dream: Fashion and Femininity in Amerika

Chapter Five. Living the American Dream: The Happy Homemaker in Amerika

Chapter Six. Amerika, USSR, and a Woman’s Proper Place in the 1960s

Conclusion: Assessing Amerika’s Effectiveness: Soviet Promises for the Future and Its Failures

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Feb 2023)

ISBN:

9781487518721