The Revolution

During the 1950’s there are numerous themes that are explored in Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Such themes as the baby boom, hygiene, sex, bomb shelters, and marriage are some of the major examples. These particular themes and ideas can be seen in high volume through magazines, political cartoons, and advertisements especially during the 1950’s.

Hygiene related advertisements were some of the many that I kept seeing over and over while looking through Life magazine. One in particular that caught my eye was a Colgate dental cream ad.Life It has a mother, son, and dentist all in it. The mother is applying the cream to the toothbrush of the son and the dentist is shown in another picture holding up an x-ray of perfectly healthy and un-decayed molars. The message behind the Colgate dental cream is the push for proper healthy hygiene during the 1950’s. The audience for this ad is directed toward mothers or homemakers. During the 1950’s it was the responsibility of the mother to teach and provide their children of the importance of good hygiene. The mother applying the toothpaste to her sons’ toothbrush with a big pearly white smile symbolizes the effectiveness of the product as well as the significance of the homemaker to teach her children proper hygiene. Also the picture of the dentist holding up the x-ray of the back molars having no tooth decay symbolizes the effectiveness of the product as well as the back up needed to solidify the products success.

“In 1951, for example, Charles Walter Clarke, a Harvard physician and executive director of the American Social Hygiene Association, published a major article in the Journal of Social Hygiene on the dangers of atomic attack. “Following an atomic bomb explosion,” he wrote, “families would become separated and lost from each other in confusion. Supports of normal family and community life would be broken down…there would develop among many people, especially youths…the reckless psychological state often seen following great disasters.” This wording seen in Tyler Mays, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era supports that the theme in the US during the 1950’s was to have and strive for good social hygiene. This advertisement would draw attention to its readers by the promotion and benefits that it offers. This particular advertisement and quote from Homeward Bound says a lot about the 1950’s. It shows how the theme of the US during the Cold War was to have good hygiene and done so because of the fear of getting bombed by the Russians. It also fit in with the theme of having a caring loving homemaker.

In the General Electric Refrigerator-Food Freezer Combination advertisement there is a picture of the actual fridge combo itself with doors open in a kitchen. Holding the doors open is what presumably looks like a pleased homemaker. The fridge and freezer are both packed full of food and beverages and the countertop is as well covered with food. The food on the countertop has arrows pointing to where it would fit so perfectly into the fridge space. Underneath all this is a cartoon style diagram explaining all the benefits of the General Electric Refrigerator-Food Freezer combination.Life

The message behind this advertisement is to promote the importance of having a secure, abundant family life in a modern “model” home. In the 1950’s this secure abundant family was made up of a successful content breadwinner, a happy full time homemaker, and obedient children. The audience for this advertisement is both mothers and fathers. Fathers will see this as what his “model” home should be supplied with, and mothers should see this advertisement as an appliance that will make her homemaker life easier. The symbolism used here is the satisfied, happy homemaker displaying the many advantages of her new modern day fridge-freezer combo.

During the 1950’s, a time of the atomic-age, American superiority rested highly on the ideal of the suburban home. A very large part of that was to solidify that every “model” home have a male breadwinner and a full-time female homemaker, decorated with a wide array of consumer goods, which represented the essence of American freedom. This played in highly with the “kitchen debate” where Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev fought the Cold War over a commodity gap rather than the missile gap. Nixon fought that American superiority rested on the importance of a secure suburban home, complete with modern appliances and distinct gender roles