Selling the Mechanized Household to Black America: Race and Gender in Domestic Technology Advertising, 1945-1980

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dc.contributor.authorBlanchette, Emily Elizabethen
dc.contributor.committeechairAbbate, Janet E.en
dc.contributor.committeememberLa Berge, Ann F.en
dc.contributor.committeememberBrown, Shannon A.en
dc.contributor.departmentScience and Technology Studiesen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:31:14Zen
dc.date.adate2011-02-16en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:31:14Zen
dc.date.issued2011-01-20en
dc.date.rdate2011-02-16en
dc.date.sdate2011-01-31en
dc.description.abstractIn the twentieth century, the target market for household technologies was identified and labeled "Mrs. Consumer," and the lifestyle, values, and ideals attributed to her guided household technology marketing throughout the century. Bonnie Fox conducted an investigation into household technology marketing techniques, using advertisements in Ladies Home Journal (LHJ) as her source material. I argue here that, because of the homogenous, mostly-white readership of LHJ, Fox's use of only LHJ advertisements limited some of the conclusions she could draw about Mrs. Consumer's lifestyle, values, and ideals. This thesis studies household technology advertisements in Ebony magazine and current literature about the black American experience to identify the impact of including race in the evaluation of household technology advertising in twentieth century America. In particular, this thesis addresses Mrs. Consumer's extensibility across race; Ebony's household technology advertisements' treatment of segregation, integration, assimilation, and racial pride; and those advertisements' handling of the public opinion that the twentieth century American black family structure was "pathological." This research identifies similarities and differences between the advertisement practices in Ebony and LHJ in those areas of interest, concluding that the black American housewife's home experience was more likely to be divergent from Mrs. Consumer's attributed reality and that Ebony's advertisers tended toward the aspirational when modeling and scripting household technology advertisements.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-01312011-141553en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-01312011-141553/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/31091en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartBlanchette_EE_T_2011.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectdomestic technologyen
dc.subjecthousehold laboren
dc.subjectblack family structureen
dc.subjectrace in advertisingen
dc.titleSelling the Mechanized Household to Black America: Race and Gender in Domestic Technology Advertising, 1945-1980en
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineScience and Technology Studiesen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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