eight pages due by 48 hurs
a woman’s place is in front of the television
modernity’s new technologies affect urban living
Yiddish radio helps Jewish immigrants to American transition into a new way of life while feeling connected to their culture back in the “old country.”
-the Victorian Era is named after the period of Queen Victoria’s reign over the
British Empire from 1837-1901.
-the American Victorian era is marked by strict divisions. most notably divisions
between men and women: the male sphere included wage work and politics, while the
female sphere involved childrearing and domestic work.
-industrialized urban life and quiet suburban and frontier life was another division.
-in America, Victorian style and culture is most prominent in New England and the
deep south.
-there’s a move away from reason toward romanticism.
-the era is defined by great social change and a desire by some to resist these
changes.
Anthony Comstock (1844-1915)
-founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
-in 1873 convinced the U.S. Government to enact the Comstock Law, prohibiting the delivery of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material via the U.S. Postal Service.
Anthony Comstock (1844-1915)
-founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
-in 1873 convinced the U.S. Government to enact the Comstock Law, prohibiting the delivery of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material via the U.S. Postal Service.
Anthony Comstock (1844-1915)
-founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
-in 1873 convinced the U.S. Government to enact the Comstock Law, prohibiting the delivery of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material via the U.S. Postal Service.
Stella Browne (1880-1955) Margaret Sanger (1879-1966)
-Sanger was a sex educator and a birth control activist. -in 1916 opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in New York City, which eventually became Planned Parenthood. -her educational literature was banned and persecuted under the Comstock Law.
-Browne was also a birth control advocate and fought for the idea that women should have the same sexual freedoms as men.
Catharine Beecher (1800-1878)
-religious moralist who exploited scripture to argued that the sanctity of femininity was to be found in the home and
accommodating to their husband’s needs.
-founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823.
-protested against Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Bill in 1829.
-campaigned for more schools and teachers in the frontier.
-was an anti-suffragist who believed that women shouldn’t be spoiled by politics, but should better mankind through
teaching and mothering.
-author of A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) and American Woman’s Home (1869).
A Treatise on Domestic Economy
Catharine Beecher: “the principles of democracy ... are identical with the principles of Christianity.”
-“it is needful…that certain relations be sustained, that involve the duties of subordination. there must be a
magistrate and the subject...there must be relations of husband and wife, parent and child…the superior in
certain particulars is to direct, and the inferior is to yield obedience.”
-work (outside world) = husband.
-home (inside world) = wife.
“chaotic” urban life
-Victorian ideology pit “peaceful” suburban living against “sinful” urban “chaos.”
“peaceful” suburban life
“chaotic” urban life
Thomas Jefferson’s country house at Monticello
Thomas Jefferson’s country house at Monticello
Jefferson: “those who labor to the earth are the chosen people of God.”
-“let the work-shops remain in Europe.”
-the development of suburban ideas were based on the religious founding notion of Jefferson that America should be based on agrarian landownership.
1885
1896
1883 -ladies’ magazines that spoke of the latest fashions in interior décor and extolled the new machines that promised the comfortable life in the modern era.
1885
1896
1883 -the buying power needed to fuel this suburban lifestyle required a shifting of priorities for the housewife—from worshiping at the altar of God, to worshiping at the altar of commodities.
manuals touting the advantages of replacing the family piano with a photograph in 1929: “in very many homes supported on an income of no more than $2,500 the very first outlay beyond necessities is for a piano. and in some miraculous manner they learn to play it, at least for dance music and to accompany singing. a phonograph is second choice, or it may come first in those families whose members do not easily learn to play an instrument, and they can both sing and dance to its accompaniment."
What Television was like in 1939: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=49&v=wj_Mcpff-Ks
-the “phantom receiver” shown at the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens.
-it was transparent to show viewers that they weren’t seeing some kind of illusion.
How TV Worked in the 1950s (watch until 8:12): https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=290&v=KqROUu8fcrg
American homes with TV:
1946: .02% 1950: 9% 1955: 65%
Nick Brown: “the position of the programs in the television schedule reflects and is determined by the work-structured order of the real social world. the patterns of position and flow imply the question of who is home, and through complicated social relays and temporal mediations, link television to the modes, processes, and scheduling of production characteristic of the general population.”
Nick Brown: “the position of the programs in the television schedule reflects and is determined by the work-structured order of the real social world. the patterns of position and flow imply the question of who is home, and through complicated social relays and temporal mediations, link television to the modes, processes, and scheduling of production characteristic of the general population.”
the upstart television station that experimented with daytime television programing aimed at women.
-when commenting on the slate of daytime television programing that Dumont was going to offer, one of the station’s executives told Newsweek, “it's a good thing electric dishwashers and washing machines were invented. the housewives will need them."
the upstart television station that experimented with daytime television programing aimed at women.
-when commenting on the slate of daytime television programing that Dumont was going to offer, one of the station’s executives told Newsweek, “it's a good thing electric dishwashers and washing machines were invented. the housewives will need them."
-the soap’s announcer instructed housewives with this warning: “don't stop whatever you're doing. when we think we have something interesting i'll blow this whistle or Pat will ring her bell.”
Tillie Olson: “more than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptable, responsive, responsible…it is distraction, not mediation, that becomes habitual; interruption, not continuity; spasmodic, not constant toil.”
-the soap’s announcer instructed housewives with this warning: “don't stop whatever you're doing. when we think we have something interesting i'll blow this whistle or Pat will ring her bell.”
Faraway Hill
-America’s first televised soap opera, debuted in 1946.
the upstart television station that experimented with daytime television programing aimed at women.
Search for Tomorrow- August 19, 1953 (watch until 11:51): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPuElKKMZWE
Raymond Williams: “the fact of flow…defines the central television experience.”
Raymond Williams: “the fact of flow…defines the central television experience.”
Nancy Chodorow: “women’s activities in the home involve continuous connection and concern about children and attunement to adult masculine needs, both of which require connection to, rather than separateness from, others. the work of maintenance and reproduction is…repetitive and routine…and does not involve specified sequence or progression. by contrast, work in the labor force—“men’s work”—is more likely to be contractual, to be more specifically delimited and to contain a notion of defined progression and product.”
wife: “why didn’t you tell me you liked Stove-Top Stuffing with chicken?”
husband: “you never asked me.”
-daytime television gameshows like Match Game, Card Sharks, and Password emphasize guessing the answers to the clues based on common knowledge, mimicking the ways in which a housewife must anticipate her husband’s needs.
Password Classic: A Hysterical Game (watch until 2:35): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwfpkiLDVmA
Gold Medal Flour Commercial (1962): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGeSUqexlc
Folgers Coffee Sexist 60’s Ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjjkgIO3Ck
Vintage 1950’s Tide Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B6qr5veR2Q
1960’s TV Commercial for “Tab”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXu3zTqlY_Q
“TV or Not TV,” The Honeymooners, 1955: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Zd_m6oUHRykyME8U02oThk4puyMBWZy/view?usp=sharing