Women’s Clubs, Advertising & Wearing White Gloves

This morning I am revising an AEJMC conference paper that was called: “Mad Men and Reasonable Women: Selling Bras Rather Than Burning Them.”

I am focusing on how women were making some inroads in 1960s adverting in products aimed at women, arguing that the selling of lipstick or bras should not be looked at as “lesser than” the selling of other products especially at a time when there were limited areas for women to claim authority. For a framework, I am making a comparison of Mad Men’s Peggy to Helen Gurley Brown who was a successful advertising copywriter before her time at Cosmo. Jane Maas would be another example – she wrote a great book about that era.

I am concluding with the idea of re-considering Betty’s limited housewife role as she was also a clubwoman – an often ignored important role for women in communities.

It is the clubwomen and their work that was covered in the women’s pages of newspapers. In re-watching Mad Men episodes, I was struck by the white gloves of the 1960’s era. This led me to look back at some of my women’s page images. I noted that there were several images of the women’s pages journalists wearing hats and gloves, such as the above image of Marie Anderson and Dorothy Jurney – the one wearing the gloves in steamy Miami. Here is a link to Dorothy’s oral history.

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