CONTENT OF WOMEN’S MAGAZINES

Today I reviewed my late mother’s copy of The November 1949 issue of Good Housekeeping. It is 335 pages with literally hundreds of ads, especially for many marvelous new products in the postwar world. There are dozens of features and articles including five short stories, poetry and a crossword puzzle.

Some of the more amusing titles include “Men Like Flannelette, Too,” “The Unpopular Daughter,” “The Right way to Use a Clothes Drier,” and “Hot Toast Coming Up.” There is a piece about inadequate high schools which produce too many dropouts and a two-page spread from Ponds face cream with the headline “Another woman [is] within you, unseen but beautiful.” Obviously, some things never change.

Despite broad coverage of topics dear to the heart of every 1949 housewife, I could not find one mention of dieting or weight loss. However, a feature article on Undulant Fever forbids the consumption of raw milk to avoid thus dangerous malady.

In the Keep Up With Medicine segment, I found this gem:

Psychiatrists are exploring new avenues in their search for technics that will cause mentally disturbed people to reveal the basis of their difficulties. A new technic is the utilization of ceramics in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with suicidal tendencies. Making designs in pottery and sculpture subdues the patient’s excitement, gives him emotional control and satisfaction, and helps him project his unconscious desires. Working on ceramics serves to “drain off feelings of aggression or atonement for feelings of guilt.” (Maybe some people on this site could use a ceramics class?)

I leave you with part of an editorial about the complaints 1949 women have about men (There was reference to a previous effort to let men have their say about women).

The thing about men that seems to annoy all women is their fingernails. They don’t like the way men don’t take care of them. They are also depressed by the way men wear their desiccated ants that look like family heirlooms and then complain about the hats women wear. Maybe men do get their shoes shined, our girls rail, but why do they wear black shoes with a brown suit? It’s all right for men to complain about women’s being late, but why do they occupy the bathroom exclusively until ten minutes before a date? A man will spend time and money to have a suit made to order and then fill the pockets with cigarettes, matchbooks, note pads, pens, pencils, pamphlets, old letters, keys, wallets stuffed with cards that should be disposed of, and wadded-up handkerchiefs, so he gives the general impression of a stuffed potato sack. Why do men decide to put up a coat hook five minutes before company is due, and have to have twenty assorted tools to accomplish this project? And why do they leave the tools in the middle of the floor when they finish? ladies are somewhat dissatisfied about the way men establish a routine for getting their hair cut instead of getting it cut when it needs it. And as for men who don’t shave when they should, they are beyond the pale. Men who don’t open doors for their ladies and men who let a girl get off a bus or trolley first deserve the universal ire, and women are pretty tired of men who seem to think that lighted cigarettes, cigars, and pipes won’t burn the furniture