To think many have a stereotyped idea of women in the 1050's?

[abacucat]

I have bought a copy of the magazine Housewife from 1950 at my local charity shop out of curiosity. It is really interesting. The articles include -

• recipes
• dressmaking instruction
• how to make a tea tray
• some funny stories
• poems to read aloud
• reviews of new published books
• an article about whether you should have a pram or get your toddler to walk - article recommends a pram and your toddler walking sometimes
• DIY - replacing a broken wall switch
• an article about the importance of doing things every day for yourself and not just being a mother and housewife
• gardening tips
• an article about bird watching
• things to see in London this month
• How shopping centres are planned by architects and planners
• A light hearted article about what to wear if you are serving on a committee

Some of these fit into our stereotype views of 1950's housewives, but some clearly don't. The magazine makes women who are housewives sound like they are capable women with lots of skills and interests.

It's about attitude then and now.

Whatalovelypear Yes I enjoyed reading a lot of the articles. Skipped the one though about how to make a tea tray cloth.

I made a drawn threadwork traycloth at school.

"People have a weird concept of the 1950s based on media. Women in my family always worked back then, had to as they were not wealthy." Same in my family! Both grans and all great grans worked! The notion of women not working after marriage was mainly mc upwards as they could afford it!

One gran worked 2 jobs! One in post office sorting office, one in a factory so she was working 12 hour days and also doing all the housework and organising the children. Great gran was retired at this point and 'watched the wean's'

Granpa lovely though he was didn't even know how to brew a cuppa! He also worked 2 jobs, 14 hour days AND did the local pools collection for a bit extra.

Other gran was a seamstress. She was able to work from home after having DC, as the DC got older they were set to work too! When they weren't at school. Cutting patterns, tacking hems etc inc the boys! My dad was better at sewing than my mum!

BUT as I've also said on other threads where a lazy husband is described as living in the 50's, the men then did a lot more too! Household items weren't thrown out as soon as they developed a fault, they were mended! They didn't "get a man in" they couldn't afford to. The house and garden maintenance (cleaning windows, maintaining brickwork, gutters etc, mowing, weeding, planting and growing plants - especially veggies) was done by the men, also painting and decorating (both grandparents seemed to always be 'doing up' one room or another), they also wouldn't have dreamed of leaving a mess from the DIY or whatever for their wives to clean up, nor would they have been so lazy as to not put dirty laundry in the hamper! They would also do "heavy jobs" like hoovering (I wondered about this until once as a teen trying to use my grans old Hoover which weighed a ton! Then it made sense) and carrying the heavy shopping, chopping wood/bringing in coal when real fires are still being used. They were grown adults and acted accordingly.

"Women did work in the 50s but they had jobs, not careers on the whole." Still true for most wc folk now to be fair.

"when in fact, women have far more stress, demands and pressure on them than ever." I think that's less to do with women having more opportunities and more to do with the fact that women are STILL doing the majority of childcare and housework as the men STILL refuse to do their full share!!

"I don't think that single parents are stigmatised nowadays." As someone who IS one and has been for 15 years I can assure you, it may not be as bad as it was but it IS still there - especially when dealing with govt departments!

But would you actually use a traycloth these days?

I grew up in a household where my DDad did all the laundry and ironing,thought nothing of running the vacuum cleaner around,and did the vast majority of the washing up. And he worked Monday to Friday,8am - 4pm as a telephone engineer. But,he wasn't very good at DIY or decorating. I can remember my DMum and I painting and wallpapering my bedroom when I was about 15.

Yes women always worked, but they didn't have careers, because they were paid way less than men, because, you know, women. And watching 'Back In Time For The Factory', you can see that the equal wages legislation coincides with the rise of both parents working, because instead of increasing women's wages, factories decreased men's.

Women now have supposed equality. But we all know that even if that is true pre-children, it all changes after - not just for employers, but for the parents too

@ChristmasFluff teaching is a career is it not? Obviously less women had careers but they still did.

I was born in 1951 and my DM worked evenings at a light bulb factory (packing?) when she was pregnant with me and after I was born. DF had a day job. Theirs was a traditional marriage as DM was a SAHM but my dad had to do his share of housework when he was there but he was crap at DIY and decorating so DM did that.

I have a similar magazine from the 1890s - very interesting!

Damn. I thought finally a thread on MN where I can show off use my knowledge of medieval social history. Oh well

My utterly awesome DMum had a high-flying career in the 1950s (in a role which is still not that common for women today)

She was utterly undomesticated, and in turn so am I. But my goodness she prized education and all her offspring did well in that sense

If you read the obits in local newspapers, you'll see that women always WOH, though it was common to have a break during the intensive child-producing years.

In the late 70's, I had a cookery class which included setting a tea tray. One of the requirement was a tray cloth and I had no idea what it was - my mum made one from an old white lace blouse for me to take!

Maybe I should make some!

The magazine sounds interesting to me!

I imagine people had tray cloths because trays were quite beautiful and special. I remember my grandparents having a pair of silver rimmed and handled trays with what must have been enammelled bases; and my mother had wooden handled ones which had beautiful patterns. I don't know what happened to them but I do rememver tray cloths.

I imagine people had tray cloths because trays were quite beautiful and special. or alternatively because the trays were old and scruffy and looked better covered with some embroidery or lace. Easy wipe-clean melamine trays weren't around in the 50s, so your tray was probably a beechwood one that you'd had for years, and was faded and stained.

In 1974 I made a tray cloth at school - age 7. Embroidery. Each afternoon the boys did football and the girls did sewing.

@ChristmasFluff teaching is a career is it not? Obviously less women had careers but they still did.

As a married woman progression would have been limited. My DM went back in 1967 and it was only allowed because there was a national shortage fo teachers.

@TruelyTruelyScrumptious my grandmother was a teacher from the mid 40s (she didn't fully retire until the 90s). She progressed to head teacher then school inspector and she used to advise on children's education.
She was a married woman with 2 children...

She was a married woman with 2 children...

It was regional though, you interviewed and worked for an education board pool who deployed you to a school. So that certainly wasn't the norm where my mother was, she also went on to be head in the 80s. But in the 1960s she went back when I was a baby and it was only because they had a change of stance due to a shortage.

In 1970 a male teacher earned more than a female one. The published salaries were different.

@TruelyTruelyScrumptious fair enough. We're in Scotland and she taught in a mix of state and private schools (plus children in Malaysia when she was travelling) so I suppose that could be quite different.
My dear old grandpa who died recently at the age of almost 97 often made the dinner. We used to say he was the original modern man

In 1970 a male teacher earned more than a female one. The published salaries were different

That doesn't surprise me at all.

Perhaps but it depends on whether or not you know or knew of any 1950s housewives.

I was born in the 1960s and remember my mother and grandmother being extremely capable and driven. Both worked before marriage (but of course had to give up work as the law didnt alliw married women to work). They then had to find an oulet for their considerable intellect and ability elsewhere, which, in my mother’s case, meant the library, learning all kinds of trades including electrics, plumbing and carpentry.

I think the general representation of housewives in the 1950s was based on a middle class lifestyle when for the vast majority, it was completrly different.

unobtainable if you were born in the 60s your mother would have been allowed to work. I don't remember any jobs at that time which were forbidden to married women.