Feminine Modernity and the Feminine Imagination in Women’S Magazines, 1919-1939
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“They Opened Up a Whole New World”: Feminine Modernity and the Feminine Imagination in Women’s Magazines, 1919-1939 by Fiona Anne Seaton Hackney A thesis submitted to the University of London in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Goldsmith’s College December 2010 Abstract “They opened up a whole new world”, or something like it, was a phrase I heard repeatedly when I spoke to women about their memories of magazine reading in the interwar years. How the magazine operated as an imaginative window, a frame, space or mirror for encountering, shaping, negotiating, rethinking, rejecting, mocking, enjoying, the self and others became the central question driving this thesis. The expansion of domestic ‘service’ magazines in the 1920s responded to and developed a new female readership amongst the middle classes and working-class women, preparing the way for high-selling mass-market publications. The multiple models of modern womanhood envisaged in magazines, meanwhile, from the shocking ‘lipstick girl’ of the mid-1920s to the 1930s ‘housewife heroine’, show that what being a woman and modern in the period meant was far from settled, changed over time and differed according to a magazine’s ethos and target readership. In a period that witnessed the introduction of the franchise for women, divorce legislation, birth control, the companionate marriage, cheap mortgages, a marriage bar in the workplace, growth in the number of single women and panic over population decline, amongst other things, magazines helped resolve tensions, set new patterns of behaviour and expectations. This thesis, which examines the magazine as a material artefact produced in a specific historical context, argues that its complex ‘environment’ of coloured pictures, inserts, instructional photographs, escapist fiction, chatty editorial and advertising opened women up to conscious and unconscious desires to be a sports woman, a worker, a mother, a lover, or to look like their favourite film star; a ‘window’, that is, through which women without the benefit of £500 a year and a ‘room of their own’ could gaze and imagine themselves, their lives and those of their families, differently. Thanks First and foremost, thanks go to my supervisor Sally Alexander whose insight, intelligence, and sheer love of history has been a constant inspiration. The most generous of supervisors, Sally is also a stern critic; a rare gift much appreciated, and one that will not be forgotten. Secondly, thanks go to my partner Jonathan Glynne and our children Laurie and Fred for their endless patience and support. They bore the brunt of the time and effort that this project demanded, and it could not have been completed without them. I would also like to thank my colleagues at University College Falmouth and in the wider academic community whose publications, papers and discussion have fed and nurtured my ideas; Deborah Sugg Ryan, Kath Holden and the Women’s History Network, Pat Collier, Ann Ardis, Maria di Cenzo and the Transatlantic Print Culture group, Cathy Clay, the Middlebrow Network, Gen Doy and colleagues at De Montfort University, Carol Tulloch and Linda Sandino at the V&A/RCA, are just a few names I could mention. Last, but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to Chris Truran for being so ready to lend a hand in an emergency, and Gemma Richards who patiently formatted my text and illustrations. I will end with my young son’s shocked response when I told him I was going to be a doctor. “No mum”, he replied, “you can’t be a doctor, you’ll have to be a nurse!”; fitting commentary, I feel, on the dilemmas of femininity, which remain as urgent for us today as they did for women seventy years ago. Table of Contents Title Page 1 Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Thanks 4 Table of Contents 5 Table of Illustrations 10 Chapter 1: Introduction: ‘This Wonderful World’: Modernity is Different for Women 17 Introduction: Feminine Modernity and Being Independently Feminine Working with Women’s Magazines: a Methodology Conservative, Suburban, Domestic and Feminine Modernity Manuals of Modernity: Selected Magazines Conclusion: Modern Subjects Chapter 2: ‘The Woman’s Point of View’: The Woman’s Press, Advertising and Thinking Visually 49 Introduction: A Common Culture: The Modern Feminine Press ‘Of Course the Woman Journalist is Wanted’: The Modern Woman Journalist and the Commercial Women’s Press Understanding the Female Consumer: Women in Advertising ‘Mr. Typical, Mrs. Housewife and the Needmuch Children’: Selling Audiences to Advertisers ‘Selling the Page’: The Drama of Visual Consumption Conclusion: The Land of Dream Come True Chapter 3: Reading the Readers: Memory, Narrative and Text 106 Introduction: ‘They’re Bright and Easy Reading, and You Can Find out Lots of Useful Things’: Reading Practices and the New Female Reader Rebellion and Realistic Escape: ‘A Little Treat Every Week’ ‘A Good Lesson in Life’: Learning to be a (Modern) Woman ‘A Nice Little Book’: Class and Cultural Values ‘These Were the Things we Bought and Used’: Materialising Modern Femininities Conclusion: It ‘Supplied my Needs’ Chapter 4: ‘The Science of Teaching People How to Live’: Housewifery, Homecraft and the Housewife Heroine 134 Introduction: Modern Homes for Modern Women From Domestic Servant to Housewife Heroine ‘The Beauty of the House in Order’: Cleanliness and Housewifery ‘A Factory of Private Illusions and a Catalogue of Ready-Made Tastes, Values and Ideas’: Interior Design, Decoration and Homecrafts Conclusion: Homes Fit For Heroines Chapter 5: Bachelor Girls, Career Women and Working Wives: Jobs for Modern Woman 172 Introduction: The Field of Feminine Industry ‘A Room of Her Own with a Nice Desk and many Advantages as Regards Comfort’: Jobs for Women Bachelor Girls, Career Professionals and Nervous Women: Single Working Women ‘Career into Marriage?’: The Working Wife and the Bachelor Woman Conclusion: Adventurous Women Chapter 6: ‘Natural’ and ‘Unnatural’ Types: Performing Modern Femininity through Cosmetic Practice and Display 213 Introduction: A Migration to Surfaces Personality is Only Skin Deep: Beauty Editorials, Types and Transformations White Skin/Red Lips. Naturalising Artifice: Sexuality, Respectability and Social Display ‘Natural’ and ‘Unnatural’ Bodies: Beauty, Health and Bifurcated Garments Conclusion: ‘I’m Going to Make the Best of Myself!’ Chapter 7: Agony and Ecstasy: Sex, Romance and the Problem Page 257 Introduction: A Mentality of Modernity ‘A Friend in Need’: Agony Aunts and the Modern Problem Page ‘From One Woman to Another’: Leonora Eyles, Feminism and the Autonomous Woman ‘Your Unseen Friend’: Agony and Romantic Pragmatism in the 1930s A Far Cry from Havelock Ellis, Freud and Jung? The New Realism in Romantic Fiction Conclusion: ‘A Level Headed and Normal Idea of Sex and Sex Morality’ Chapter 8: Conclusion: Magazines and the Feminine Imagination 295 Woman as News: ‘A Few Moments Idle Phantasy’ Conclusion: ‘The Political Equivalent of a Man’: ‘A Kind of Rose Pink Feminism’ Illustrations: 308 Bibliography: 356 Appendix 1: Women’s Magazines Published in the Interwar Period 401 Appendix 2: Readers Spreadsheet 403 Illustrations • “Women as News”. Home Chat 10.04.1924 pp. 119-120. • “Kotex Sanitary Pads make modern women care-free” ad. Home Chat 22.11.1929 p. 740. • “The Proof of the Pudding!” C. E. B. Home Chat 20.04.1929 p. 174. • “Woman: Where she stands today; What she had paid; was it worth it?” Margaret Lane. Woman 05.06.1937 p. 7. • “To Young Housewives only” advert. Home Chat 03.04.1924 p. 11. • “Gordon’s Gin is wonderful my dear – you try it!” ad. Home Chat 14.12.1934, p. 728. • ‘They Say’. Home Chat 08.11.1924, p. 371. • ‘They Say’. Home Chat 06.07.1929, p. 5. • Flapper at the wheel of a motor car. Home Chat 06.04.1929 (front cover). • Flappers with shopping and motor car. Modern Woman 11.1927 (front cover). • “My Dear Get a Car!” Isobel Graham. Home Chat 11.10.1924 p. 71. • “Next Week’s Free Pattern: Five Ways to Make it up”. Woman’s Weekly 02.07.1938 (front cover). • “Flowerlike!”. Woman’s Weekly 04.06.1938 (front cover). • ‘Woman’s Weekly Whispers’. Woman’s Weekly 09.03.1929 p. 871. • “The Right Clothes in a Side Car”. Woman’s Weekly 21.05. 1919. • “The Graceful Way”. Woman’s Weekly 23.08.1919 p. 185 • ‘Names that are News’. Modern Woman 08.1935 p. 9. • ‘This Wonderful World’. Modern Woman 07.1935 p. 15. • ‘Just talking’. Modern Woman 03.1939 p. 11. • “The Wildflower Teas Cosy”. Modern Woman 10.1935 (front cover). • “Rev. Dick Sheppard writes on a vital problem”. Modern Woman 08.1935 (front cover). • “Your New Hair Style”. Woman 18.09.1937 (front cover). • “Take Beauty to the Sea”. Woman 15.07.1937 (front cover). • “The Golden Age for Artists” Advert for The Practical Correspondence College. Eve 25.11.1920. • “Mabs and Maisie Darrell!”. Home Chat 09.02.1929 pp. 286-7. “Mabs Types”. Home Chat 12.07.1924 pp. 72-3. • “Cookery for the Beginner” Gladys Owen. Home Chat 08.04.1939 p. 103. • ‘What Shall I Do?: Mrs. Allister Will Help’. Modern Woman 07.1939 p. 30. • Leonora Eyles: ‘What Shall I Do? Woman’s Way and ‘Life and You’ Woman’s Own 24.04.1937 p. 46. • “Introducing Woman Experts”. Woman 05.06.1937 p. 4. • “General Office of the Advertising Department of a well-known Periodical” from ‘Advertising as a Career for Women’ Mrs. Ethel M. Wood. Modern Advertising 1925 p. 73. • “Making-Up’ Advertisement pages for a well-known Periodical” from ‘Advertising as a Career for Women’ Mrs. Ethel M. Wood. Modern Advertising 1925 p. 75. • “Daily Mirror Read by a million women daily” ad. The Newspaper Press Directory 1931 p. 306. • “Home Influence: Daily Mirror” ad. The Newspaper Press Directory 1934 p.