The American Family As Portrayed in Ladies Home Journal 1950-1959 Nancy Patton Mills
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2006 Portraits Through the Lens of Historicity: The American Family as Portrayed in Ladies Home Journal 1950-1959 Nancy Patton Mills Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Mills, N. (2006). Portraits Through the Lens of Historicity: The American Family as Portrayed in Ladies Home Journal 1950-1959 (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/934 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Portraits Through the Lens of Historicity: The American Family as Portrayed in Ladies’ Home Journal 1950-1959” Presented to the Faculty of the Communication and Rhetorical Studies Department McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Nancy Patton Mills June 12, 2006 ii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the help from my committee: Chair, Dr. Janie Harden Fritz; and readers Dr. Calvin Troup and Dr. Kathleen Roberts. In addition, a special thank you to Dr. Ronald Arnett, who encouraged and supported me through my academic studies. The idea of returning to college as an adult requires the support and cooperation of every member of the family, and my completion of this degree was not only confirmed but encouraged by my husband, Richard Mills, who shared my extended responsibilities and made it possible for me to achieve this goal. Also, I thank my son Richard who attended Duquesne University and completed his Doctor of Philosophy in the same program and on the same day. Together, we struggled with dissertations and obligations and made education an exciting and intellectually challenging commitment. I want to thank my son Russell and my daughter Nancy for understanding my need to write papers, meet deadlines, and attend classes rather than watch grand-children. There were many times that I would have chosen the latter. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my mother who did not have benefit of a higher education but achieved more success than most by being diligent, loyal, and committed to the idea of a life time of learning and enrichment. She “paved the way” for many women who followed in her footsteps. iii Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction........................................................................................................ 1 Chapter II: Communication Paradigms and Theories and Historical Meanings in Autobiographies and Biographies..................................................................................... 22 Communications Paradigms and Theories................................................................................ 23 Martin Buber: “The Between” and “Inclusion and Exclusion ”............................................ 23 Seyla Benhabib: “Conversational Model” and “Standpoint of the Other” ........................... 27 Mikhail Bakhtin: “Theory of Dialogism”............................................................................. 30 Peter Berger: “Social Constructionist Theory”..................................................................... 36 Calvin Schrag: “Communicative Praxis” ............................................................................. 42 Authorial Intent, Authenticity, and Horizon of Subjectivity..................................................... 44 Embeddedness and Shared Meaning .................................................................................... 52 Cultural Discourses and the Self in a Postmodern Culture................................................... 57 Chapter III: Women’s Magazines and their Influence on the American Family.............. 61 Women’s Magazines Prewar and Postwar................................................................................ 61 Women’s magazines and consumerism .................................................................................... 65 Women’s magazines and domesticity....................................................................................... 69 Sociologists, psychologists, and other experts.......................................................................... 74 Women’s magazines and femininity......................................................................................... 77 Chapter IV: Portrayal and Impact on the American Family............................................ 83 Rhetorical Hermeneutics and the 1950s.................................................................................... 83 iv Portrayal of the American Family............................................................................................. 85 Impact on American Family...................................................................................................... 91 Suburbanization and the Postwar Economic Boom.................................................................. 93 Language: Effects on The 1950s American Homemaker ....................................................... 103 Chapter V: The Magazine Families: Part I: 1950-1954.................................................. 106 January to December, 1950: "Rocky King Detective" and "It's a Wonderful Life” ............... 114 January to December, 1951: "A Second Call of Duty" and "The Family Asks for Help”...... 121 January to December 1952: "Stevenson vs. Eisenhower" and "The Stage is Set for Love”... 125 January to December, 1953: "Homemakers and the Abortion Dilemma" and "The Levittowners”................................................................................................................. 131 January to December, 1954: "Spies, Fiberglas, and Paris Fashions”...................................... 140 Chapter V: The Magazine Families: Part II: 1955-1959 ................................................ 146 January to December, 1955: "Missionaries" and "Playwrights”............................................. 146 January to December, 1956: "Transients" and "Extended Family Needed” ........................... 152 January to December, 1957: "Turning the Corner" and "Mother has a Role” ........................ 155 January to December, 1958: "Billy Graham and the Beaver", "Mother is a Doctor" and "Juvenile Delinquency”.................................................................................................. 158 January to December, 1959: "Wither Thou Goest" and "The Unwed Mother”...................... 167 Chapter VI: Conclusion .................................................................................................. 170 Appendix: “How America Lives” 1950-1959 ................................................................ 192 v Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 265 vi Abstract The problems associated with communication and the American family have often been the subject of academic research projects. The 1950s family is unique and offers the researcher a complex web of interwoven narratives and situational hermeneutics that have affected the American family. In an attempt to understand what was happening in the 1950s, it is imperative that an understanding of the historical moment and its significance be explored. This dissertation examines the American family through the lens of several interpersonal communication paradigms and theories to generate a conceptual framework for understanding the “story” of the family told through its communicative structure as expressed in historical documents and artifacts and in portrayals in Ladies’ Home Journal . These paradigms will help explain the narrative of the family: “Portraits through the Lens of Historicity: The American Family as Portrayed in Ladies Home Jounal 1950-1959. The magazine’s series “How America Lives” appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal from 1940-1960; this thesis looks at all of the articles from 1950-1959. The interpersonal theories of Martin Buber, Seyla Benhabib, and Mikhail Bakhtin help to interpret the information derived from the artifact. This conceptual framework provides the key for the interpretive methodology of the dissertation, which is a textual analysis employing terms drawn from interpersonal theory. In addition, the social constructionist approach to rhetoric and philosophy will be explained and incorporated into the study. Peter Berger, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida, Edmund Husserl, and Martin vii Heidegger join the conversation to help explain the complexities of the 1950s and the American family. Special emphasis is given to the 1950s family and how they were influenced and persuaded by the popular media including television, and most importantly, the contributions from women’s magazines. The work of Nancy Walker is continued by exploring the indepth and multilayered conversation of the “real American family, as depicted in Ladies’ Home Journal, with the magazine’s readers and the magazine’s editors. This dissertation concludes by offering suggestions on how the 1950s American family may be interpreted by considering all facets of American culture, including the postwar era, the cold war, and the creation of the nuclear family situated and