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Meals on a Budget

Advertising related to the challenges of maintaining a family on a tight budget.

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Meals on a Budget
A 1937, color magazine advertisement for Nucoa margarine featuring a young white girl using a rolling pin to flatten dough next to a bowl and stick of margarine. Below it are three typed paragraphs detailing the health and economic benefits of Hellmann’s new oleomargarine. Beneath it, a second illustration presents two muffins with tabs of margarine next to the yellow and blue Nucoa packaging.
Margarine Advertisement

“Nucoa Margarine Advertisement,” Life magazine, January 11, 1937. New-York Historical Society Library.

A 1937 color magazine advertisement for Campbell’s Soup illustrating four inviting bowls of steaming soup with the iconic red, white, and gold labels of the mushroom, pea, beef, and vegetable soup cans. Three typed paragraphs promote the health and fiscal benefits of Campbell's products, followed by a list of the 21 different available soup varieties.
Campbell’s Soup Advertisement

“Campbell’s Soup Advertisement,” Life magazine, February 22, 1937. New-York Historical Society Library.

A 1939, black and white photograph focusing on a wall with a Liberty Mills poster, illustrating different ways to reuse printed flour sack fabrics including making pillow cases, curtains, and clothing. Two patterned pillows lie on a cot below it.
Flour sacked in new printed fabrics

Lee Russell (photographer), Flour sacked in new printed fabrics. Chart above indicates various uses of the sacking. Migrant camp near Sebastian, Texas, Feb. 1939. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

Background

Although many married women entered the paid workforce during the Great Depression, most continued to focus solely on running the home. The new economy made managing a household budget more challenging than ever. Housewives needed to be thrif