Christmas Cheer Every Day in the Year
“Christmas Cheer Every Day of the Year,” Life Magazine, 1914. New-York Historical Society Library.
Background
By the early 1900s electric power was available in most middle-class homes. Relatively affordable new tools for cooking, cleaning, laundry, and sewing were available in department stores and through catalogs. In many homes, especially in the North, these new tools lessened the need for domestic workers. Domestic work was already seen as the lowest kind of work and there were virtually no labor advocates for domestic workers.
Technological advancements made completing domestic chores easier, but they also led to some negative impacts for women. Unemployment increased among domestic workers. Some middle-class housewives who previously enjoyed leisure time while their servants cared for the home were now expected to spend most of their time operating appliances. As a result, electrical appliance innovations resulted in many women spending more time taking care of their homes, not less.
About the Resources
This advertisement appeared in the national magazine Life. The text is aimed at women readers and invites them to share electric appliances with all their friends during the holiday season.
Vocabulary
- domestic workers: Paid employees who work in the home and do housework, including cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children.
Discussion Questions
- This ad is written for women readers. Why do you think that is? What does that tell us about the role of women in the US economy?
- What appliances are advertised and what do they do? Why would someone want this for their home?
- This ad suggests buying household appliances for women as Christmas gifts. What does this imply about the role of women and what they did with their time? How do you think women felt about receiving such gifts?
- The ad describes electricity as “the servant that is always at command.” What does that mean? How might these new inventions have changed the role of maids and other domestic workers?
Suggested Activities
- To help students understand why electric appliances were revolutionary, use Tools of the Trade and Home Improvements to investigate what doing laundry was like before the advent of the washing machine.
- Invite students to think about what housework looked and felt like across different households. Connect this advertisement to the course descriptions from the Agricultural College of Utah and the life story of Ellen Swallow Richards.
- Use this advertisement in conjunction with the article by Fannie Barrier Williams in the Chicago Defender to consider the experience of paid domestic workers in this era.
- Use this advertisement to learn about turn-of-the-century technology. Compare the appliances depicted to modern equivalents.
- To consider the impact and development of women’s domestic labor more broadly, pair this resource with any or all of the following resources:
Themes
DOMESTICITY AND FAMILY; SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND MEDICINE; WORK, LABOR, AND ECONOMY
