Saturday, October 9, 2010

Talking Dirty: Housework 50s Style.

The common belief during the 1950s was that if a woman loved her husband and children she had only one way to show it : housework!

A woman's daily routine in the 1950s would look something like this:

1. Wake up around 6am to get dressed and apply make-up before your husband awakes.

2. Go to the kitchen and prepare a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and orange juice for the family.

3. Say goodbye to your husband and get the kids ready for school before starting on the night's dinner.

4.When dinner is prepared, run errands and tidy the house from top to bottom ( fluffing pillows, cleaning sinks and toilets, washing clothes etc).

5. Go to the bedroom and change again, freshening up your makeup for your darling husband. Tidy the children up and wait at the door for his arrival.

6. Offer your husband a drink and ask about his day ( never EVER mentioning any problems of your own).

7. Light a fire for him to sit by, keeping the children quiet until you all enjoy dinner.

8. After dinner, let hubby relax while you clean up.

9. Prepare yourself for bed, leaving your makeup on. Read while he relaxes and when he is ready for some fun always oblige. Re-apply your makeup just in case he wakes to see you in the middle of the night!

And guess what? - they were up and ready to do it all again the next day ( and the next day, and the next day...) !!!!

Take a look at The Sunday Times' Rosie Millard's attempt to live a day in the life of a 50s woman. A great read!!!!

There was a huge demand for 'pre-packaged' foods such as condensed soup, cake mixes and frozen foods during the 1950s.

In the 1950s, take-away foods became more popular but there was still only a limited choice: fish and chips or Chinese food. For many people the only fish they ate was wrapped in newspaper from a fish and chip shop. Many Chinese migrated to Australia in the gold rush days of the 1850s but because of racial suspicion their foods were not widely tried for nearly a century. Even in the 1950s, when Chinese restaurants were springing up, traditional foods like baked beans and chips appeared on the menu.

By the late 1950s there were 1,700 self-service food stores in Australia and about 7% of grocers were supermarkets, which accounted for 20% of sales. A decade later a third of grocery sales were from supermarkets.

Popular family dishes included Pigs in Blankets ( sausages wrapped in bacon), apple pie, brownies, meat and three veg, jelly, pot pie, lamp chops, roasts, Devil's Food cake, macaroni and cheese and roast beef.

ALL cleaning and food products in the 1950s were advertised to women. Most advertisements worked on guilt to make women believe that they could only be 'good wives' if they purchased the product. Check out some of these ads for 50s cleaning products and foods.



Now where can I find me a Mr Clean???? :)



Silly mother!!! Albert 'laps up' yummy Vegemite milk!... deeeeelish!



"Poor Marge, she'll never hold down a man until she does something about her breath!" .....




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