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Jen Glaze
Dr. McCleary
Short Essay 6
April 11, 2022

Technology, Consumerism, Race, and Gender

In what ways did the nineteenth-century change material culture? From an archaeological

perspective, a few centuries prior, European settlement brought forth the Historic period and

marked a change in found artifacts. European establishment in the Americas forever changed the

types of artifacts an archaeologist may discover. Previously, the archaeological record

demonstrates a plethora of indigenous pottery pieces, projectile points, and chert (still found

today, of course), but an archaeologist will mark the Historic period based on findings that

demonstrate European arrival. Many of these artifacts include metal pieces, buttons, and varying

glass jars. If we move forward in the timeline, we notice that mid-nineteenth-century material

culture highlights a massive shift in materials due to the industrial revolution. Due to this turning

point, the material culture has a greater focus on mass production and utilization, with the help of

consumerist ideologies. Two works, Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s More Work for Mother and M.M.

Manring’s Slave in a Box, explore the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both texts look

towards consumerism and industrialization but look further at gender, race, foodways, and social

practices within the kitchen domain. Through these texts, we may further contextualize not just

growing complexities within material culture studies, but also make sense of familiar

advertisements and utilities today due to industrialism and consumerism.

Much like exploring parlor culture in the Victorian era, our kitchens also have a cultural

depth. Our modern-day kitchens provide a rich context for the study of gendered material

culture. Per Cowan’s text, the work processes of cooking in kitchens required the labor of people
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of both sexes; cooking itself may have been defined as women’s work (which it was), but

cooking could not be done without prior preparation of tools and food, and a good deal of that

preparation was defined as men’s work.1 The earlier centuries of America saw more

“self-sufficiency,” which was “often either simply necessary or politically expedient” due to a

lack of well-developed manufacturing and trading systems, as seen in older Western Europe.2 So,

early America witnessed a partnership in housework with men and women both contributing to

chores. Indeed, the industrial revolution and growth in consumer culture caused a rift in

housework. These economic systems became fueled by consumerist natures, which Cowan

addresses: “For it was from the households of the countryside and the cities that young people

and adults went out to work in the factories, and it was those households that their wages were

returned, providing the cash that was traded for goods. Furthermore, it was the demand for those

goods that continued to fuel the economy being formed by those who were organizing the

manufacture of goods.”3

But when do we see “more work for mother?” As men found jobs outside of the home,

say, in manufacturing, women found themselves working the home. In fact, changes in the

household in the first phase of industrialization introduced technology which “altered work

processes so that separate spheres for men and women became not only possible, but desirable.”4

Cowan discusses the concept of convenience seen through “census statistics, articles in women’s

magazines, economic histories, genre paintings, patent records, and the extent of artifacts

themselves” and whether women became more or less busy with housework. She states, “some

female chores disappeared during the century, but almost every [chore] was replaced by other

1
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the
Microwave. (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 24.
2
Cowan, More Work for Mother, 31.
3
Cowan, More Work for Mother, 41.
4
Cowan, More Work for Mother, 69.
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chores, equally time and energy consuming.”5 This idea of convenience, a direct result of social

expectations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, almost became a facade. The more

absolute idea lay within multi-tasking for the woman.

Where does consumerism come into play, specifically regarding gender? We notice one

illustrated advertisement from 1870 detailing a stove with modestly dressed women staring at it.6

Another details a woman with a “churn-type, hand-operated washing machine.”7 One last

advertisement represents growth in technology from the previous washing machine — a

housewife stands in front of a new “convertible washing machine and dishwasher.”8 Each

advertisement represents women, for it was women who held the social responsibility to upkeep

the home. An observation that I find interesting is the direct imagery symbolizing gendered

social responsibility seen in these advertisements.

Advertisements carry much weight for consumerist ideology, and it is astounding how

one advertisement, one image, can create a direct relationship with the consumer. The image of

Aunt Jemima, a representation of the mammy figure, carried through the late nineteenth and

twentieth centuries with the assistance of “American literary and historical imagination.”9 Yet,

this figure directly impacted consumers with the mammy as a representation of white guilt over

slavery.10 The “happy, devoted, simple woman who filled ad pages in the early twentieth

century”11 became a symbol for beloved Southern food. However, Manring makes a note which

5
Cowan, More Work for Mother, 65.
6
Cowan, More Work for Mother, c. 1870. Landauer Collection, New York Historical Society.
7
Cowan, More Work for Mother, Courtesy of the New York Historical Society, New York City, Landauer
Collection.
8
Cowan, More Work for Mother, photographer and manufacturer unknown, as prepared by Earl Ludgin &
Co.,Chicago, 1946.
9
M.M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,
1998), 20.
10
Manring, Slave in a Box, 23.
11
Manring, Slave in a Box, 18.
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impacted my perspective on this advertisement: “She remained in the twentieth century what she

had been in the nineteenth century — a black woman bought and sold.”12

Advertisements and consumers go hand-in-hand. Manring suggests that “the relationship

between the product and the package goes beyond mere functionality; to a great extent the

package creates the product’s personality and in turn enables the consumer to establish a

relationship with a stranger: the distant producer of a mass product.”13 This relationship with a

symbol suggests not just the consumer’s relationship with a beloved brand but what the brand

means. Why does one feel so strongly about the brand’s representative? According to Manring,

advertising agencies saw the image of Aunt Jemima and “realized how powerful an image she

was — as an icon of Old South, white leisure.”14 Through Aunt Jemima advertisements, we see

how advertisement companies strive to manipulate an audience through myth and symbolism. In

turn, we witness deeper connotations with the material culture seen through a simple (yet

symbolically complex) pancake mix.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed a clash of technological advancements

and consumerist ideologies seen through economic, social, racial, and gendered lenses just

through Cowan and Manring’s two texts. The two centuries create an entirely new sphere of

material culture for historians to sift through. In reflecting on Cowan and Manring’s works, I

consider whether the women represented in Cowan’s More Work for Mother purchased Aunt

Jemima products. I wonder whether they understood the process of historical mythmaking during

the end of the nineteenth century. These two texts give historians plenty to think about, and I

would be interested in seeing further advancements in historical research concerning the material

culture of consumerism and technology during these two centuries.

12
Manring, Slave in a Box, 8.
13
Manring, Slave in a Box, 5.
14
Manring, Slave in a Box, 80.
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Works Cited

Ruth Schwartz Cowan. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the
Open Hearth to the Microwave. (New York: Basic Books, 1985).

M.M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (Charlottesville: University
of Virginia Press, 1998), 20.