S2E3: Betty Crocker the Psy-Op, Rosie the Riveter, and the Feminist Revolution

From flappers to factory workers, and suffrajitsu to cold war kitchens, we track how the 20th century woman was imagined time and again to meet the needs of a nation.

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A production of BRINK

Website: thisispropaganda.show

Instagram: instagram.com/thisispropagandashow

Email: propaganda@brink.com

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CREDITS

Written, Produced, and Hosted by Malcolm Critcher and Joshua Belhumeur

Co-Producer: Reed Chandler

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Some dialogue and quotations have been condensed, paraphrased, or reconstructed based on contemporaneous accounts, interviews, and other source material.

All archival clips from film and television used under fair use, for educational purposes only.

No AI this time. Enjoy my Russian accent.

REFERENCES

Marks, Susan. Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food. Atria Books, 2005.

Purvis, June. Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge, 2002.

Lance, Katherine S. “The Suffragette Movement in Great Britain.” M.A. thesis, University of North Texas, 1976.

Imperial War Museums. “Emmeline Pankhurst’s ‘Women’s Great Procession for the Right to Serve,’ 7 July 1915.” IWM Volunteer London Blog, 9 Mar. 2021.

Gullace, Nicoletta F. “White Feathers and Wounded Men: Female Patriotism and the Memory of the Great War.” The Journal of British Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 1997, pp. 178–206.

Mayhall, Laura E. Nym. The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 1860–1930. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Singh, Neha Reka. “The Flapper Girl’s Impact on Consumerism.” B.A. thesis, University of Toronto, 2020.

Singh, Neha Reka. “The Flapper in Advertisements – A Symbol of Women’s Liberation or Infantilisation?” Gender, Culture and Text (University of Glasgow), 29 Apr. 2021.

Honey, Maureen. Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II. University of Missouri Press, 1999.

“Women and Work After World War II.” American Experience, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-work.

United States, Women’s Bureau. Women Workers in Ten War Production Areas and Their Postwar Employment Plans. U.S. Department of Labor, 1946.

“Women Workers Protest the Loss of Jobs at Ford Motor Co.” Center for the Study of Working Class Life, Brown University (via WWII Women Project), n.d.

Mulcahy, William. Quoted in “Rosie the Riveter Delivered Miracles During WWII.” USO Stories, USO, 21 May 2012.

Nixon, Sean. Hard Sell: Advertising, Affluence and Transatlantic Relations, c.1951–69. Manchester University Press, 2013.

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Basic Books, 1988.

Hixson, Walter L. Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961. St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

United States, Central Intelligence Agency. Transcript of the “Kitchen Debate” Between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, 24 July 1959. CIA Reading Room, 1959.

Castillo, Greg. “Domesticating the Cold War: Household Consumption as Propaganda in Marshall Plan Germany.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 40, no. 2, 2005, pp. 261–288.

Dooley, Brian. “Were Women Better Off in the US or USSR During the Cold War?” Time, 23 July 2019.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W. W. Norton, 1963. DIGITAL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrajitsu

https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/exhibits/show/exhibit-militancy/militancy-1

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/904196

https://iwmvolunteerlondon.wordpress.com/2021/03/10/emmeline-pankhursts-womens-great-procession-for-the-right-to-serve-7-july-1917/

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-969385/womens-right-to-serve-march/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/white-feather-girls-womens-militarism-in-uk/

https://theleftberlin.com/socialist-women-against-war-when-sylvia-pankhurst-fought-against-war-and-imperialism/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zsjg3j6

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ushistory2ay/chapter/the-new-woman-2/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-flapper-part-1-a-call-for-freedom-11957978/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/flapper

https://gendercultureandtext.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2021/04/29/the-flapper-in-advertisements-a-symbol-of-womens-liberation-or-immorality/

https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/common-threads-using-womens-suffrage-to-sell-soup-and-cereal

https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/rosie-wendy-and-government-girls

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5648367/

https://ekrose.github.io/files/rise_and_fall.pdf

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/women-s-studies-and-feminism/66-million-women-enter-us-labor-force

https://ekrose.github.io/files/rise_and_fall.pdf

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/essays/flapper-fashion-illustrating-the-garments-worn-by-the-modern-woman-during-the-jazz-age-1919-1942

https://fairfieldmuseum.omeka.net/exhibits/show/flappers/mass-media

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1262&context=gc_etds

https://gendercultureandtext.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2021/04/29/the-flapper-in-advertisements-a-symbol-of-womens-liberation-or-immorality/

https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-industry-marketing/three-key-moments-history-marketing-tobacco-women

https://rosietheriveter.net/honoring-our-countrys-black-rosies/

https://sankofaimpact.org/black-riveters/

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7027/

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-women.html

https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/how-one-rosie-the-riveter-poster-won-out-over-all-the-others-and-became-a-symbol-of-female-empowerment

https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/honoring-rosie-riveter-and-women-who-won-war

https://hennepinhistory.org/marketing-the-modern-woman/

https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/exhibits/defining-their-identity-changing-roles-woman-post-war-era-documented-valley-times

https://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2015/03/16/operation-june-cleaver/

http://femarburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Christin-Stracke-2013_Post-War-America.pdf

https://macreativearts.com/articles/repositioning-of-women-from-being-producers-to-consumers-in-the-post-world-war-ii-period-through-advertising-in-the-united-states-of-america/

https://massbudget.org/2021/08/06/a-history-of-racist-federal-housing-policies/

https://moodle.unifr.ch/pluginfile.php/1561674/mod_resource/content/0/Castillo%20-%202005%20-%20Domesticating%20the%20Cold%20War%20Household%20Consumption%20.pdf

https://www.tchabitat.org/blog/race-and-housing-series-the-gi-bill

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/shepherd-university/us-1865-to-present/homeward-bound-containment-at-home-in-the-cold-war-era-hist-101/140527676

http://femarburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Christin-Stracke-2013_Post-War-America.pdf

https://www.mcny.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/Wall%20Street%20Journal_Mac%20Conner%20review_8.10.14.pdf

https://gizmodo.com/the-all-american-expo-that-invaded-cold-war-russia-550628823

https://time.com/5630567/kitchen-debate-women/

https://wams.nyhistory.org/primary-source/the-kitchen-debate/

https://watergate.info/1959/07/24/kitchen-debate-nixon-khrushchev.html/

https://time.com/5630567/kitchen-debate-women/

https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/10127

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Feminine-Mystique

https://truthout.org/articles/betty-friedans-the-feminine-mystique-50-years-later/

https://englishiva1011.pbworks.com/f/PROBNONM.PDF

https://www.athabascau.ca/humanities-and-social-sciences/_documents/forrest.pdf

ARCHIVAL https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc504400/m2/1/high_res_d/1002772759-Lance.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24409414

http://www.micheleleigh.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Spigel.pdf

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1959-07-24.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41834310

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390661-5.pdf

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION

TURN IT UP (00:05) Performed by Out of Flux Licensed from Artlist

SAMIZDAT (00: 29) Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur

SWIOLA (00:42) Performed by Django Reinhardt Used for educational purposes only.

THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN (02:20) Performed by Songs of Sunrise Choral Group Used for educational purposes only.

WELCOME TO OUR SHOW (05:38) Performed by OP Baron Licensed from Artlist

ROSIE THE RIVETER (07:56) Performed by Four Vagabonds Used for educational purposes only.

PAPER WINGS (09:18) Performed by Sister Licensed from Artlist

UN PTI BOUT DAVENIR (11:00) Performed by Nono Licensed from Artlist

A PROPAGANDIST WALKS INTO A PIANO BAR (13:28) Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur

BALAD TO A MEXICAN DESERT (15:46) Performed by Yehezkal Raz Licensed from Artlist

QUARTET IN F MAJOR (17:54) Composed by Ravel Performed by The Juilliard String Quartet

BEYOND THE ZERO (20:14) Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur

I WANT YOU TO WANT ME (23:25) Performed by Dan Pundak Licensed from Artlist