Toward Better Homes and Gardens: the role of media and advertising in creation of a middle class cultural landscape in 1920s America

Abstract

This study examines the role that printed media, specifically the home and garden magazine, and advertising played in the establishment of a new, suburban middle-class cultural landscape in 1920s America. The basis for this new cultural landscape was the purchase, adornment, and maintenance of the single-family home. Better Homes and Gardens magazine and its advertisers sought to promote a new cultural ideology based on the consumption of consumer goods by suburban homeowners. In order to steer consumer behavior toward the purchase of a growing number of consumer produce, advertisers became sophisticated in their use of signs and symbols in order to associate consumerism with a desirable lifestyle. Individual households, however, were active participants in the creation of this landscapes aware of consumer options (albeit limited) available and influenced by other social, economic and political actors that guided consumption decisions. Thus, editorial and advertising copy in Better Homes and Gardens magazine not only helped guide consumer behavior, but also reflected the interaction between the conscious individual and social, political, and economic institutions that resulted in the creation and legitimization of a new, suburban cultural landscape.