1920s/30s & 1990s Magazine Advertising
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This paper compares magazine advertising of the 1920s and 1930s with magazine ads of the 1990s in the way each portrays contemporary views of race and gender in America. Advertising has always represented a mirror on society, sometimes reflecting the newest trends but more often showing the way that society sees itself at the time. During the 1920s, magazine advertising first became a major advertising tool, and its colorful pictures and even more colorful copy reflect the brash, loud confidence of a nation that had just won its first world war. The ads of the time reflect the growing independence women were experiencing, as they gained the right to vote and began to do in public what they had never before dared - smoking cigarettes, showing their legs, traveling on their own. The ads also reflect the continued subservience of blacks and other minorities; when they appeared at all, they were servants or cheerful cartoons, such as Aunt Jemima, holding a stack of pancakes. Ads appearing 70 years later reflect the dramatic social changes that have taken place, as the civil rights movement has at least made advertisers aware of a substantial part of the market that had once been invisible. Comparing the two eras shows how far America has come, as well as how little distance has actually been covered. At the turn of the century, magazines were sedate publications, supported by subscription and newsstand sales and too dignified to solicit paid advertisers as a source of rev
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en are.
A 1997 ad for the Chevrolet Prizm shows an elegant black woman standing in front of the car, featuring the main tag line, "A Constant Reminder of Your Superior Intelligence." The ad is pointedly aimed at the female consumer, appealing to the same kind of independence targeted by the Jordan Playboy ad of 74 years earlier. Interestingly, however, the ambiguity of the Jordan ad also made it appealing to men, since the man who appreciated an independent, "modern" woman might also appreciate owning the kind of car she would choose for herself. In the Prizm ad, the appeal is limited more to women; the model chosen for the photograph broadens the appeal to women of color but maintains the same-sex limitation.
Advertisements for other new products of the 1920s were also aimed at women, though this was because the products were household appliances. Two ads, one for the American Radiator Company (Bowen 124) and the other for the General Electric refrigerator (Bowen 125), both depict well-dressed partygoers admiring their hostesses' new appliances. The first-person copy for the refrigerator is obviously written from the woman's point of view, as she extols the benefits that her new refrigerator bring to her job as housekeeper
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Le Colonial, Aunt Jemima, Maxwell House, World War, America Advertising, Hoover WindTunnel, Jordan Playboy, West Laramie, Ezra Bowen, Virginia Slims, world war, magazine ads, civil rights, 1997 ad, maxwell house coffee, ethnic minorities, james playsted, smoking cigarettes, fox observes, cruise ship, civil rights movement, american culture,
Approximate Word count = 1835
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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