1930s magazine topics

Love this 😁

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You had a fire to get dressed by?! Soft living, that was.

The article The Good Wife's Guide has been widely circulated for years and obviously shocked a lot of people. However, it was found to be a hoax, and that the magazine Housekeeping Monthly did not exist. The advice to the wife was just the kind of thing being published in the 1950s so it was quite believable but maybe just a bit too over the top.
The Good Wife's Guide on Wikipedia

Funnygran !

When I admired how my American friend’s new home and decorations saying they looked homely, she looked shocked and hurt.

When my sister in law and husband used to come to stay with us she always buttered his breakfast toast and sugared his tea for him. I cooked us a meal once and he asked her if he liked it before he ate it!

"A good wife always knows her place" - My dear late husband would have laughed his socks off at this. He liked a woman who was equal to him who had opinions of her own and the courage to express them. I think I obliged in that department.

Both my grandparents had maids or home helps. I think it was quite normal in those days, 1920s and 1930s. My cousin still has them and also a gardener and a live in home handyman. Lucky, though I wouldn’t want her life for quids.

I think domestic service was a huge employer of women. I remember being quite struck by this when reading Mass Observation diaries. People with quite modest jobs and houses had a 'daily woman' or even a live in maid.
I suppose post WW1 there were a lot of women glad enough for a job and houses were a lot more labour intensive in those days. Interesting to read about

MrsEggy

One of my mother's 1930s cook books had a chapter on "How to train a maid".

Pre WW2 I think a lot of pretty ordinary families had a maid, or rather a general skivvy - ‘maid of all work’ I think they were called.
The house we moved into when I was 9 (so 1958 ish) - which was a semi, certainly nothing special - still had bells in all the rooms and a panel in the breakfast room (existing kitchen was more like a small scullery) to show which bell was ringing from where.
The house was probably built in the 20s.

My mother never even had a cleaning lady, let alone any other help. Bells were all removed once they re-decorated - the former decor was hideous brown paint and what my mother called ‘porridge’ wallpaper.

My parents were the same, mum didn't own high heels and she wore a pinny every day. She never had a job - she looked after Dad and us kids. Dad came home in overalls , his only suit was for weddings and funerals

This is close to my recollection too. Except that if my father saw me with my nose in a book I was told to "get into the kitchen and help your mother". Its a miracle I passed any GCSs or made it into a job like the civil service.

When I was 10 (1954) I turned up unexpectedly at grandma's house when she had a visitor. He was wearing a 3 piece pin stripe suit with a trilby hat and his car was outside. I had never seen anyone who dressed like that. Much less someone who owned a car. I asked her if he was very rich. She said he was a solicitor in the family firm. Many years later I learned he was the man my mother had jilted to elope with my father.

It was probably in the 60s, but I certainly remember some magazine advising newly married women to ‘line all your drawers with fresh paper every week’. 😂

Homely means plain here too. I'm not sure I get your point MrsEggy

One of my mother's 1930s cook books had a chapter on "How to train a maid".

dotpocka

wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/category/journals/physical-culture-magazine/

This shows that the magazine was American in origin by the price. Also, homely does mean plain or ugly in America. “Homey” is the complimentary word, our American friends told us.

When we bought our house from my MIL, she had left a few books on the bookshelf, one of which was a small book on How to be a Good Wife. It was full of much the same advice, along with some more delicate issues. Along the lines of fulfilling his needs...

I'm not sure whatever happened to that little book, I would love to see it again.

I do remember when my mother was visiting me that she was a bit shocked that my DH got up before me, made his own coffee and went to work.

Yes, he was Aveline!
🙂

What a lovely Dad Callistemon21

Grandma70s

My father in the 1950s cleaned the family shoes and made the coal fires. He did all the gardening and driving (my mother didn’t drive.). I don’t think he washed up. He didn’t cook at all until my mother became disabled when they were in their eighties. He learnt pretty quickly.

I was most surprised when I got married to discover that not all men cleaned your shoes if you left them by the shoe cupboard and didn't clean the oven either.
He used to fill me a hot water bottle in the winter too.
He could cook if the need arose.

My Dad even permed my hair once - he had a lot of patience.

The concept of the man having a job and the woman doing everything around the house is not dead at all. I know a 40 something couple who live like that because the man has a very high powered job which can see him working very long days and going away. He has neither the time or the energy to do anything around the house, so his wife has no choice but to do it all.

Thanks for that link dotpocka because it has all sorts of old magazine articles to browse. It's great!

Ha, I suspect the article is a spoof, but based around certain expectations of the time it was meant to represent. However, I believe that housewives were expected to have dinner on the table and everything tidied neatly away before dear husband got home according to some magazines of the 1930’s to 60’s (generally focussed on good middle class values of the time, of course). Quite staggering looking at it through a 21st century lens, isn’t it? 😅

dotpocka eek!!

Stepford Wives. My ex would have loved to have one of those.