This archive is built to demonstrate the ways that women were portrayed in advertisements from the 1950s to the 1970s. Through this archive, I would like to bring attention to the insidious ways that these trends are still at play in advertisements today. This archive consists of three collections of popular ad campaigns from the 50s to 70s that demonstrate the idealized version of femininity that was marketed to women. To learn more about this archive, you can go to the About Page.

While searching for advertisements to include in this archive, I found that there was a severe lack of advertisements featuring women of color in any open-source archive. Therefore, the collections included on this page are very whitewashed, which further demonstrates trends at play in the ad industry. To address this archival silence, I have included a page focused on analyzing African American women in advertisements.

While navigating this archive, keep in mind the limited ways in which women were depicted in these advertisements and the impact this had for people who did not fit into these defined categories. At the end, take a look at the Current Page to learn more about how these trends, although subtler, are still at play and continue to impact women today.

Youthfulness

Ivory is a soap brand owned by Proctor and Gamble. Ivory became famous for the fact that their soap was so pure that it floated. Their two popular slogans were “It Floats!” and “99 44/100 % Pure” (Cox 213). The ads for Ivory soap were marketed towards woman with an emphasis on promoting youthful skin. Their main selling point was that the soap could be used on both babies and women, keeping women looking youthful as ever. Common ads showed three generations of women, claiming nobody could tell the age of the oldest generation woman. One ad in the collection reads “Young looking skin. Isn’t that good reason for you to switch to regular care and use Ivory?”, while another ad reads “sneak away quietly with the ivory” (“Ivory Soap Advertising Collection 1883-1998”). In promoting youthful skin, these ads place a stigma on looking old, pushing women to hide their true age. These messages tell women that ideal beauty is associated with looking young. Since this soap is also advertised for use on babies, women are exposed to the messages of this brand from a very young age. 

Body Image and Dietary Habits

This collection contains a range of advertisements for drinks featuring women’s bodies as one of their selling points. These ads promote their diet drinks as a way for women to either keep their thin figure or attain a thin figure like the model in the ad. These mediated images encourage thin bodies as the ideal body type. The language used in these ads further supports the attitude surrounding body image and thinness. One of the Pepsi ads reads “be glad you’re so slender, so easy to dress, so admired wherever you go”, while another reads “that slender figure she prizes so much reflects wholesome habits that will add years to her life” (“Pepsi-Cola Advertising Collection 1902-1982”). By focusing on a woman’s body in combination with her dietary habits, these ads are selling the idea that the ideal woman has to be skinny and watch what they are eating and drinking. Some of these ads also have the woman lying down, which makes them appear more vulnerable and sexualized. The last two Pepsi ads have skinny women serving drinks to men, rather than being the ones who consume them, which further instills the idea that women should be consuming less in order to keep their figure.