House Beautiful's “Victory Home” as Propaganda Tool

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article aims to contribute to the understanding of the significant power of home life as a patriotic ideal in the USA in the face of the difficulties, deprivations, and immediate aftermath of the Second World War. In particular, it focuses on how housing was used by the shelter magazine House Beautiful as a prescriptive tool for a range of gender- and consumer-oriented emotions and behaviors. The analysis focuses on how within the magazine the presentation of housing, interior furnishings and finishes, as well as attitudes towards domesticity shifted during and after the war. Detailed examination of articles from each period, including both assessment of images and emotional tenor of text will provide a clearer picture of the ideology and “emotionology” House Beautiful conveyed to its readers regarding changes in the American culture of emotions surrounding the war. This study concludes that in the magazine the single-family house and everything within it became a symbolic “Victory Home,” a concrete object and emotion management tool, around which House Beautiful editors propagandized a specific set of expectations regarding women's social roles.