Martha Ostenso, Periodical Culture, and the Middlebrow

Abstract

Between 1938 and 1942, border-crossing Norwegian-Canadian author Martha Ostenso published three short stories in Chatelaine magazine, stories that engage in complex ways with themes of femininity, nationalism, and consumerism. In this article, we consider how the context of Chatelaine shapes and complicates readings of these stories by placing the stories in conversation with surrounding material, including advertisements and editorial content. The fiction, we argue, unsettles romantic tropes and nationalist rhetoric, and contests the correlation between the attainment of happiness and the acceptance of class and gender norms. In examining authorial identity, textual complexity, and print cultural contexts, we show how middlebrow magazines are a vibrant means of understanding middle-class culture’s anxieties and aspirations.