“The Unbearable Lightness of Cleaning”: Representations of Domestic Practice and Products in Good Housekeeping Magazine (UK): 1951–2001

Abstract

In this paper we begin to open the black box that constitutes the organisation of domestic cleaning and consumption in the latter half of the twentieth century. We focus specifically on change and continuity in the manner in which cleaning practices and cleaning products are represented in the UK woman's magazine Good Housekeeping, in the late modern period. After a discussion of the modern history of cleanliness, we proceed with a rationale for why this magazine was chosen for our analysis, followed by a summary of our methodology. We then argue that three phases of representation may be delineated in the time period we investigated. The first phase, which is apparent in the 1951 and 1961 issues, we have named “pride in domestic practice” and it covers a period when, what we call “the women's lobby”, speaks in a uniform voice about the tasks of the housewife and the purpose of domestic cleaning. The second phase, manifest in the 1971 and 1981 issues, is termed “domestic dreaming”, and it heralds a period when Good Housekeeping calls its readership to dream about the potentials of a transformed consumer culture. The third phase, which is evident in some respects in 1981, but which is more clearly present in 1991 and 2001, we have called “modern advising in a late modern world”. During this period, Good Housekeeping settles into a new role as a modern advisor of cleaning products and practices within the context of a world that poses significant complexities. Our discussion also focuses on how three values of cleanliness; that associated with germs, aesthetics and efficiency/ease are present in the magazine. Our analysis is contextualised in relation to the cultural silencing of cleanliness in this period and related to social and cultural changes associated with feminism and consumer culture.

Keywords:

• Cleaning
• Germs
• Ease
• Domestic Identities
• Feminism
• Consumer Culture

Notes

[1] The domestic practitioner is a person who does various tasks associated with home‐making. Our use of the term serves several purposes. As it is gender neutral, it allows for the idea that men also “practice” in the domestic sphere and it circumvents the automatic association with the discursive construct of “the housewife”. It nevertheless adopts a feminist approach to what happens in the domestic sphere, by being open to the standpoint that domestic practice entails skill.

[2] Even so, this commentary contains few accounts about Britain and by British scholars (for exceptions, see Horsfield 1998; Sheard 2000; Shove 2003).

[3] As pointed out by a helpful reviewer, references to whiteness and brightness and the appearance factor in cleaning more generally is connected with “othering” practices. This has been the focus of some interesting work on the symbolic meanings of cleanliness (e.g. Linde‐Laursen 1993; Saugeres 2000). This perspective on cleanliness has been neglected in this paper in favour of a specific focus on the silencing of cleaning practices and associated with it, a focus on domestic practice and care giving.

[4] GH is currently the third most popular women's magazine in the UK (Audit Bureau of Circulation Poll 2003) a position it has held fairly constantly for many years (The Guardian 2003, 15 August, 17).

[5] From “Special Guide to Shopping” (GH 1961, October, 3).

[6] The twenty to thirty pages after the contents page of issues in 1951 and 1961 were missing from the archived copies. These pages contained advertisements and because the advertisement index was also situated at the beginning of issues in 1961, we were not able to check which advertisements were missed out in this year. Interestingly, advertisements in 1951 and 1961 issues were stockpiled at the beginning and the end of the magazine, and the 1951 advertisement index showed that the location (at the front or the back of the issue) of adverts varied between issues, making it possible to see at least some of the adverts which repeatedly featured in the magazine. This suggests that we have not missed out on important editorial material. We also missed the January 2001 issue, which was not available, whilst the 2001 series did not carry the usual index of advertisements.

[7] Of its readership 76% fell into social grade categories B, C1 and C2 in 1984 (figures adapted from Winship 1987, 167).

[8] The focus on kitchens and cleanliness is related to the wider programme of research, which we are conducting on kitchen practices. See Martens and Scott (2004) for further details.

[9] The National Library of Scotland, for instance, allows photocopying limited to one feature per issue. Any form of scanning is prohibited, and magazine contents needs to be recorded manually or with the aid of a laptop. One of the researchers was allowed to use a handheld recorder in an audio room, and notes spoken during the content analysis were transcribed later.

[10] In this sense, our content analysis differs from that of Leiss et al. (1990), who adopt a mixed approach, fusing qualitative and quantitative ways of examining the content of the media they examined. It would have been possible in principle to generate data that would have been suitable for quantitative analysis, but our content analysis has not been structured in a manner that would warrant such an approach.

[11] This advice was similar to that provided by the magazine in the pre‐war years, and echoed the application of industrial efficiency thinking to the domestic sphere by consultant home economist Christine Frederick (see White 1970; Cieraad 2002).

[12] Hoover was one of the UK's leading manufacturers of electrically powered domestic aids, including vacuum cleaners and washing machines.

[13] Well‐known UK producers of these consumer durables included Hoover, Electrix, Bendix and Creda.

[14] We found advertisements for ICI, Easiclene and Fisholo.

[15] Siscolin distemper, Swedish Perstorp, Hardura flooring were all advertised in these years. Please note that quite a number of the products listed in this article were unfamiliar to us when we commenced our research. This is in part because products that were produced in the 1950s and 1960s are not necessarily available any longer. Lydia Martens is Dutch, too, and brand names clearly vary cross‐culturally. The approach we have adopted here is to not only give the product's name, but also its category, which explains what type of product it is.

[16] Advertisements for which this claim was made included Johnsons Wax, Vim, Brillo pads, Glo‐Coat floor polish, O‐Cedar floor mops and Centurion cream cleaner.

[17] The only strategy to safeguard the family against ill health from germ infection was communicated in the “Take Time to be Young” supplement of April 1961. This advised the adoption of a high standard of cleanliness: “germs are far less likely to thrive in a really clean home. In this national health era of drugs and stimulants, vitamin boosts and antibiotics, the deep‐down hygiene of your home is still a most important factor in preserving your family's bright good health” (GH 1961, April Supplement, 13). In this same piece, readers are informed that germs can be killed by boiling and that dusters and floor cloths are “real germ traps”, but apart from this, no further germ/cleaning advice is given.

[18] The magazine's circulation figures were as follows: 200,000 in 1950; 207,000 in 1957; 159,000 in 1965; 257,000 in 1973; 333,000 in 1978; 349,000 in 1981; and 353,000 in 1984 (Winship 1987). The magazine moved from the National Magazine Company to IPC and House Beautiful was incorporated into the magazine in 1968. This will certainly go some way towards explaining the increase in circulation figures between 1965 and 1973 as indicated above. Though we do not have an exact date, we suspect that the original Seal of Guarantee was abolished in the late 1960s, only to be replaced by a similar marker of product excellence in the years preceding 1991.

[19] See also Brunsdon (2000) for a discussion about the incongruence between the notion of the housewife and the second wave feminist.

[20] The then British Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.