"...only 8 percent of the
nation's residences were wired for electricity in
1907.... In 1941, according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 80 percent of all residences in
the United States were wired for electricity, 79
percent of the housekeeping families in the
United Sates had electric irons, 52 percent had
power washing machines, a similar percentage had
refrigerators, and 47 percent had vacuum
cleaners."
"Many of the rules that tyrannize
housewives are unconscious and therefore potent.
However manufacturers and advertisers may
explain these unconscious rules, they did not
create them. By exploring their history we can
bring these roles into consciousness and thereby
dilute their potency. We can then decide whether
they are truly useful or merely the projects of
atavism or of an advertiser's 'hard sell,' whether
they are agents of oppression or of
liberation."
Ruth Schwartz Cowan,
More Work for Mother, pp. 92,
94.
