I like this post, because I do feel that these ads are truly compelling and brilliant marketing. It’s interesting that the idea of the happy nuclear family was so thoroughly ingested during the middle of the 20th century. Maybe we were running away from the messy, crazy, unpredictable mess of multi-generational homes, or we didn’t want to think that just a few decades ago (or less) we could never afford to have all kinds of shiny new things. And recovering from a war, we wanted safe, neat, tidy ideas. Things that offered modern consistency and organization. Even in its heyday, I’m pretty sure it was a fantasy that was never truly realized behind those frosty window panes. And yet, if I only had a Kelvinator…
The Post War American Dream would be waiting for the returning vet and his “best girl”
(L) Vintage Ad Community Silver “Back Home For Keeps” illustration by Jon Whitcomb (R) Vintage Ad 1945 Nash Kelvinator “My Tomorrow” “The girl I love, my boy, my dog, my car…all the things I long for, all the things I dream of…These things will be mine again in my tomorrow.”
Unlike today’s troubled vets who return home to an American Dream itself suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, WWII soldiers came back to a robust America, the American Dream gift wrapped just for them and tied with a red, white, and blue bow.
By 1945 with the end of WWII in sight, material dreams kept pumping through the culture in lavish color drenched ads, furnishing the material daydreams of the future. Corporations, advertisers and government banded together in a consensus of the good life.
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smartjones 