40 Vintage Photographs That Show What Life Was Really Like For Housewives In The Mid-1900s
Today’s woman might look back on the 1950s housewife and scoff. The idea of staying home, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children and not working wouldn’t necessarily sit well with her. But that viewpoint comes from those who didn’t live the mid-century lifestyle. These pictures give a better idea of what it was really like for housewives during this time – and it wasn’t quite as compartmentalized as women today might think.
40. Washing the family’s clothes
Some people may romanticize housewives from the '40s and '50s, but their work wasn’t all glamorous. Take, for example, this woman, who clearly didn’t have a washing machine in the household, although such appliances became increasingly common throughout the 20th century. Instead, she had to wash clothes by hand in the bathtub.
39. Seriously scrubbing the floors
Keeping the family home sparkling clean has long been a priority, for health reasons as well as personal pride. But this photo, snapped in 1956, shows that it wasn’t that simple to achieve, especially if a housewife had a toddler to look after at the same time.
38. Preserving her wardrobe
Washing, drying, ironing: a lot of the classic housewife’s jobs revolved around her and her family’s wardrobe. This photo shows yet another clothes-centric task in which a woman pours mothballs into a bag to hang in her closets, thus protecting garments from the insects.
37. Daydreaming in the kitchen
With so much time spent cooking and cleaning – all by herself – the mid-century housewife certainly had the opportunity to daydream. And apparently she sometimes did so while leaning on her mop.
