{"id":22,"date":"2011-05-06T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/?p=22"},"modified":"2011-07-01T10:43:32","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T17:43:32","slug":"mothers-day-donna-reed-the-shirtwaist-dress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/2011\/05\/06\/mothers-day-donna-reed-the-shirtwaist-dress\/","title":{"rendered":"Motherhood: Donna Reed & The Shirtwaist Dress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the mid to late 1950s television began to reinforce the shirtwaist as a mother\u2019s uniform on family comedy TV shows such as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet<\/em>, Leave it to Beaver<\/em>, Father Knows Best<\/em>, Make Room for Daddy<\/em>, and later, The Donna Reed Show<\/em>.\u00a0 These shows reinforced the idea that a responsible or \u201cgood\u201d woman [or mother] is well put together at all times, and that her place was in the home. [i]<\/a> With the advent and prevalence of television, women were shown doing housework in the most perfect of ensembles, including Dior inspired shirtwaists, with high heels, and pearls.\u00a0 Early television shows, such as The Honeymooners <\/em>had been slightly more realistic and less idealistic than later shows such as Leave it to Beaver<\/em>, I Love Lucy<\/em>, and The Donna Reed Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In addition, the later 1950s saw a dramatic shift in terms of influence as television began to outweigh all other media types.\u00a0 Television Historian Mary Ellen Zuckerman explains that, \u201cby the mid-fifties it was clear that television could attract larger audiences than any of the older media, even with the cut-rate subscriptions increasingly offered by magazines\u201d (203).<\/p>\n

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Television characters affected how women felt about themselves and their capabilities, both in terms of motherhood as well as in terms of appearance.[ii]<\/a> In 1959, Donna Reed was given an award for her character on The Donna Reed Show<\/em> from the founders of Mothers Day (The American Mother\u2019s Committee<\/a>), reinforcing the notion that women should be mothers who strive for perfection (Chapman; Fane 107).\u00a0 William Roberts, who created the characters for The Donna Reed Show <\/em>described her character as \u201cwife, mother, companion, booster, nurse, housekeeper, cook, laundress, gardener, bookkeeper, clubwoman, choir singer, PTA officer, Scout leader, and at the same time effervescent, immaculate, and pretty\u201d (Fultz 118).\u00a0 Moreover, her character and unrealistic perfection helped to solidify the shirtwaist dress as an icon of female perfection for American Culture.<\/p>\n

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-This has been an excerpt from my 2009 article on the Shirtwaist Dress, published in the Journal of American Culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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[i]<\/a> Of \u201cthe goodwife \u201cHer setting was the home and she was seldom seen outside it.\u00a0 Her uniform was the apron and later, the housedress\u201d\u00a0 (Meehan 34).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> \u201cTitles such as \u2018Do You Make These Beauty Blunders?\u2019\u201d suggested just how close women could be to making mistakes and did little to alleviate the anxieties about personal appearance that were also being fostered by films, and later, television\u201d\u00a0 (Walker 193).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sources<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Vaughan, Heather A. “Icon: Tracing the History of the Shirtwaist Dress<\/a>” Journal of American Culture, Vol 32, Issue 1 (March 2009) pp 29-37.<\/p>\n

Chapman, Priscilla. \u201cDonna Reed Wins citation for Television Family Show.\u201d New York Herald Tribune<\/em> 20 May 1959.<\/p>\n

Fane, Xenia Flyer.\u00a0 \u201cTelevision Image of the Father: A Comparison of the Father Image Held by Home Economics Teachers with the Image Perceived by High School Students on Commercial Television.\u201d\u00a0 Diss. New York U, 1965.<\/p>\n

Fultz, Jay.\u00a0 In Search of Donna Reed<\/em>.\u00a0 Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1998.<\/p>\n

Meehan, Diana M. Ladies of the Evening: Women Characters of Prime-time Television<\/em>.\u00a0 Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1983.<\/p>\n

Walker, Nancy A. Shaping Our Mothers’ World: American Women’s Magazines<\/em>.\u00a0 Jackson: U P of Mississippi, 2000.<\/p>\n

Zuckerman, Mary Ellen. A History of Popular Women’s Magazines in the United States, 1792-1995<\/em>.\u00a0 Westport: Greenwood P, 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Roberts, who created the characters for The Donna Reed Show described her character as \u201cwife, mother, companion, booster, nurse, housekeeper, cook, laundress, gardener, bookkeeper, clubwoman, choir singer, PTA officer, Scout leader, and at the same time effervescent, immaculate, and pretty\u201d (Fultz 118).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,93,94,1],"tags":[11,13,15,12,14],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}