50 Recipes from a 1950s Housewife- A Cultivated Nest (2024)

FAQs

What was expected of a 1950's housewife? ›

Not only did the women of the 1950s have to make exciting meals, ensure their children are well behaved without disciplining them excessively, keep their home smelling lemon fresh and always look appealing for their husbands, they had to make it all look easy.

The publication also outlines daily tasks that one should complete each and every day, which include: Kitchen: Put away food, clean coffee grounds, wash dishes & sink, sweep, empty wastebasket. Bedrooms: Hang up night clothes, make beds, straighten & dust, dust/vacuum blinds.

From then on, it's a downhill slide. By the time a woman is 30, there is about one chance in two she will ever get married and at 40, only one chance in five. By the time she is 50, the chances she will marry are just one in 16, and after 60, her chances drop to one in 62.

The image of American women in the 1950s was heavily shaped by popular culture: the ideal suburban housewife who cared for the home and children appeared frequently in women's magazines, in the movies and on television.

There was no such thing as the keto diet in the 1950s—meat and potatoes reigned supreme. You'd find hearty main dishes like Salisbury steak, beef stroganoff and meat loaf on a '50s dinner menu, plus scrumptious sides. Casseroles were also popular, particularly those featuring seafood or ham.

Breakfast was viewed as the meal to set you up for the day so was, at the very least, porridge, followed by bacon, eggs and fried bread, then toast and home-made marmalade, and lots of milky tea.

The concept really took hold in 1954 when Swanson's frozen meals appeared. Swanson was a well-known brand that consumers recognized, and Swanson launched a massive advertising campaign for their product. They also coined the phrase TV Dinner, which helped to transform their frozen meals into a cultural icon.

The 'housewife syndrome' was a mental disorder diagnosed in many American housewives suffering from supposed bouts of madness and enigmatic conditions, such as hysteria or neurosis, that plagued women who showed unhappiness in their stereotypical role of homemaker in the mid-twentieth century.

On average, women probably had maybe 5 every day dresses and maybe 3 “church” dresses and one or two pairs of dress shoes. They probably owned a couple of pairs of casual shoes and only a few tops and pants and a couple of purses.

In the 1950's American homes were traditionally comprised of a mother and a father and their children. The father went to work, and the mother stayed home to take care of the children. The kids would be polite to their parents, obey their rules, and as a result form a close parent-child relationship.

Why were women's waists so small in the 50s? ›

"The 1950s survey was taken immediately after the Second World War and rationing obviously had an influence. But their undergarments also make a difference. The fashion was for corsets which nipped in the waist," she explained.

Women were naturally more active as 'helpful' modern technology hadn't kicked in quite yet and ongoing rationing meant people were eating plainer food and smaller portions. Fewer refined carbs and lower-sugar fruits meant women consumed on average 400 calories fewer a day than we do now.

Wake up at 6:00 am and start preparing breakfast for the family. As a vintage housewife, waking up early is crucial for having enough time to get dressed, fix your hair and makeup, and still have time to prepare breakfast and get the children ready for school.

Dinner would be on the table ready and waiting for the man of the house on his return from work. Housework and the care of children was considered woman's work so the man would expect the house to be clean and tidy, meal ready, children fed and washed and his clothes all ready for the next day at work.

A typical day for married men in 1950 was for their wives to wait on them and make their lives easy for them. If men held full-time jobs, they were considered amazing husbands. If they even “babysat” their own child, they were revered. Housewives' jobs were to wait on their husbands and children, hand and foot.

After World War Two, during which most women worked outside the home as part of the war effort, everything changed. As the men went back to their jobs, the women were expected to return to their role as housewives, dependent on their husbands for an allowance.

5 Although men held the dominant position in their relationships, women held power in the chores that they needed to do. However, if women were to abuse the power that they held in being able to go grocery shopping by purchasing something that their husbands did not approve of, then they would be hit by their husbands.