Historians argue that what constitutes a good childhood and, relatedly, good parenting has changed dramatically over time. Today, keeping children busy with lessons (in this, that, and the other) seems to be one version of ideal parenthood/childhood. I thought this ad nicely illustrated this new ideal:
Found at MultiCult Classics.
See also this post on constructions of modern parenthood.
Smoking seems to be a theme this week. I just saw the Stanford School of Medicine’s online tobacco-ad gallery where you can view images by theme or brand. Fascinating.
From the exhibit “Our intention is to tell—principally through advertising images—the story of how, between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, tobacco companies used deceptive and often patently false claims in an effort to reassure the public of the safety of their products.”
In the 1800s, the Irish (whether in Ireland, Britain, or the U.S.) were often very negatively stereotyped. In many cases the same negative characteristics attributed to Africans and African Americans (sloth, immorality, destructiveness) were often also associated with the Irish. In fact, some scientists believed the Irish were, like Africans, more closely related to apes than to other Europeans, and in some cases in the U.S., Irish immigrants were classified as Blacks, not Whites.
The next three political cartoons from the 1800s were found on the Nevada Department of Education website section about racism (as was the quote about the first cartoon).
This one is titled “The Workingman’s Burden” and depicts “a gleeful Irish peasant carrying his Famine relief money while riding on the back of an exhausted English laborer.” It might make a good comparison to how welfare recipients are viewed in the U.S.
This illustration ran in Harper’s Weekly magazine. Notice how the Irish are depicted as more similar to “Negros” than to “Anglo Teutonic” individuals, and both the Irish and Africans are caricatured as ape-like. It could also be useful for a discussion of scientific racism.
This cartoon, titled “Two Forces,” shows a figure representing Britain protecting a weeping, frightened woman, representing Ireland, from a rampaging Irishman; notice his hat says “anarchy.”
This image, found at the University College Cork website, depicts Daniel O’Connell, a leader of the Irish land reform movement, as an “ogre.” He is ladling poor Irish peasants out of a pot labeled “agitation soup,” and, presumably, cheating them out of money in the guise of helping them.
Here we see the Irish depicted as a Frankensteinian monster in a cartoon that ran in Punch in 1882 (image found at the website for a course at the University of St. Andrews):
These next three all come from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Here we see drunken Irishmen rioting and attacking police:
In this one, John Bull (representing Britain) and Uncle Sam look on as an Irish man engages in reckless destruction; notice the empty bottle in the lower right corner, labeled “drugs”:
Here an ape-like Irish man, again drunk, sits on a powder keg, presumably threatening the entire country:
Finally, this one, published in 1882 (and found at the Michigan State University Museum website), is called “Uncle Sam’s Lodging House” and shows an Irish immigrant causing a commotion while other immigrants (notice the beds are labeled Russian, German, Negro, etc.) try to sleep. The smaller caption under the title says, “Look here, you, everybody else is quiet and peaceable, and you’re all the time a-kicking up a row!”
The message is, of course, that other immigrant groups (including Blacks) settle in and don’t cause problems, while the Irish don’t know how to assimilate or stay in their place.
You might compare these images to this recent post about how symbols of Irishness have lost any real negative implications, such that even politicians in non-Irish-dominated districts feel comfortable using them in campaign materials.
And yes, I know I’ve been posting a lot of stuff about race and ethnicity lately. I’m teaching a class on it this semester–it’s the stuff that I keep coming across while writing lectures.
And I’m dedicating this post to my boyfriend, Burk, who decided to go on a date with me even though, when he asked if I’d have trouble dealing with his hard-drinking Irish-American family, I said I could handle that but wouldn’t put up with any blubbering on about how Angela’s Ashes is the best book ever.
NEW! This cartoon with poem was published in Life Magazine on May 11th, 1893. The poem is suggesting that the monkeys in the zoo are sad that they get called by Irish names.
Text:
As we’ve dared to call the monkeys in the Zoo by Irish names, Erin’s sons, in wrath, declare us snobs and flunkies ;
And demand that we withdraw them–nor should we ignore their claims–
For it’s really very hard–upon the monkeys.
UPDATE: In a comment, Macon D asked how I address the ways in which Whites of some ancestries (Irish, Italian, etc.) often point to the fact that there was discrimination against those groups as a way of invalidating arguments about systemic racism. The logic is that both non-Whites and some White groups faced prejudice and discrimination but European groups overcame it through their own hard work, and thus any other group could too. If they continue to experience high levels of poverty, unemployment, or any other social problem, it is due to their own lack of hard work, intelligence, or some other characteristic.
I do indeed discuss this argument at length whenever I teach about race. A great reading to address it is Charles Gallagher’s article “Playing the White Ethnic Card: Using Ethnic Identity to Deny Contemporary Racism,” p. 145-158 in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism (2003, Ashley W. Doane and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, editors, New York: Routledge). The tone might put some students off, because it doesn’t baby them or try to sugar-coat the issue of how Whites use their (often imagined) family stories of discrimination as a way to argue that systemic racism doesn’t exist and that they got to where they are by their family’s hard work, and nothing more. I know other professors often use the “How Jews Became White Folks” reading by Karen Brodkin, which also looks at this issue.
I also spend a good part of the semester looking at how government policies have had the effect of transferring enormous amounts of wealth into the hands of European immigrants and helping them accumulate resources over time–we look at the Homestead Act of 1862, the G.I. Bill (which Black veterans were often excluded from using), and how government subsidies for building suburban subdivisions were actively denied to groups wanting to build integrated communities. All these are examples of ways in which White Americans were aided in acquiring wealth and moving up the socio-economic ladder, while non-Whites often were explicitly excluded from these benefits.
I also point out that, while in these images the Irish are negatively stereotyped, it is clear that they are still viewed less negatively than, say, Africans or African Americans. If the Irish are the “missing link” between Africans and Caucasians…that still means they’re considered more evolved than Africans–at least somewhat more fully human. So even at the height of discrimination against White European groups, that did not necessarily mean they were treated “the same” as, say, American Indians or Blacks.
There is a lot going on here. Comments after the image (found at MultiCultClassics):
First, notice how this ad mobilizes a nostalgia for a simpler past (“We’re bakers”). Goldfish crackers are likely baked not by bakers (how quaint), but in large automated factories. Second, in line with this nostalgia, Pepperidge Farm, the company, is recast as a parents (“We’re bakers. But we’re parents, too”) instead of a corporation in a capitalistic society likely employing low-wage workers (who are not, by the way, busy caring about consumers kids). Notice that, by re-casting the company as parents, they encourage you to think of the company’s motives not as profit, but nurturing. Third, the Goldfish crackers themselves are anthropomorphized into a happy parent and child. Finally, happiness and family togetherness are commodified. Text:
That’s why we bake Goldfish crackers the way we do. Natural. With no artificual preservatives adn zero grams trans fat. Made with whole grains, real cheese, and plenty of smiles. For tips and tools to help keep your kids smiling, visit fishfulthinking.com. Because we believe kids should be happy and healthy.
This is a famous photograph of Clell Pruett, a farm worker, burning a copy of The Grapes of Wrath while two leaders of Associated Farmers, an organization made up of California agricultural producers, look on. I heard about this incident on NPR this morning; click here for a link to the story.
As might be expected, members of Associated Farmers were not too pleased about The Grapes of Wrath, which they thought portrayed them unfairly and also encouraged union organizing, which they very much opposed. In some counties in California, the book was banned from libraries. According to the NPR story,
Camp [leader of a local Associated Farmers branch] wanted to publicize the county’s opposition to The Grapes Of Wrath. Convinced that many migrants were also offended by their depiction in the novel, he recruited one of his workers, Clell Pruett, to burn the book.
Pruett had not read the book at that point, though he had heard about it and did not like what he had heard, and when he got around to reading it a few years ago (after the NPR reporter gave it to him), he said he “had no regrets” about burning it.
I thought this might be useful for a discussion of protests and how dominant groups may orchestrate protests that denounce or invalidate criticisms of their positions of power. We see a somewhat similar phenomenon today with the so-called “Astroturf” organizations, a term coined to refer to what appear to be citizen advocacy groups but that are basically fronts for corporations or industry groups to push their agenda, often with little or no support from anyone not directly connected to the corporations involved–the term makes fun of their attempts to portray these groups as “grassroots.”
It also brings up interesting issues about agency. I suspect many on the left who are generally sympathetic to organized labor would view Pruett as a traitor or a dupe–an ignorant fool who was used by those in power to undermine the very cause that would have improved his life. But there’s a big assumption there–that it would be impossible for a farm worker to simply be offended by the depiction of workers in The Grapes of Wrath (or to be opposed to the labor movement more generally). So this might spark a discussion about the ideas of “interests” (i.e., that workers’ interests are served by organizing) and who gets to decide what they are (or which set of interests should be prioritized). Is Pruett a traitor to organized labor? Did he betray other farmworkers? Is he just a tool of the wealthy landowners who often exploited workers, or was there a legitimate reason some workers might have been offended by The Grapes of Wrath?
This isn’t to discount the fact that those in power often search for an “authentic” voice they can use to delegitimize criticisms. For instance, universities using American Indian mascots have often looked for a group of American Indians willing to state that they either don’t oppose or actively support the mascot. In some cases these supporters were from other states and might have been offered scholarships or other incentives that led many mascot opponents to question whether they were basically being bribed.
I just thought it might make a good addition to a discussion of social movements and protests in general–how do we conceive of counter-movements and the role of the dominant group in them? When and in what way do the powerful use members of the supposedly aggreived group to delegitimate criticism? And who gets to decide when someone is being used and when they are, of free will and presumably sound mind, in agreement with the group that others perceive to be oppressing him or her? Who gets to decide you’re being oppressed, even if you don’t feel like it?
Of course, it would also make a nice image for a discussion of freedom of the press.
Next time you feel all warm and fuzzy about how far we’ve come since the bad ol’ days when men weren’t encouraged to take of of children like they do now (by the way, they largely do not), remember this ad (found here):
I don’t detect a hint of sarcasm here. Do you? Or am I oh-so-not-in-touch with 1940s comedic culture? I could be wrong. Am I wrong?
Eric S. sent us a link to the webpage for the Sun-Maid Girl, the girl used to represent Sun-Maid raisins. Here is the original painting of the first Sun-Maid Girl, Lorraine Collett Peterson:
The logo was most recently updated in 1970; here is the current incarnation:
In discussing the original painting, the website says,
Sometimes we forget that in 1915 there were no electric hair dryers, that television would not be invented for decades to come, and that automobiles were not in every home. Life was much simpler, more rural, a lot less hectic and sunbonnets were still part of women’s fashion in California.
I like the romanticization of the past there. In 1915…World War I was going on. I guess life was “less hectic” in that you didn’t have a Blackberry to check every 15 seconds, but overall, I’m not sure I’d say it was “simpler” in a way that implies everyone had time to just sit around eating raisins and drying their hair in the sun.
Also from the website:
To Payne, the sight of the red sunbonnet and the pretty girl in the morning sun was the ideal personification of E.A. Berg’s brand name SUN-MAID.
This might be an interesting addition to some of the images in this, this, and this post about the sexualization of food. Whereas the women in those instances are mostly explicitly sexualized, in this case, the product is being associated with an idealized, non-sexual “maiden” version of femininity. I just thought it might make a good contrast if you’re discussing connections between women and food–the use of female sexuality and idealized female chasteness as marketing tactics related to food products. I wonder if Sun-Maid has stayed with the de-sexualized icon because raisins are associated with children?
FYI, Sun-Maid was one of the companies boycotted by United Farm Workers of America, the group let by Cesar Chavez.
Thanks, Eric S.!
NEW: In a comment Adriana pointed us to Ester Hernandez’s parody of the Sun-Maid girl:
Thanks, Adriana!
Stephen W. sent us this picture of the “Hispanic” foods aisle at a Walmart in Sioux Falls, South Dakota:
Why is this odd?
The word “Hispanic” was actually invented by the U.S. government to mean Spanish-speaking. The government invented it for the census because they wanted to be able to label and identify all Spanish speakers. “Hispanic,” then, unlike the terms “Latino” or “Chicano,” is not an identity that originated among those to whom it applies. Further, though it is sometimes used as a euphemism for “Mexican” or “Latino,” Spanish is only spoken in Latin America because of the conquest of parts of Latin America by Spain.
Given the history and use of this term, what would “Hispanic” food be?! (According to Walmart, it’s salsa and tacos.)
NEW: Another use of the term “Hispanic.” This time on a bag of peanuts passed out on a Southwest Airlines flight.
From a press release by Southwest Airlines about their celebration of Southwest Airlines:
Southwest Airlines shares its passion for Hispanic Heritage Month with our internal and external Customers by hosting celebrations in our Hispanic focus markets. Local Employees kick off the festivities by partnering with local organizations, and at airports, with gate games, Mariachi music, authentic foods, and distributing commemorative T-shirts and lapel pins emblazoned with our Hispanic Heritage Month message “Celebremos Tu Herencia,” “We Celebrate Your Heritage.” Hispanic Heritage month posters also are on display during this month-long celebration. Finally, be on the lookout for Southwest’s Hispanic Heritage Month specialty packaged peanuts! (emphasis mine)
Thanks to Stephen W. for this link, too!
