The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci-Wright

Fashion Plate: Stay-at-home American women got to choose from a fundamental wardrobe of frilly aprons, cotton dresses and white pearls.

Remember When

From prime-time to polyester

By Cookie Curci-Wright

Harriet Nelson, Donna Stone, June Cleaver and Margaret Anderson were the epitome of America's housewife and mother, or at least as network television perceived her in the 1950s.

TV's ubiquitous Prime-Time Moms were the role models for a postwar generation of women, who dressed better doing their housework than some of us did at our own weddings. As a young TV fan, I knew Margaret Anderson and her television counterparts were too good to be true. But, oh, how I wanted them to be. Contrary to real-life moms, there was never a problem these lovely television homemakers couldn't solve in a span of 30 minutes, no situation so devastating that a little milk and cookies couldn't set it right.

"June," "Harriet," "Donna" and "Margaret" all led a storybook existence in a world of laughter and fiction, where the biggest problem June Cleaver had to face was how to get rid of that irritating Eddie Haskell, and Harriet's toughest decision was deciding which flavor of ice cream to serve Ozzie and the boys. Donna Stone's only frustration in life? How to stop son Jeff from drinking out of the milk carton. Margaret Anderson, the original Stepford wife, was forever content shelling peas, preparing supper and calling young Bud, Princess and Kitten to the dinner table.

Unlike the real world, these television homemakers never scrubbed a toilet or used profanity. Back then, the only "pot" discussed on TV was the one Mom cooked in, and "grass" was something Dad mowed once a week. "Coke" was a soft drink, "crack" was something you didn't want to step on ("Step on a crack, break your mother's back") and "speed queen" was the name of Mom's new washing machine.

But despite her lack of reality, the 1950s TV Mom had a major impact on the way young women saw themselves and what they aspired to become.

Women who once read fashion magazines were now tuning in to the family sit-com to see what their fashionable TV peers were wearing. Every season, American women got a chance to select from a fundamental wardrobe of cotton dresses, frilly aprons, white pearls and high-heeled pumps worn by Donna Reed (The Donna Reed Show), Barbara Billingsley (Leave It to Beaver), Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best) and Harriet Nelson (The Ozzie and Harriet Show).

It was Donna Reed's dress style that first ushered in what some fashion critics called the "paper doll" look. It took a minimum of four to five well-starched crinolines and a belt cinched tightly at the waist to achieve this popular, if uncomfortable, effect.

These delicate, ladylike fashions of the 1950s reflected the changes in our postwar generation. It was the era of God and country and Mom's apple pie. Women were dressing softer and more feminine in a way that epitomized American ideals and suited their role as the exemplary wife and mother.

By the 1960s, the women's movement had put an end to the romanticized version of the "stay-at-home mom." America's idealistic bubble had burst, and housewives all across the country were about to undergo a dramatic change in lifestyles.

Wash-and-wear synthetics had been invented, fabrics such as cellulose, acetate, nylon and acrylic revolutionized daily homemaking and ironing became a chore of the past. Until that time, generations of housewives had spent 15 to 20 hours a week over a hot ironing board, pressing out the wrinkles in their families' cotton wardrobe and linens.

What polyester did for the leisure suit in the 1960s, synthetic nylon did for the pantyhose in the 1970s. Even the American flag planted on the moon in 1969 by Neil Armstrong was made of 100 percent nylon.

With new fabrics came new attitudes. Quick-care polyester had given the modern homemaker more leisure time. The miracle of no-iron fabrics and microwave cookery had set housewives free to pursue new goals.

Discontent with her job as housewife and caregiver, unhappy with her lack of a good retirement plan and the endless get-me, take-me, fetch-me syndrome of daily housework, the modern mom began looking for work outside the home. This trend began in the 1960s, festered in the '70s and became a full-blown epidemic in the 1990s, with 75 percent of all mothers holding jobs outside the home.

Wives and mothers, who were once referred to as "simple housewives," began carving careers for themselves in the business and corporate world. A dynamic generation of working moms was born, and the words "simple" and "housewife" would never again be used in the same sentence.

Several generations have passed since television's consummate Mom set the standard of style and behavior for the postwar housewife. Unlike these pristine role models of yesterday, whose hair, makeup and clothing were rarely out of sync with fashion, today's working Mom has settled into a more flexible style and dress.

She does her ironing in the wash-and-wear cycle of the clothes dryer, never wears pantyhose and heels while doing her housework, and, unlike good ol' Mom and her predecessors before her, doesn't own an apron or ironing board.

Like most modern women of today, I consider myself nattily dressed when wearing a pair of 501s, a one-size-fits-all sweatshirt and a clean pair of running shoes. And the last time I wore a string of pearls was to Great-Aunt Hatty's funeral in 1955.

But sometimes when I'm alone at the end of a hectic day, I find myself a little envious of Mom and her quintessential generation of housewives, for never knowing a world of wash-and-wear, fast foods, computers and microwaves; and for the unmitigated satisfaction she derived from a job well done, as wife and mother, in that simpler, presynthetic world of the 1950s.

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