Old and new converge in this advertisement for bread flour, published in a 1921 Detroit community cookbook. The ad recognizes women’s new right to vote but still calls for women to bake their own bread with Henkel’s flour. Inexpensive, factory produced bread was available in the 1920s, but many women continued to bake bread from scratch. Cookbooks, articles, and advertisements for flour stressed the best bread was home-made and women who did not make their own bread were failing in their duties as a wife and mother.
Advertisement for Henkel’s flour. Book of Recipes by the Woman’s Association of Brewster Congregational Church, 2nd ed. (Detroit, Michigan, 1921), 113. (Courtesy of Library of Congress and Internet Archive)
Image featured in Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies by Cynthia Resor
As a teacher, I would ask my students to look up different advertisements that they see in their everyday life and bring them in. We would talk about all of the different ads and compare them to this ad. How are they alike and how are they different?