This cookbooklet is a great tool alongside all the other ephemera from the 1930’s when analyzing the trends and societal norms of the era.

Gender: Gender is clearly one of the most prominent themes throughout this cookbooklet, and also within society in the 1930’s. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s many blamed the male unemployment rate on the differential between female and male employment. It was generally accepted by society that females should be fired and replaced with unemployed men since many believed they shouldn’t be working anyways, they should be at home doing housework and looking after the children. However men were appalled by the idea of doing “women’s work” and frankly turned down most job offerings due to the shame associated with losing their masculinity if they took what was once a woman’s job. This cookbooklet displays gender roles by featuring a woman dressed in a pink dress on the front cover holding the plate on which she will serve the candies from in front of her. It also shows children with the trays full of candy, and the same woman on another page once again with what appears to be father figure behind, frankly ignoring the children. This demonstrates how women were seen as the housekeepers, in charge of cooking, cleaning, and watching the kids, their main job was to please the entire family unlike the males who were to support for the entire family.

Economics: Since this cookbooklet was released just two years after the devastating stock market crash of October 1929, it was produced and used during the worst economic state to date. Carnations canned milk is advertised on the very first page as being a cheaper and nutritionally equivalent substitute to milk, something that would last a long time on your shelf and wouldn’t break the bank. The Great depression lasted ten years, ending in 1939 and was time of financial struggle for many families in America as millions of investors were knocked out of their game, and 13- 15 million were left unemployed.

Patriotism:  This cookbooklet is a great example of patriotic ephemera from America. The bright blues and reds which are used throughout the booklet as well as the slogan on the back “Let Freedom Sing! Music that unites this continent in freedom and contentment.”. The patriotism was something that allowed them to connect with the community during an economically hard time.

Advertisement: The 1930’s were a blooming time for advertisements as the industrialized world began to skyrocket. This cookbooklet clearly displays the importance of advertisement and the urge companies had to get their ads out into the world. There are multiple coupons featured throughout this cookbooklet as well as a postage paper which can be mailed in exchanged for another Carnation cookbook! Advertisement in the 1930’s was focused primarily on selling gender roles rather than promoting and selling their actual product, the focus was on getting their brand out there and this served Carnation well as their company still continues to thrive to this day. As you can see in the cookbooklet, gender roles are a large part of the advertisement, with the woman on the front cover, to the descriptions of how canned milk is nutritional, it is clearly designed to target middle class women with fmailies in the 1930's.