Powering the Home

The mid-20th century brought about an advertising renaissance in the western world. Technology boomed. Standards of living increased, innovation abounded, and ‘luxury’ consumer products such as TVs, fridges and gas heating became readily available to the public. In order to sell them, ads needed to be as quirky and appealing as the new commodities themselves. This compact yet comprehensive book, written by an experienced design historian, explores the hand-in-hand development of advertisement and the many household amenities that we take for granted today. This book began its life as an offshoot of another, also written by Ruth Artmonsky, but focusing on the advertising of furniture. Her research led her to discover the expansive genre of domestic appliance advertising – not relevant to her book, but more than interesting enough to merit a new text in its own right. Adverts that caught Ruth’s eye include “an advertisement for a gas iron, and a rare one of a man admitting he might be able to do the laundry when the house purchased a washing machine.” Discover all this and more in Powering the Home.