Consuming Angels Advertising and Victorian Women [Hardcover]

Timid and retiring, the Victorian housewife was an angel in the house, or so says the stereotype. But when this angel picked up a popular magazine--The Lady, for instance--she saw in its advertisements images of Grecian goddesses, women warriors, queens, actresses, adventurers. These arrestingly sexual and surprisingly powerful images are the subject ofConsuming Angels, a major examination of how Victorian ads shaped social values. Stylishly written and featuring 73 reproductions, this book shows how ads used the hedonistic aspects of Victorian culture to sell their wares, glorified consumerism, and mythologized the middle-class life. Images of aggressive women, Loeb shows, played well to both men and women. And ultimately, these ads helped usher in the twentieth century with the creation of a new community: the community of consumers.

The subject of this wonderfully illustrated book goes to the heart of modern life, the establishment of the ethos of consumption (in England) and the necessary role played in it by women. Loeb shows how the home, already transformed by mid-Victorian evangelicalism into a 'domestic temple' presided over by feminine virtue, was easily altered by advertisers into the locus of gracious middle-class consumption managed by an equivalent feminine presence. --The Boston Sunday Globe

Loeb's argument about the impact of consumerism on women's status is most compelling....Fascinating and richly illustrated, this work is a welcome addition to social and women's history. --CHOICE

An excellent reading for my course sermon on women as consumers. Great analysis of images within their historical contect. --Deborah I. Prosser, SUNY at Oneonta

A superb introduction to an advertising mentality which presumably led to the successful marketing of products in an age of rapidly growing consumerism. --The Historian

This is the first time that advertising has beel#8