Gendered Images
Finding Connections in Local Advertisements from Columbus, MS Cofrom
A local newspaper is an excellent course of information concerning community events, personal milestones, and features on life in the area. Historians use newspapers to surmise the social climate of the area in a given decade or year.1 Many local papers, and even national papers, can be used as a primary course - a source which comes from and refers to the time period under study. Newspapers can show historians the values and ideals of a people as well as the goings-on during different time periods.2
FINDING CONTEXT
The Paper
Why 1970?
Since this project focuses on the theme of gender, 1970 is a good year to observe gendered images as it marks, in many ways, the beginning of the second-wave movement - the second feminist movement of the twentieth century. The second-wave included activism for women's equality in the workplace, reproductive rights, sexual fluidity, and nurmerous other causes. With 1970 came the promise of equal pay for women under Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co., the publication of a multitude of feminist literature, and the "Women's Strike for Equality" on August 26th. The year includes important public events of the second-wave, events that were covered in national media outlets. Across the country, the second-wave movement provoked discussion of gender, women's place and sexual liberation. The question is whether any of these issues were addressed in the religious ads.
Women and
Columbus, MS
Columbus offered a wide audience to advertisements that touched on gender issues. Columbus was a mecca for Mississippi women since it welcomed Mississippi University for Women, then the Industrial Institute and College in 1884. The school began admitting men in 1982, but its history as the first publically funded women's college make it an interesting place to study gender and popular media. In the 1970s, Mississippi State College for Women still was a single-sex institution and with approximately 2500 women attending that year, ads in the local newspaper reached women who would graduate and spread out across the state.4
Footnotes:
1 Allen, Robert B., and Robert Sieszkiewicz. "How Historians use Historical Newspapers." ASIS.org. http://www.asis.org/asist2010/proceedings/proceedings/ASIST_AM10/submissions
/131_Final_Submission.pdf
2 Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A pocket guide to writing in history. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
3 Moen, Matthew C. . "Christian Right." Content Pages of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Social Science. http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/Cright.htm
4 Pieschel, Bridget Smith, and Stephen Robert Pieschel. Loyal daughters: one hundred years at Mississippi University for Women, 1884-1984. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.
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Religion in Columbus, MS
The 1970s, while a crucial time for the second-wave feminist movement, were also a time of religious resurgence despite the common understanding of the era as rock-and-roll focused "revolution." Many remained tied to the church and their religious beliefs. In Columbus, this included numerous Protestant churches as well as Catholic groups and a rather large Jewish community. Religion in Columbus was booming in 1970 as it was in much of the South despite the trend toward non-European religions in the nation as a whole. Although the Christian Right movement would happen in the late 1970s some of the traditional values they would bring to the political table can be seen in the popular culture of previous years.3