Health & Beauty archive reveals expected roles of women

A large online archive of nicely rendered and interesting ads from 1930's and later can be found at Ad*Access.


Spend a bit of time browsing and absorbing these images of the past. Particularly interesting are the health and beauty ads and the depictions of the expected roles of women through the decades. Many ads also contain subtle imagery which would in later years be considered to contain 'subliminal' content. When it comes to subliminal imagery I'm on the fence about it's effectiveness. I am usually of the opinion that what is called 'subliminal marketing' is actually obvious and multi-leveled and is either overt or covert in the message.