Agencies of change: The use of education and advertising to promote modernity to rural Nevada women, 1920--1940.

摘要

Between 1920 and 1940, government and business promoted an optimistic vision of modern technology and domestic economy meant to reshape the productivity of farmers, redefine the role of the farmer's wife, and entice youth to stay on the farm. Education encouraged the consumption of modernity as the best means to move agrarian America into the twentieth century, while advertising promoted progressive attitudes, practical consumption, and the emulation of urban middle-class women.; This thesis investigates the ways that educators and merchants pursued women in Nevada as consumers, in comparison to similar studies completed in other regions. Through primary sources, this study describes the responses of women to endorsements of modernism. As in other regions, agents of change told Nevada women that modernity could make their lives better. Ultimately, however, the remoteness of the Great Basin affected women's acceptance or rejection of consumption more than persuasion, altering modernism's practice in Nevada.