Women’s Everyday life in the American Suburbs of the 1950s in a Modern Museum Exhibition (Based on Materials from the Johnson County Museum, Kansas)

10.33876/2311-0546/2022-3/195-208

Authors

  • Alexander Zhidchenko The Russian Academy of Sciences N.N. Miklouho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology

Keywords:

US history, women's history, gender, urban culture, museum exposition

Abstract

The article analyzes the exposition in a local American museum in order to analyze the way it presents women’s everyday life. This space is shaped by such key points as home and household, various city institutions and organizations, and social activities. It was found that the everyday life of American women, on the one hand, maintained a secure, stable family life — a house, a car, a garage, supermarkets, etc. On the other hand, it also limited a woman in her activities, in which wives largely depended on their husbands. The museum exposition reflects this contradictory picture of the everyday life of American women. The experience of such a scientific reconstruction is an interdisciplinary study at the crossroads of the history of everyday life, new local history, museology, and ethno-­gender studies.

Author Biography

  • Alexander Zhidchenko, The Russian Academy of Sciences N.N. Miklouho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology

    Zhidchenko Alexander V. — Ph.D. in History, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Gender Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences N. N. MiklouhoMaklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (119334 Moscow, Leninsky prospect 32A). E-mail: travel822@yandex.ru

    For citation: Zhidchenko, A. V. 2022. Women’s everyday life in the American suburbs of the 1950s in a modern museum exhibition (based on materials from the Johnson County Museum, Kansas). Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii). 3: 195–208.

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Published

12.09.2022

Issue

No. 3 (2022)

Section

Museum Anthropology