Advertisers in the 20th century brought our attention to shameful and scary conditions that sold a lot of products, like ring around the collar, dishpan hands, and halitosis. Dishpan hands was a real thing, a case of eczema caused by lengthy exposure to hot water and detergent, which you don't hear about anymore because we have smaller families and dishwashers. But in the 1930s and '40s, Lux dishwashing detergent had a campaign that shamed women for dishpan hands that embarrassed their husbands. The advertising reached further than Lux ever imagined.
In 1948, a Soviet delegate to the UN explained that the reason Soviet women were not allowed to leave the country with foreign husbands was because that in the West wives became kitchen slaves and developed dishpan hands.
Now, we shouldn't take anything a Soviet diplomat said at face value, but you have to wonder if this was a claim to give credence to a harsh policy while dissing the US, or whether the Soviets were just strangely influenced by American advertising. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: ladies Home Journal, 1945)