Workingman's Wife

Workingman’s Wife brings up an insightful, but obvious, suggestion – companies need to advertise and sell to the working class consumer if they want to become a “billion dollar” corporation. Due to the great increase in this class’ size and the major market it provided to the producer, this point is rather obvious; however, the book still provides quite a few statistics as evidence for the claims that they make. Take the introduction for example; the reader is bombarded with evidence, making an annoying piece to read but one that attempts to convince you with the sheer amount of facts it has to back up its case. This doesn’t mean that the facts are not supportive or not convincing in their own, but I think the author would have been wise to keep from assaulting the reader with all of these statistics at once so that the message might be heard a little more clearly.

This entire essay does seem to me to be rather convincing, once again, due to the many pieces of evidence it provides. The inclusion of “True Story” and the comments from the readers was intriguing. This provided some interesting insight to the mind of those who read it, primarily the working class woman, and what kind of advertising they responded to the most. In one instance, the woman responding actually states that she likes “lots of real splashy color in ads” deciding that this element “helps to sell stuff” (149). It makes sense that a working class woman, one who works around the house and with her children, would be drawn to attractive colorful advertisements with fewer words, and so it is an interesting conclusion, but one that I found pretty obvious.

It may be because I do not yet know too much about 1950s culture, but the idea of always trying to pay for things in cash intrigued me. The authors go on to conclude with some testimonies that working class women would rather pay for things in cash than with credit. I had always thought that the arrival of credit cards had produced an influx of credit holders and users; this was probably still true, however, some of the women who were quoted in Workingman’s Wife talked about having learned their lesson having to deal with the hidden dangers of credit.

Also, much stress seemed to be placed on bargains and social interactions. The women responded most to the products that were either a good deal or involved interacting with people. The consumer would rather buy something if, for instance, her friend were selling it to her or the sales woman was kind in greeting her as well as if she had a coupon for it. The working class woman like to know how much she will have to pay before she gets to the store, so advertisements with prices and discount prices greatly appealed to her.

Overall I think this work gives substantial evidence, allowing us to understand what the working class woman would respond to when it comes to advertising and buying. Maybe I have found my place in the social ladder, since all of the ideas in Workingman’s Wife were so obvious to me as well as relatable. I want something that looks expensive but is a bargain; I want to know what I am going to have to pay for something I want; I want to be treated well when I walk into a store. I don’t know if others feel this way as well, maybe you are willing to pay more for the real thing as opposed to getting an awesome bargain on a good knock-off. Not me, and apparently not the working class woman either.