Eaton Company Catalogue
Eaton’s catalogue for household appliances, combined with their ideology to sell products that fit into furnished homes, suggests that their main audience were stay-at-home mothers and women in general. There is a large emphasis on home appliances and caring for a home that can be found throughout the catalogues. Taking care of a home was the stereotypical expectation of women at the time, however, post World War II, women worked jobs and now had income to spend — possibly at Eaton’s Co.
The female demographic is further suggested based on the extensive women’s clothing sections that are featured at the beginning of Eaton’s catalogues — if Eaton’s catalogues were marketed towards men, it’s natural to assume more men would be present in the advertisements, but this is not the case. In the furniture sections of the 1954-1955 catalogue provided by Archives of Ontario, women are also drawn interacting with household appliances such as the wash tub with emphasis on owning (and furnishing) homes with Viking products, speaking highly of the products with one tagline being, “VIKING First choice of smart homemakers”. Homemakers in this scenario are obviously women, given the illustration of a woman in the top right corner. Given that the company had female workers, perhaps they encouraged women to spend their income on the company’s own products.