Abstract
This essay examines how postwar women's magazines introduced television to the American housewife. Combining methods of textual analysis with industrial and cultural history, it shows the ambivalence which characterized popular discourse on television. In particular, the study reveals the way television was imbricated in the gendered division of labor and leisure at home by exploring how the magazines deliberated on the problems television posed for women's domestic chores and the efficient functioning of the household. It thus contributes historical perspective to the ongoing concerns about television's relationship to family audiences.

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