Thanks to Sonia for sharing this with me! She saw it on Boing Boing, which also transcribed the text that I’ve included below.
Can your wife bake her own bread?
Can she get a kid’s leg stitched and not phone you at the office until it’s all over?
Find something to talk about when the TV set goes on the blink?
Does she worry about the Bomb? Make your neighbors’ children wish that she were their mother?
Will she say “Yes” to a camping trip after 50 straight weeks of cooking?
Let your daughter keep a pet snake in the back yard?
Invite 13 people to dinner even though she only has service for 12?
Name a cat “Rover”?
Live another year without furniture and take a trip to Europe instead?
Let you give up your job with a smile?
And mean it?
Congratulations.
While I think this ad was probably progressive for the time it’s funny to read now. It was in a 1963 issue of LIFE Magazine and appeared just a few short pages away from a story on the first female astronaut to go in space – Russian NOT American mind you. So, they were trying but it was still a version of Don Draper who was creating this ad for a male audience. Just because it was a progressive attempt doesn’t change the fact that it’s describing “the right kind of wife” even if she sounds pretty cool for her times.