"You Too Can Rely on Lysol to Protect Your Married Happiness": Cleanliness, Chemistry and Modern Womanhood (1920 - 1960)

Department

College of Education, North Carolina A&T State University, 1601 E Market Street, Greensboro, NC 27411

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

4-17-2026

Abstract

“You Too Can Rely on Lysol to Protect Your Married Happiness”: Cleanliness, Chemistry and Modern Womanhood (1920-1960) This paper examines the historical marketing of Lysol as a women’s health product during the early to mid-20th century and its intersection with shifting gender norms, consumer culture, and technological modernity. Originally promoted “For Complete Feminine Hygiene,” Lysol blurred the boundaries between domestic sanitation and personal welfare, employing emotionally charged advertising tactics to target married women. These campaigns capitalized on societal anxieties about marital stability, physical beauty, and modern womanhood, framing hygiene as essential to maintaining romantic relationships. Drawing on historical analyses, the study situates Lysol’s marketing within broader cultural transformations, including rising divorce rates, women’s increased social and economic participation, and the electrification of household technologies. The paper argues that Lysol’s advertising strategies reflected and reinforced modernity’s ideals of cleanliness, efficiency, and beauty, while perpetuating eugenic and sexist rhetoric. Ultimately, this research contributes to scholarship on the role of science and technology not only in wartime innovation but also as instruments for shaping identity, social mobility, and consumer behavior in the cosmetic and healthcare industries.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS