A Castle of One’s Own: Interactivity in Chatelaine Magazine, 1928-35

Abstract

Chatelaine promoted maternal feminism with a variety of illustrated content, garnering mixed results. Hand-drawn imagery in 1928 connoted both individual expression and collective national identity. Readers’ material interaction with illustration developed their self-direction, critical judgement, and creativity in how they received editorial, advertising, and aesthetic messages. This made the magazine popular and gave it counterpublic potential. Unfortunately, Chatelaine—an important employer of women at first—replaced much of the illustration by female artists with men’s work and generic photographs after 1932. Ironically, Chatelaine’s celebration of essentialized femininity in pictures and other texts contributed to the exclusion of women from “masculine” illustration jobs, even as such imagery also brought women together in solidarity.

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