Michael Feldman had the author as a guest on What Do You Know? a few weeks ago. I didn’t get her name or the name of her book.
It was about the consumer culture of the 1950’s, particularly the shamelessness of the advertising that accompanied it. The author’s mother embraced her role as a 1950’s middle-class consumer and frequently wrote jingles and submitted them to advertisers. The author also went into the silly contests that manufacturers held in the 50’s and how her mother was always entering them. She won from time to time, and her alcoholic husband drank away the winnings.
Does this ring a bell?
TIA