The work women have traditionally performed in the home was as vital in wartime as it had been during pre-war days. But, in the spirit of near-total mobilization for war, the fact that domestic labour was socially necessary received greater recognition, as can be seen in many wartime advertisements.
Wartime advertising was a complex business, as advertisers sought to compete for customers and protect a trade name for post-war markets, but also demonstrate a patriotic spirit. The manufacturers of commodities such as guns, planes and tanks had the least difficulty appearing patriotic, for they could easily show how their product was helping to win the war. Those who manufactured products for use in the home had a slightly harder time; but, once they took up the theme of how important efforts on the "home front" were to winning the war, they could argue for the contribution, albeit indirect, of the work performed in the kitchens and laundry rooms of homes across Canada to the battles overseas. One finds advertisements celebrating the important war work housewives performed when they kept their families on healthy diets and in clean clothes. An imaginative example is this 1942 advertisement by the Canada Starch Company of MontrÄal and Toronto. "All honour," it said "to those mothers and wives who are exerting every effort to keep the workers of Canada fit, vigorous and keyed to victory through production". They are Canada's Housoldiers.
