Discourses in Capitalism: Ovaltine Advertisements and Visions of Domesticity in the British Empire during the Interwar Period

Inspired by Judith Williamson's contention that advertisements produce knowledge from ideas “already known,” this thesis investigates Ovatline's global marketing campaign paying close attention to the ways in which the manufacturer's advertisements engaged in popular discourses of the interwar era. Models of domesticity, of femininity and of middle-class identity were undergoing a process of transformation in the years between the World Wars. Ovaltine advertisements from across the British Empire reflect an awareness of these shifting values, self-fashionings and anxieties. As a comparative study, this thesis examines Ovaltine advertisement campaigns pitched to three separate audiences: British metropolitan consumers, British communities living in Empire and the newly emerging indigenous middle classes of India and Nigeria. Ovaltine advertisements, in both reflecting and participating in the universe of ideas surrounding domesticity, the family and health, shed light on the construction and self-identification of the global middle class.