Conclusion: Advertisers Passing Down Expectations of Domesticity

Although children were not consumers of coffee at this time, their imagery was used to perpetuate domestic expectations for women in the kitchen at a time when this was considered a high priority. Coffee advertisements including children in these two decades did not make up the majority of advertisements, but they are still significant because the men who created the advertisements likely saw children as a way to enforce double standards for women, as mothers and as homemakers, and they even went a step further to apply these standards to young girls. Consumers, likely middle-class women, would see these images and could apply it to their own lives and how they raised their children, meaning that these images had an effect on womens’ lives.

Therefore, using children was one way that male advertisers enforced patriarchal norms at this time. Because children were not consumers of coffee, their presence almost seems unnecessary until one considers what that could contribute to domestic standards for women and girls. Furthermore, by turning the focus to what male advertisers were doing, and not what female consumers were seeing, historians can hold accountable who was enforcing the patriarchy through advertisements for America's favorite beverage, coffee, at this time.