Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1.Elizabethans -- The Post-war Blues -- Coronation Fever -- White-flowering Days -- All This I Promise to Do -- Black and White -- The Empty Vessel -- 2.Her True Calling -- The Twin Pillars -- A Better World? -- Houseproud -- Past Praying For -- Forbidden Facts -- 3.Lovely in Every Way -- How to Get Your Man -- Razzamatazz -- Who is This Beautiful Princess Going to Marry? -- The Wages of Sin -- Every Child a Wanted Child -- 4.Paved with Gold -- The Game -- Good-time Girl -- Bright Lights -- The Shires -- 5.When I Grow Up . . . -- Gymslips -- Wife School -- Bluestockings -- Reds -- Wasted Women -- 6.Queen of Her Castle -- Renunciation -- Feed Him, Love Him --- or Lose Him . . . -- Three Marriages -- My Own Front Door -- The Grand Plan -- 7.What's My Line? -- Clocking On -- A Little Extra -- You Might Be a Secretary -- Flight Paths -- Playing at "Working -- 8.On Parade -- The Regiment -- The Canal -- The Rose Bowl -- Good Morning Campers --

Contents note continued: Swanky Ladies -- 9.Keeping Up with the Joneses -- How to Get On in Society -- Housewives' Choice -- So Different, So Appealing -- Mad and Bad -- Disgrace -- 10.Under the Radar -- We Will All Go Together -- The Cause of Peace -- The Women's Caravan -- Fish Out of Water -- Ticket to Freedom -- 11.A Living Doll -- Sardines in Suburbia -- Lollipop -- The Golden Palace -- The Candy Shop -- Leading Ladies.

In Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, Virginia Nicholson tells the story of women in the 1950s: a time before the Pill, when divorce spelled scandal and two-piece swimsuits caused mass alarm. Turn the page back to the mid-twentieth century, and discover a world peopled by women with radiant smiles, clean pinafores and gleaming coiffures; a promised land of batch-baking, maraschino cherries and brightly hued plastic. A world where the darker side of the decade encompasses rampant prostitution, a notorious murder, and the threat of nuclear disaster.

Also issued online.