The Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics A Brief History with Documents

With primary sources never before translated into English, Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics connects this debate, which profoundly shaped the economic, social, and cultural contours of the Cold War era, to consumer society, gender ideologies, and geopolitics.

Shane Hamilton (Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, where he specializes in social and political histories of technology, capitalism, and agriculture. His book, Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy, won the Theodore Saloutos Award for Best Book in Agricultural History. He has published numerous articles and reviews in economic, agricultural, and technological history.

Sarah Phillips (Ph.D., Boston University) is associate professor of history at Boston University, where she specializes in American political history. The author of This Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal, she has also written essays and articles in environmental, agricultural, and transnational history.

Foreword

Preface

List of Illustrations

PART ONE. INTRODUCTION: THE KITCHEN DEBATE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

From Hot to Cold War

"Peaceful Competition"

The Politics of Abundance

The Culture of Containment

The Politics of Food and Farms

PART TWO. THE DOCUMENTS

1. The Kitchen Debate

Selling the American Way

1. "People's Capitalism—This IS America," Collier’s, January 6, 1956

2. Llewellyn E. Thompson, U.S. Ambassador’s Telegram on Plans for the American National Exhibition Plans, November 17, 1958

3. Office of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, "Kitchens of Today and Tomorrow Slated for Moscow Exhibition," USIA Press Release, February 9, 1959

4. American "Kitchen of Today," photo or design to come

5. Office of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, "Cooking Display in Moscow to Feature American Dishes," USIA Press Release, May 13, 1959

6. Jerry Marlatt, Letter to President Dwight Eisenhower, July 10, 1959

Nixon Goes to Moscow

7. "The Two Worlds: A Day-Long Debate," New York Times, July 25, 1959

8. Ye. Litoshko, "A Talk to the Point," Pravda, July 25, 1959

9. Alan L. Otten, "Russians Eagerly Tour U.S. Exhibit Despite Cool Official Attitude," Wall Street Journal, July 28, 1959

10. V. Osipov, "First Day, First Impressions," Izvestia, July 26, 1959

11. Max Frankel, "Ivan Appears to Like the Way Joneses Live," New York Times, August 2, 1959

12. Vladimir Zhukov, "What the Facts Say," Pravda, July 28, 1959

13. Home Economists Demonstrate Convenience Foods, American National Exhibition photograph, July 1959

14. Russian Kitchen Exhibit, "Everything for Soviet Man" photograph, August 5,1959

Responses to Nixon's Visit

15. Edward L. Freers, U.S. Diplomat’s Telegram on the American National Exhibition, September 8, 1959

16. Favorable Comments on Exhibition, September 1959

17. Unfavorable Comments on Exhibition, September 1959

18. Ye. Litoshko, "On Nixon’s Visit to the Urals," Pravda, July 31, 1959

19. Bill Mauldin, "Boy, Did He Tell Them Off!," July 26, 1959

20. Nikita Khrushchev, Speech in Dnepropetrovsk, July 28, 1959

2. Consumers and Consensus

Capitalist Consumer Citizens

21. Alex Henderson, "Why We Eat Better," Better Living, November 1951

22. John A. Logan, Speech on Modern Food Distribution, November 1958

23. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 1958

24. Herblock, "Split-Level Living," Washington Post cartoon, March 9, 1960

Socialist Consumer Citizens

25. Edmund Nash, Report on Purchasing Power of Soviet Workers, 1953

26. Nikita Khrushchev, Speech on the 1959 Soviet Seven-Year Economic Plan, January 1959

27. Y. Ve. Semichastny, Communist Youth and Consumerism, 1959

28. A Soviet Woman Questions Consumerism, Komsomolskaya Pravda, 1962

3. An Easier Life for our Housewives

A Servantless Kitchen?

29. Lita Price and Harriet Bonnet, How to Manage Without a Maid, 1942

30. "Goodbye Mammy, Hello Mom," Ebony, March 1947

31. Jean Harris, "You Have 1001 Servants in Your Kitchen," House Beautiful, March 1951

32. Max Yarno, "A Trip to the Supermarket," Fortune photograph, October 1953

33. Poppy Cannon, The Can-Opener Cookbook, 1952

34. "Campbell Soup President Sees Trend Toward Entrees," Quick Frozen Foods, March 1957

35. Peg Bracken, The I Hate to Cook Book, 1960

Socialist Kitchens

36. Maria Ovsyannikova, "The Woman in Soviet Life," USSR, March 1959

37. R. Podol’nyi, "Technology on the March," Sem-ia i shkola 1959

38. Marietta Shaginian, "Reflections on the American Exhibition," Izvestia, August 23, 1959

39. I. Luchkova and A. Sikachev, "Is There a Science of the Home?," Nauka i zhizn’, October 1964

4. Down on the Farm

Abundance and Rivalry

40. Lauren Soth, "If the Russians Want More Meat," Des Moines Register, February 10, 1955

41. Edmund K. Faltermayer, "Farmer Khrushchev," Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1959

42. Nikita Khrushchev, Speech in Des Moines, Iowa, September 22, 1959

The Problems of Plenty

43. John Kenneth Galbraith, Speech on the Farm Problem and the Policy Choices, February 1958

44. Erwin D. Canham, Speech on the Farmer in the Space Age, October 7, 1959

Agricultural Diplomacy

45. Orville Freeman, Memo to the President re Tour of the Soviet Union, July 30,1963

46. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Report on the Significance of Four Million Tons of U.S. Wheat for Food Consumption in the USSR, October 15,1963

47. Nikita Khrushchev, "We Have Not Achieved the Abundance We Desire," Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 2006

48. Khrushchev in Kazakh Wheat Field, USIA photograph, August 1964

Appendixes

A Chronology of the Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics (1941-1971)

Questions for Consideration

Selected Bibliography

Index