Here’s another twist on the cheerful granny used as an advertising tool. As in other ads I’ve found, the grandmother is depicted inside the home. However, this ad in Ebony magazine shows an extended African American family at a holiday dinner. It is also a photograph, not a drawing, giving us much greater details about how the older women’s dress fits in with other family members.
To my eye, three elements mark the woman at the center as older—her graying hair, her slightly old-fashioned glasses, and her button up shirtwaist style dress. While we can see the same elements in earlier ads with grandmothers, I think this photograph does not set the older woman so far apart from the others. Her graying hair is in a loose natural style—this is after all the seventies—not radically different than others at the table. Her glasses look a little like the jeweled cat-eyed shape of the fifties, but she does not stand out that much from the others. While her light blue dress has the cut of an older era, the colors fit in with younger family members.
Although she might have worked hard to get the dinner on the table, this grandmother is at ease in the center, surrounded by loved ones. She is not working to earn her keep; she is celebrated as the heart of the family.
Looks like a great party! And everyone has such wonderful smiles. One man, maybe the host, or the patriarch, has a tie, the others have those wide collars open over sports jackets.
Ceci
Interesting what you can deduce from a photo….looks as though the house is in the south because of the high ceiling. I agree with Ceci — the older man is probably Grandma’s husband. Curious that there are no little kids, but maybe they have their own table in the kitchen.