For Immediate Release
Contact: Dr. Shirley Wajda
330-672-9404
([email protected])
Ron Kirksey, Director, Media Releations
330-672-2727 ([email protected])
Kent State Researcher Finds Academic Interest in Martha Stewart Phenomenon
In a era when a quarter of American households consist of one person, when half the nation's families are childless couples, and when the demands of paid work and intrusive technology daily invade the home, Martha Stewart succeeds by selling a nostalgic sense of comfort and family.
"Martha Stewart enjoys broad appeal because she offers her dedicated consumers the illusion of privacy, and she does so by employing a yearning for, if not an implementation of, that pre-technological house," said Dr. Shirley Wajda, an assistant professor of history at Kent State University. "She bemoans the intrusion and acceleration of work and the degradation of social behavior due to the demands of communication technologies, even as she profits from these same trends."
Wajda and a handful of other scholars have found a flowering of academic interest in the phenomenon of super homemaker Martha Stewart.
The interest is recent. When Wajda, a historian of everyday life, and several colleagues proposed a panel discussion on Stewart at the 1998 American Studies Conference, they were rejected. Shortly afterwards, the Modern Language Association rejected a similar proposal from its membership. But Wajda and friends persisted, proposed it again for the 1999 conference and won approval. In fact, the session filled a 90-seat conference room, with more people trying to get in.
Wajda was concerned that she might receive criticism for studying the Martha Stewart phenomenon. "If it were Bill Gates, no one would question it," she said. But Wajda has tapped a great deal of academic curiosity about Stewart. "All of us got a lot of questions after the conference," she said.
In addition, the panel's papers are being considered for publication in the journal American Studies. There is a monograph on Martha Stewart and a cultural studies reader devoted to Martha coming out soon. And Wajda (pronounced VYE-da) is working with colleagues on a book about the entire do-it-yourself culture that Martha Stewart personifies.
"Martha Stewart fits into a long tradition and I think she is very conscious of that," Wajda said. Wajda cites the soothing, Martha-like style of the descriptions of ideal home life from The American Frugal Housewife, one of the first domestic economy manuals, written by a Mrs. Child and published in 1833.
Wajda also notes the early 20th Century Arts and Crafts movement, which rejected machines in favor of household goods made by skilled artisans. Today, the do-it-yourself movement abhors the microchip influence in our home lives. This modern trend is personified in the empire of personal comfort products and advice that is Martha Stewart.
That is the irony. The Martha phenomenon sits comfortably under the umbrella of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia LLC, which includes: a magazine with a circulation of 2.2 million; a weekend television show with 2.6 million viewers; a daily TV show, Living With Martha Stewart, the number one "how-to" show in the country with 3 million viewers; Martha By Mail, a mail order catalog; askMartha, a New York Times syndicated column with corresponding 90-second radio broadcasts on 150 stations; a web site with 300,000 hits a week; and business deals with Kmart, Sherwin-Williams, Jo-Ann Fabrics and the Canadian company Zellers, which put the Martha Stewart name on everything from bed and bath items to garden tools.
Last October, when Stewart's empire went public, her initial offering of 7.2 million shares soared from $14 a share to $35.50 on the first day. She also served the denizens of Wall Street a homemade breakfast of scrambled egg-stuffed brioche and freshly squeezed orange juice.
"Martha understands the marketplace," Wajda said. "She is a domestic woman, a business woman, a craft maker and a consumer goddess."
Wajda, a historian who uses anthropology as a method to dissect the culture of everyday life, admits being "a little mesmerized by what Martha does with the everyday. In the here and now, when we are going crazy, Martha allows us to think about a time when the pressures of life were not so demanding, to think that we can create a domestic utopia."
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