Ad from Nebraska Power Company,
"Cheap Electricity Does My Work"
From Five Hundred Representative Public Utility Advertisements, 1928
Public Utilities Advertising Association

Caption inside photo reads:
"Thirteen in this family of Mr. and Mrs. George Zagurski, 3244 South Twenty-sixth Street."

Text reads:
"Cheap Electricity Does My Work"

"Cheap electricity in Omaha has helped me a lot, and has made it easier for me to rear our family of thirteen. I don't see how I could have managed without cheap electricity," said Mrs. George Zagurski, mother of this family of thirteen.

"The Nebraska Power Company is a fine company, for they always try to be fair and give good service."

"The Nebraska Power Company is proud of this tribute from Mrs. Zagurski. Our company wants all Omahans to feel that their electric service bills each month cover every electrical use in the home, based upon practically the lowest electric service rates in America.

"Electricity is cheapest in Omaha!"

Small section in lower left corner:
"Electricity is so cheap in Omaha that electric energy for the average family washing can be furnished for about one cent. Every family should have an electric washer."

     An effective way to promote the usefulness of an electric washing machine which surely appealed to those with large families. A recurring theme in advertising of this era was that electric power made daily chores much easier and faster, thus freeing the user from drudgery and increasing leisure time. Historian Ruth Schwartz Cohan found that this theme was somewhat misleading in her book, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave, (New York, 1983). In her study, she notes that electric appliances displaced domestic help, and also resulted in routine chores being performed more frequently than before.