When Boredom and Emotional Fatigue Bring on “Housewife Headache”

Why is Anacin the most purchased aspirin by men?

“Making beds, getting meals, acting as family chauffeur — having to do the same dull, tiresome work day after day — is a mild form of torture. These boring yet necessary tasks can bring on nervous tension, fatigue and what is now known as ‘housewife headache.’

For this kind of headache you need strong yet safe relief. So take Anacin®. Anacin is a special fortified formula. It gives you twice as much of the strong pain-reliever doctors recommend most — as the other leading extra strength tablet.

Minutes after taking Anacin your headache goes, so do its nervous tension and fatigue. Despite its strength Anacin is safe, taken as directed. It doesn’t leave you depressed or groggy. See if you don’t feel better all over with a brighter outlook after taking 2 Anacin Tablets.”

This is the first in a brief series of LIFE ads touting Anacin as the cure for “Housewife Headache,” and one of two that characterize housework as “a mild form of torture” — from which there’s no respite, only a tablet that offers temporary relief from pain. Note the tactful reassurance about Anacin: “It doesn’t leave you depressed or groggy.” In other words, it’s not a tranquilizer. The active ingredients if you’re wondering: aspirin and caffeine.

Anacin is the trade name of several analgesics manufactured by Insight Pharmaceuticals. It was invented by William Milton Knight and was first to be used circa 1916 as stated in the patent. Anacin is one of the oldest brands of pain relievers in the United States, first being sold in the 1930s.

Anacin is one of the earliest and best examples of a concerted television marketing campaign, created for them in the late 1950s by Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates ad agency. Many people remember the commercials advertising “tension producing” situations, and the “hammers in the head” advertisement with the slogan “Tension. Pressure. Pain.”

The medication was mentioned in the book “The Shining” by Stephen king. Anacin had a large advertisement behind the center field fence of Yankee Stadium from the 1950s through 1973, until the stadium’s 1974-75 renovation.