Denise H. Sutton - Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century

Globalizing Ideal Beauty

How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising
Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century

Denise H. Sutton

GLOBALIZING IDEAL BEAUTY
Copyright Denise H. Sutton, 2009.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 978-0-230-61174-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sutton, Denise H.

Globalizing ideal beauty : how female copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency redefined beauty for the twentieth century / Denise H. Sutton.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-230-61174-0

1. Women in the advertising industryUnited StatesHistory. 2. Women in advertisingUnited StatesHistory. 3. Beauty, PersonalUnited StatesHistory. 4. J. Walter Thompson Company Womens Editorial Department. 5. Advertising agenciesUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.

HF5805.S87 2009
659.10922dc22 2009004025

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Scribe Inc.

First edition: September 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

For Peter, with love and gratitude.

And, in memory of my grandmother

Esther Dinse Stoskopf.

It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to thank the many people who helped me as I worked my way through this project. This book grew out of my dissertation, and I am indebted to the faculty members at Clark University who served on my committee, Parminder Bhachu, Sally Deutsch, Cynthia Enloe, and Fern Johnson (my advisor), for their unwavering support and intellectual generosity. My committee has also continued to offer guidance for which I am grateful. Robert Clark was a part of this project from the start. This book benefited greatly from his critical insights and sharp editing eye. Thanks to Claire Cummings, who read the manuscript and provided valuable feedback and loving support throughout, and to Anna Balas for creative inspiration. Mona Domosh was kind enough to read a section of my manuscript and provided insights into the international expansion of American businesses, in particular. My brother-in-law, Robert Shoemaker, a retired professor from New York Universitys Stern School of Business, provided crucial feedback from a business perspective. Bart Astor introduced me to the world of publishing, gave me good advice, and cheered me on.

I owe a special debt to Laurie Harting, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, for her interest in this project and her care with the text. Her enthusiasm for the ad women at J. Walter Thompson (JWT) matched my own. Many thanks to Laura Lancaster and Erin Ivy at Palgrave Macmillan and to Jennifer Kepler at Scribe, all of whom made this book better. This book also benefited from the suggestions of the anonymous reviewers at Palgrave Macmillan.

Over the last couple of years, I have presented some of this research at academic conferences. In particular, I would like to thank those scholars at the womens history conference at Guildhall University, London, who provided thoughtful feedback on my book. I also learned a great deal from the students in my Advertising Gender class at the New School University, whose interest in advertising was indefatigable. I am grateful, too, for generous financial assistance from Clark University for the support of a three-year fellowship and travel grants. In addition, a research grant from the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University allowed me to spend time at the JWT Archives held there.

One of the most exciting aspects of writing this book has been the opportunity to dig through various archives. I am grateful to Karen Baldwin and Richard Taylor for introducing me to the thrill of archival research. I have spent years surrounded by boxes of archival material, transported to the world of the women I write about in this book, some of whom, I discovered, had lived only a few blocks from me on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were days I expected to see the flash of Aminta Casseress skirt whipping around a corner on Broadway or to catch a glimpse of Ruth Waldo, in her famous hat, strolling through Riverside Park. Many thanks to archivists Ellen Gartrell, Jacqueline Reid, and Lynn Easton at the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, Duke University. This book would not have been possible without the existence of the JWT Archives. It was truly a pleasure to spend time there. I also wish to thank John Pollack at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania, Marcia Bassett at the Barnard College Archive, Dorothy Brown at the Wellesley College Archive, and Nanci Young at the Smith College Archive. A considerable amount of time was spent tracking images and obtaining copyright permissions. Kenneth Leonard at Unilever was helpful and kind, for which I am grateful.

My family and friends have sustained me during the last couple of yearsyou have my enduring love and gratitude. In particular, my husband, Peter Metzger, provided support and laughter. He tolerated my distracted state of mind, and his presence gave me a life outside of writing and research. I am also grateful to Adele Mauro and Peter at Cullen and Dykman who secured for me a writing room of my own.

I have always been drawn to advertising. As a little girl the lullaby I sang to my Raggedy Ann doll was an ad jingle for panty hose: our Leggs fit your Leggs, they hug you, they hold you, they never let you go! My mother threatened to put my homework to the tune of an ad jingle since I easily memorized them, unlike my multiplication tables. And later, as a teen, I had a love-hate relationship with Vogue magazine. This book tells the story of a group of talented women who were drawn to advertising and went on to develop many of the advertising strategies we still see today. I regret that I did not get the chance to meet and talk with themmany had passed away during the 1960s or earlier. I hope that this book does justice to the complicated story of their work lives at J. Walter Thompson and to what they accomplished there.

Headline: Women in AdvertisingEighty-five percent of all retail purchases are made by women.

Copy reads: In selling goods to women, you hear much of the womens point of view. It is spoken of as if there were some mystery about women, which perhaps some woman, properly gifted, could divulge. To establish these facts and to base the work of presenting an article to be sold to women on complete facts, the JWT Company has developed a staff of women. Among the members of its creative staff, the JWT Company includes women holding degrees from Barnard, Smith, Vassar, University of Chicago, Wellesley, and Columbiawomen who have also gone through the regular course of training in advertising which the company gives.