I know it’s kind of a cheap tactic to hold someone accountable for views they held decades ago, when society was very different, but I did a double-take when I read a quote from McDonald’s patriarch Ray Kroc.

Kroc, in an Associated Press interview published in several papers on September 15, 1959, cited several factors as to why McDonald’s was such a runaway success.

There were economic considerations such as a simplified menu and no in-store dining, but Kroc also seemed to focus on the type of image the chain should portray and the type of people they wanted working and dining.

In Kroc’s own words:

“We don’t allow juke boxes, cigarette machines or phone booths — and we don’t hire female help,” he said.

“In picking a site we count the churches and schools in the area, rather than the traffic. We appeal to a family trade, not transients. We want to become a real part of the community.”

So take note, transients and females, you should most definitely not bother looking for the Golden Arches.

People found this post by searching for:

"https://www grayflannelsuit net/blog/secret-mcdonalds-success-not-hiring-females"

I don’t handle college basketball ephemera on the Press Room (yet), but I couldn’t not share this anyway. It’s the media guide for the North Carolina Tar Heels’ 1972-73 men’s basketball season, and it is quite fetching for a few reasons.

Here we see a quite fetching UNC co-ed being eyed, sort of creepily I might add, by a trio of UNC players including George Karl on the right. And hoo-boy are those some great pants he’s wearing.

But it’s not his legs we’re interested in, right? Ah, college life.

As it turns out, putting pretty college women on the front of media guides and programs was not an uncommon practice, and I’m not even including cheerleaders in that category. But that’s another topic for another post…

I have no reason for sharing this photo, other than the fact that it’s so random and so odd that it must be seen. It comes to us via the Australian War Memorial’s collection, and shows a rather unique scene from the Australian home front.

This odd photo was shot on February 29, 1944 by the Herald Newspaper in Melbourne, Victoria. Here is the description, which makes no note of the priceless expression on the face of the woman walking by the car:

A papier-mache cow, used for milking demonstrations at the Werribee experimental farm, being tied on to the luggage carrier of Mrs. Mellor’s car for transport to the farm. Mrs. Mellor is a Field Officer in charge of the Women’s Land Army Mont Park training depot.

Using sex to sell merchandise is hardly a new tactic, but in the 1940s it wasn’t a common one either. And yet in the 1940s and ’50s Springs Cotton Mills, makers of Springmaid Fabrics, put out a series of ads that likely pushed every boundary there was in American marketing with regards to sex appeal.

The Springmaid ads, clearly influenced by pin-up art, made use of double entendre (written by company owners Elliot White Springs) and liberal doses of voyeurism. The illustrations generally fell into one of two categories, with some exceptions: looking up a woman’s skirt or seeing her panties fall down around her ankles.  That’s about it. Most of the advertisements came with a short tagline such as “Defy Diaphoresis,” “Protect Yourself,” or “Perfume and Parabolics.” My personal favorite is “We Put the ‘Broad’ in Broadcloth!”

Here’s a gallery of just some of the racy Springmaid Fabrics ads produced by Springs Cotton Mills in the mid-century period.

Related articles

• Textile Temptresses- Mid-Century Springmaid Ads (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)

I don’t often do political humor here, but I’ve been dying for an opportunity to work this guy into a joke for a long time. I’ve been watching these odd Binder & Binder ads and wondering if Charles Binder really wears those stupid hats around the office, or if he just busts them out for commercials. Anyway, binders full of women, lulz.

People found this post by searching for:

"binder and binder", "charles binder"

If my Tumblr feed is any indication, Bettie Page is one of the most loved and photographed women in history. And so it’s only natural that she’d show up on album covers as well. Here’s a cheesecake-filled selection.

This is a shot from the famous 1954 “Jungle Bettie” session with photographer Bunny Yeager.

Never one for subtlety, David Lee Roth‘s 1998 solo album pretty much summed up what he thought was best about America. This also appears to be from the same Yeager photo session as the first cover.

Here’s another lovely 1957 gem from Halo Records. I’m not enough of a Pageophile to know the lineage of this boudoir shot. This same photo of Bettie in her black lingerie was used for a 1955 release of Bizet’s Carmen by the London Concert Orchestra, but with most of the lingerie (not to mention the bit of nipple on her right) cropped out.

Here’s another classic Bettie photo from the ’50s by Bunny Yeager. This one cranks up the humor element by putting Page in a slinky devil’s costume. I’m not totally certain of the year but I think it’s from 1954.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, truly one of the great thespians of our time, took issue recently with a series of photos taken of her on a Hawaii beach. The photos were unflattering by some accounts (I’m not posting them here, but if you really want to see them they aren’t hard to find), and since they were released Jennifer has been the subject of some pretty nasty comments. In response, she posted the following on her website (no I don’t have it bookmarked. It’s already my home page.):

This is the last time I will address this subject.

I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful.

What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.

Xoxo

JLH

For starters, I certainly don’t have any issue with most of what she’s saying here. It doesn’t take a genius to see how women of all ages are bombarded with daily messages that they are somehow worth less if they don’t measure up to some impossible standard of “beauty.” That standard, oddly enough, seems to keep moving all the time. Worse yet is the fact that men by comparison get a free pass on their physical appearance.

OK, so are we clear on this point? Good. Because where I do take issue is not with the content of this message, but the delivery girl. Because as much as Jennifer Love Hewitt now claims to be so concerned with the body image problems of other women (not so concerned to say much about it before she became a target, mind you), I can’t help but feel that her words ring a little hollow. I wonder why that could be? Ah, now I remember:

You see, ladies? If anyone can understand just how hard it can be for women to live with unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies, it’s Jennifer Love Hewitt. She’s clearly just a victim here. You should love your body, because she loves hers. Unless it’s shot at a “bad angle,” which I’m pretty sure translates to “untouched by a team of makeup and hair assistants, and without the benefit of airbrushing and/or Photoshop.”

People found this post by searching for:

"jennifer love hewitt", "jennifer love hewit", "jennifer love hewitt feet", "jennifer love hewitt pictures", "jenifer love", "jenifer love hewitt", "jennifer love hewitt body", "jennifer"

Yeah, I know that most of the old ads I post have to do with cigarettes. For some reason I have always been fascinated by cigarette advertising. I guess part of it is that these types of ads might have been some of the first to market a lifestyle as much as a product. I mean sure, they all talked about the “flavor” and even the reduced tar levels — ignoring the point that they had any tar at all — but what it really boiled down to was that these companies had to find a way to make a smoke inhalation device seem appealing. Watching them find ways to rise to the challenge has always interested me. Oreos pretty much sell themselves after all. Same with beer and cars. But flammable paper tubes that allow you to suck on hot smoke? Now that takes marketing acumen.

Marlboro is of course synonymous with rugged masculinity. Who doesn’t know the Marlboro Man after all? But what many people don’t know is that prior to his arrival, Marlboro was marketed almost exclusively to women. The featured slogan “Mild As May” was used starting in the mid-1920s, and as you can see the ads were quite feminine:

Proving that they had your beauty in mind, Marlboros even featured red tips designed to hide lipstick marks:

A particularly…um, interesting print campaign involving babies (yes, babies) was even employed at one point:

I’d love to be able to claim I created those last two in Photoshop, but sadly they are all too real. Marlboro actually used infants to sell cigarettes to mothers. I think once you’ve reached this point as an ad writer you’ve pretty much admitted that you would sell your mom’s kidneys on the black market to make a buck. Remember these the next time you read about how evil Joe Camel was.

Despite their somewhat novel marketing angle, however, by the mid-1950s Marlboro was getting trounced in the marketplace by decidedly more masculine brands such as Lucky Strike, Camel, and Chesterfield. So in rode the Marlboro Man, and the rest is advertising history.

People found this post by searching for:

"marlboro mild as may", "mild as may", "marlboro slogan", "marlboro ads", "marlboro man", "marlboro baby", "Marlboro Cigarettes", "mild as May Marlboro"