RACE, GENDER, AND COSMETIC ADVERTISEMENTS “DARK SHADES DON’T SELL”: RACE, GENDER, AND COSMETIC ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES BY: SHAWNA COLLINS, B.A A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University © Copyright by Shawna Collins, April 2018 ii McMaster University MASTER OF ARTS (2018) Hamilton, Ontario (History) TITLE: “Dark Shades Don’t Sell”: Race, Gender, and Cosmetic Advertisements in the Mid- Twentieth Century United States AUTHOR: Shawna Collins, B.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Karen Balcom NUMBER OF PAGES: x, 160 iii Lay abstract My project analyzes skin bleaching and hair straightening advertisements appearing in four black-owned periodicals between 1920-1960: Chicago Defender, Afro-American, Plaindealer, and Ebony. The main goal has been to document the advertising messages about blackness and beauty communicated to black women through the advertisements of black-owned and white-owned cosmetic companies. I explore the larger racial and social hierarchies these advertising images and messages maintained or destabilized. A major finding of this project has been that advertising messages usually, but not always, diverged along racial lines. White-owned companies were more likely to use denigrating language to describe black hair and skin, and more likely to measure the beauty of black women based on how closely they approximated whiteness. Black-owned companies tended to challenge this ideology. They used messages about racial uplift as part of this challenge. iv Abstract In this study I examine the two major cosmetic categories - products for skin and products for hair - aimed at frican American women and advertised within the black press between 1920 and 1960. Specifically, I examine the Chicago Defender, Afro-American, Plaindealer, and Ebony. My project analyzes the images and conceptions of blackness and beauty sold to women of colour by white-owned and black-owned cosmetics companies. I explore the larger racial and social hierarchies these advertising images and messages maintained or destabilized. A central theme of this project has been tracing the differences in advertising messages and conceptions of beauty communicated by black-owned and white-owned companies. Many of the images and much of the advertising copy produced by black-owned cosmetic companies challenged hegemonic beauty ideals that venerated white beauty and sold white idealization as a norm. The black cosmetic industry, however, was dominated by white- owned companies. The dominant position of white-owned companies was linked to the advantages associated with whiteness, which allowed these companies to advertise with greater frequency throughout the forty-year period. White-owned and black-owned companies often pursued diverging advertising strategies and messaging about black beauty. An important finding of the project is that white-owned companies were more likely to use degrading language and stereotypes to describe black beauty in their advertisements. However, a company’s racial identity did not always determine advertising strategies or messaging about black beauty. An important concept that permeated the 1920s and 1930s was the strategy of racial uplift, which was promoted by several black-owned companies. This strategy tapered out by the1940s as new technologies like photography regularly depicted black women with dignity and accuracy. The 1940s and 1950s witnessed new advertising strategies including the appeal to glamour. This period also saw the introduction of Ebony magazine, which fundamentally altered advertising messages through their appeal to middle class sensibilities. v Acknowledgements I want to thank Karen Balcom for her incalculable guidance, support, and mentorship over the last five years. Without her (extremely) strong encouragement to attend her woman’s study course, I would never have found my passion. Karen has been relentless in her dedication to help improve my writing. That work has paid off, especially over the past three years. Karen has encouraged me both academically and personally and has been my academic champion. From her, I learned how to “know what to know.” I am also extremely grateful for the support of my partner Husam, for reading my work, challenging my preconceptions, and being my greatest motivator when I felt defeated. His dedication and perseverance with his own work have been an inspiration. His encouragement and support have been invaluable. Finally, I thank my parents, Gloria and John, for always encouraging me to pursue my passion, and for supporting my education materially and emotionally over the past six years. vi Table of Contents Lay Abstract iv Abstract v Acknowledgements vi List of Figures viii Declaration of Academic Achievement x Chapter: Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Foundations of the Black Beauty Industry 20 Chapter 2: Race and Gender: A Theoretical Framework for the Black Cosmetics Industry 53 Chapter 3: Light, Bright, and Smooth Complexions 75 Chapter 4: “Diamonds in Your Hair?”: The Rise of Glamour, Luxury, and a Reawakened Hair Industry 111 Conclusion: 146 Bibliography 156 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Chart of Leading Cosmetic Companies Between 1920-1960. 37 Figure 2. Black and White Ointment ad, Afro-American, June 2, 1922, 8. 66 Figure 3. Dr. Palmer’s Skin Whitener ad, Chicago Defender, June 7, 1930, 16. 78 Figure 4. Madam C.J Walker ad, Chicago Defender, June 27, 1925, 5. 75 Figure 5. Herolin Pomade ad, Chicago Defender, January 31, 1920, 15. 85 Figure 6. Nadinola Bleaching Cream and Face Powder ad, Chicago Defender, June 29, 1929, 12. 97 Figure 7. Hi-Ja Chemical Company ad, Chicago Defender, June 28, 1924, 14. 89 Figure 8. Be Proud of Your Hair,” Pluko Hair Dressing ad, Chicago Defender, June 7 1924, 4. 90 Figure 9. Lou Ray ad, Afro-American, June 6, 1936, 5. 91 Figure 10. Do You Worry About Your Hair” ad, Poro, Chicago Defender, January 3, 1931, 7. 93 Figure 11. Black and White Ointment and Skin Soap ad, Afro-American, January 28, 1928, 5. 100 Figure 12. Snow White Cosmetics ad, Ebony, June 1948, 2. 111 Figure 13. Perma-strate ad, Chicago Defender, June 3, 1950, 12. 121 Figure 14. Mercolized Cream (skin bleach) ad, Ebony, June 1952, 78. 122 Figure 15. Dr. Palmer’s Complexion and Deodorant Soap ad, Ebony, June 1956, 116. 122 Figure 16. Nadinola Bleaching Cream ad, Plaindealer, June 1940. 4. 124 Figure 17. Howard double page ad, Ebony, June 1947, 26-27. 125 Figure 18. Jessie Kare Hair Attachments ad, Plaindealer, June 6, 1947, 3. 126 viii Figure 19. An example of a catalogue style ad. Medalo, Ebony, January 1950, 66. 127 Figure 20. Walker Company ad, Chicago Defender, January 2, 1926, 5. 131 Figure 21. Walker Company ad, Ebony, January 1950, 63. 132 Figure 22. Walker Cosmetics ad, Ebony, January 1954, 5. 135 Figure 23. Black and White Face Powder ad, Afro-American, June 1947, 10. 136 Figure 24. Black and White Skin Misery ad, Chicago Defender, June 1 1940. 138 Figure 25. Black and White “Put a New Face” campaign, Chicago Defender, June 6, 1942, 17. 141 ix Declaration of Academic Achievement I, Shawna Collins, declare this thesis to be my own work. I am the sole author of this document. No part of this work has been published or submitted for publication or for a higher degree at another institution. To the best of my knowledge, the content of this document does not infringe on anyone’s copyright. I completed all of the research work. x M.A. Thesis- S. Collins- McMaster University-History Introduction On September 7 1968, two powerful protests unsettled Atlantic City, New Jersey. The first was the now well known Miss America pageant protest organized by New York Radical Women (NYRW).1 The second protest also addressed beauty in American culture, though from a different angle. On the same day, and a few blocks away, the NAACP held the first ever Miss Black America pageant - a “‘positive protest’ against the exclusion of black women from the Miss America title.”2 Organizers pointed to the beauty of black women as a way to challenge the normative vision of ideal American womanhood as white. The message was that black women were beautiful as black women and not for how closely they approached the white ideal. The NAACP was challenging the longstanding cultural, social, and economic associations of “beauty” with whiteness, an association that was denigrating to black women. The NAACP pageant called attention to a particular double bind. According to Maxine Leeds Craig, in the 1960s images of black women were either wholly excluded from mainstream media - movies, magazines, advertising - or “included in images that reinforced Eurocentric beauty ideals. Black women had to contest their wholesale definition as non-beauties.”3 The pageant asserted a beautiful black womanness defined by black women. Protestors refused white society’s definitions of beauty. Protestors at Miss Black America would not allow white society to dictate how they should feel about themselves, how they should measure success, or how they should measure womanhood. 1 New York Radical Women “No More Miss America!” August 22, 1968, http://www.redstockings.org/index.php/no-more-miss-america 2 Maxine Leeds Craig, Ain't I A Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 4. 3 Craig, Ain’t I A Beauty Queen, 4. 1 M.A. Thesis- S. Collins- McMaster University-History The two protests were in many ways contradictory. While the white protestors abhorred the very idea of a beauty pageant for its objectification of women, the NAACP and its black protestors used a beauty pageant as a mechanism of protest. The mostly white Miss America protestors were aware of the NAACP protest, and they included an analysis of race in their ten points of protest. However, they did not seem to identify the affirmative value of recognizing black women as beautiful.4 Although the NYRW contended that they were against the main pageant’s racism, they never acted upon the claim during the protest.