Here is an interesting history of tobacco advertisements using pretty women and pinups as bait, and to gain broader social acceptance of smoking cigarettes! To explain changes in tobacco advertising, you have to take a historical perspective, which this article explains best. Briefly the history of tobacco ads (according to this 1953 article):
Here is illustrated how two marketing companies used cheesecake pinup, double entendre, and sexual innuendo to sell mens shirts and bed sheets.
Here are shown some lingerie and shapewear ads from the 1800s-1950s. The chemise replaced the corset cover by 1918, although shape wear was still worn in the 1920s to achieve that stylish “boyish” form. The inflatable bra of the 1950s replaced the “Victoria” bosom pad of 1879… such changes in lingerie styles and advertisements!
Advertising to women, by attractive women! Here are some shapewear and corset ads, with a historical perspective. Gilda Grey and “other famous actresses” endorsing a fat reducing cream in 1923. Gypsy Rose Lee endorsing an electric shaver. Warner Brother’s Coraline Corsets of the 1880s(the corset alone was enough to sell it), versus the more straight fronted corseted shape of 1900 (this advertisement with pretty women) in an ad for Armorside Corsets. Finally, an ad for the “modern” 1950s girdle with stockings and garters which flattened both front and bottom, and could be best illustrated in a photograph.
Enjoy these pinup pictures of Marilyn Monroe, declared “The All American Pinup” by the 1953 issue of Cheesecake – An American Phenomenon. Jane Russell said that “Marilyn is the most female girl I know”, and her only flaws were “a slight thickness behind the knees”.
The next page declares that “American business will spend close to $1,000,000,000 in advertising alone. At least one out of every three advertisements will feature a girl, who is bound to be pretty, shapely, and appealing.
Pinups thru out history have been used to sell everything from cosmetics to real estate. Sometimes, they had their origins in the scandalous worlds of peepshows and erotica. The scandalous Gilda Grey, famous for popularizing The Shimmy with her signature song The Shimmy Shewabble, helped sell a reducing cream in 1923. In 1925 she did the shimmy after a meeting to interest buyers in buying Coral Gables properties in Florida. The Shimmy, for which Gilda Grey was famous for, reportedly could be danced properly only with great difficulty and was considered primarily an exhibition dance. Similarly, the Cat Dance by Lilly Christine, had its origins in the realms of peepshows, but she crossed over into mainstream pinup model popularity and helped sell products.
“Today’s musical comedy stars replace the Grecian bend of The Florodora Girls with abandon, and little else” reads the headline. It mentioned the famous gals who have come from the anonymity of chorus lines, including: Eva Tanguay, Ann Held, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, Barbara Stanwyck, and Lucille Ball.
This article discusses how Hollywood press agents can create a national pinup sensation thru posting daringly sensual photos in select magazines. As examples, they point out Theda Bara in the first part of the 20th century, and the “modern” sensation Roberta Haynes.
Wow. What an interesting 1950s perspective on the history of nude photography! The accompanying pictures include 3 “unusual photos taken about 80 years ago” (i.e., sexy pictures from c. 1870). The full color photo is a realistic modern figure study by Jules Alexander, of a nude woman posed next to an electric fruit slicer.
Burlesque has provided men with a variety of entertaining pinups. Notably, Ida Bayton’s white violin act in “The Taxi Girls” in 1914, and Lili St. Cyr’s bubble bath striptease that helped land her in 3D movies.
In World War I, Mary Pickford became the favorite pinup of soldiers when she dressed in uniform and toured the nation selling Liberty Bonds. In World War II, “demand for it [pictures of Betty Grable”] ran as high as 20,000 per week…”. “Able Grable”‘s legs appear in Army topographic maps designed to teach recruits how to hit their mark.
Pictures of women in World War I and World War II. How early feminism and wars influenced women’s fashions.
This is a very interesting article in the 1950s pinup magazine about the history of how politics and politicians shaped women’s fashions during the first half of the 20th century. The early feminist movement asked for many changes, among them suffrage, easy divorce, property laws, and equal education. This resulted in a fashion trends that were mannish, including the no-curves, flat chested, flapper girl of the 1920s. This article goes on to call Victoria Claflin Woodhull a “political freak” (who ran for presidency in 1872), and pacifist Jeanette Rankin whose only winning two terms in congress corresponded with declarations of war (1917 and 1941). The caption under Woodhull says that she ran on a free love ticket.
Women’s changing fashions and shapes thru the 1900s! This first page quotes a skit about womens’ changing fashions from 1903-1953 written by Lois Long of the New Yorker and performed on “The American Road” by Mary Martin. Following that are production stills of Miss Martin performing her skit in various outfits representing the major fashion trends of the first half of the 20th century. Doesn’t it seem like every era declares itsself the one of the “emancipated clear eyed career girl”?
Then… and article about women in television commercials and television advertising (“bringing glamor to household appliances”).
Here’s a scan from CheeseCake – An American Phenomenon. It’s a spread with Ed Sullivan’s Toastettes and film snaps of Marilyn Monroe’s appearance on the Jack Benny show. “It was wonderful,” said MM, “You know, Mr. Benny at 39 has all the charm and poise of an older man.” When Marilyn Monroe agreed to be on the Jack Benny Show, finally television had come of age and could compete with the movies. Cheesecake Pinups on the new medium of television!
Here’s an article about how rubbery faced Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar have “given viewers a steady diet of broad, yet biting, satire and made them like it. Among their targets have been male, as well as female, cheesecake…”
“The Bust Line May be Best Line in TV”. This article explores how television was currently reshaping the Pinup phenomenon, remarking on Faye Emerson’s low cut gowns in the late 40s, but then turning again away from excess by raising bustlines and hemlines (referencing the Breen office’s revision in 1951, that apparently included a ban against showing intimate apparel on a moving figure). However, these restrictions had the result of making the female form more enticing, “A whisper echoes more than a shout”.
“It’s the inevitable cycle…. in 1910 it was the bust, and cleavage went down to the limit. In the 1920s the sex emphasis was on the legs. In the 1930s it veered to the back and posterior. In the 1940s it concentrated on the bust again. And now we are back to the bottom.”
This is an interesting article on how the Motion Picture Production Code affected the evolution of cheesecake pinup, and changed the recipe.
hoopskirts to bathing suits, this Cheesecake Pinup magazine takes a look at the history of sexual innuendo in humor and media.
One of the first cartoons is from the 1860s, showing the wind blowing up a dress to reveal the hoopskirt underneath and (gasp) the sexyness of the woman’s ankels! Then came the peepshows in the Kinetoscopes of the 1890s (as examples are The Bedroom Farce, and a womens’ wrestling). Then, the late 1890s cinema came along, and in the early 1900s, Hollywood and the Keystone comedies and the scantily clad “big names wearing too little” and sensual Femme Fatale Movie Stars of the 1920s…
How did the term “cheesecake” pinup originate? Origins of cheesecake, and the first pinup model and cheesecake photograph. An article about the history of American pinup.
