Hope in a Jar: The Making of America''s Beauty Culture
ISBN: 9780812205749
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Pennsylvania Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Beauty culture -- United States -- History; Cosmetics -- United States -- History;

In this lively social history of America's beauty culture, freelance writer Peiss traces the background and growth of the billion-dollar U.S. cosmetics industry over the past century. Relating cultural changes at the end of the 19th century, she observes that using makeup, heretofore forbidden for "nice" women, became a lightning rod for larger conflicts over female autonomy and social roles. The burgeoning industry provided opportunity for entrepreneurial women who eventually played a key role in its development. Among the early titans were Elizabeth Arden, a Canadian immigrant who learned to speak with proper diction to project an upper-class image, and Polish-born Helena Rubenstein, another powerful, self-created woman. They also had their counterparts in the black community: Annie Turnbo Malone and Madame C.J. Walker, who developed hair-care products, recruited women as agents as they traveled the country; Malone rewarded them with cash, diamond rings and even low-interest mortgages, a forerunner of today's direct-sales incentive programs. According to a study in the late 1980s, quoted here, feminist politics of recent years have done little to diminish women's use of makeup. This is a delicious and serious look at a glamorous industry. Illustrations of cosmetics advertising offer a history of their own. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kathy Peiss is Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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