The fragrance of pipe tobacco makes me wish I were a man...B. Daniels
This advertisement attracts women by targeting their emotional insecurities with the words “fragrance” and “makes me wish I were a man.” In the late 1920s, advertisers began to target the emotions and psychosocial needs of women. Advertisements targeted young women with liberation, beauty and popularity, and older women with health, weight and social status. Here, the silhouette of a man’s strong profile, pipe in mouth, overshadows the image of Bebe Daniels (1901-1971). Daniels was a silent film actress who starred in over 200 titles, played opposite to such luminaries as Rudy Valentino, and played Dorothy in the original 1910 film rendition of Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She would have been 27 at the time of this ad. Her forlorn expression in ths advertisement illustrates her desire to be a man so she can smoke a pipe. At the time, women did not traditionally smoke pipes, though every so often an older woman in the South might be found with a pipe in her mouth. In 1917, advertisements encouraging men to join the navy took a similar tack, featuring a woman dressed in a naval uniform next to a slogan that read, “Gee!! I wish I were a man – I’d join the navy. Be a man and do it.”
Actor, Bebe Daniels, Female, Star
