Cannon, Poppy (2 Aug. 1905–1 April 1975), cookbook author, journalist, and advertising executive, was born Lillian Gruskin in Cape Town, South Africa, to Robert and Henrietta Gruskin, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. (Henrietta’s maiden name is unknown.) The family moved to the United States in ...
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Laura Shapiro
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Fishback Antolini, Margaret (10 March 1900–25 September 1985), poet and advertising copywriter, was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Frederick Lewis Fishback and Mabel Coleman. Her parents' occupations are unknown. She graduated from Central High School (now Cardozo Senior High School) in Washington, D.C., in 1917 and went on to Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, from which she graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1921. She taught English and history at Columbia Junior High School in Washington, D.C., for her first year after college. The next year she found a job in New York City in the organizational department of Tamblyn & Brown, a prominent fund-raising firm, but she soon found more creative work in the advertising division of R. H. Macy & Company, where she was quickly promoted. In 1926 she started at Macy's as an assistant copywriter, and in two weeks she was promoted to divisional copywriter. From 1930 to 1942 she held the rank of institutional advertisement writer, and from 1940 to 1942 she was chief copywriter for the company....
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Donna L. Halper
Hummert, Anne (19 January 1905–05 July 1996), radio producer and advertising executive, was born Anna Mary Schumacher and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, the oldest of four children of Frederick Schumacher, whom census records list as a steamfitter and a contractor, and Anna Lance Schumacher. At some point in her youth, she began using the name Anne rather than Anna. She loved to write and was attracted to journalism while still in high school, writing an advice column for the ...
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Jennifer Scanlon
Resor, Helen Lansdowne (20 February 1886–02 January 1964), advertising executive, was born Helen Lansdowne in Grayson in the mountains of Northwest Kentucky, the youngest of nine children of George Lansdowne, occupation unknown, and Helen Baylett Lansdowne. When Resor was four years old, her mother left her father and took the children to Covington, Kentucky, where she obtained work as a clerk. “You're never going to get caught the way I was. You're going to learn how to work,” Resor's mother told her (Fox, p. 94)....
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Ellen Wayland-Smith
Rindlaub, Jean Wade (9 Feb. 1904–19 Dec. 1991), advertising executive, was born Helen Jean Wade in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the eldest daughter of Robert Mifflin Wade and Lola Heller Hess Wade. She had one sister, Mary Emily Wade. Her father and his brothers owned and operated the Pennsylvania Business and Shorthand College in Lancaster. Homeschooled by her father, by the time she was eleven Jean had earned an award from the Remington Typewriter Company for typing fifty words a minute; at fourteen, she became the youngest student ever to earn a certificate of efficiency from the Gregg Shorthand Company. In ...
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Trahey, Jane (19 Nov. 1923–22 Apr. 2000), advertising executive and writer, was born Esther Jane Trahey in Chicago to Irish immigrants David J. Trahey and the former Margaret Hennessey. Her father died when she was young, and her mother raised her two daughters on his pension. She credits her mother with encouraging her to further her education and become self-sufficient. Trahey said, “I came out of grammar school with drive” (“Never Plain Jane,” p. 3). Educated in local Catholic schools, Trahey graduated from Mundelein College in ...
