When the United States entered World War II in December 1941 Coca-Cola was already bottled and sold throughout the country. In order show support for the brave men and women and an astute marketing plan Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff declared that “every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs the company”. Five cents was the cost of a bottle of Coca-Cola in the Untied States.

In 1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower commander of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations for all allied forces requested 3 million bottles of Coca-Cola to be shipped to North Africa. He also asked for equipment to construct ten bottling plants. After the bottling plants were constructed the Coca-Cola Company sent 148 of its employees oversees to maintain and manage the plants. The employees were given US Army uniforms, the rank of Technical Observer and treated as officers. They were nicknamed the “Coca-Cola Colonels” by the soldiers.

From the 1940s through 1960 the number of countries with bottling plants nearly doubled. While the Coca-Cola Company was busy boosting the morale of the fighting forces, they were also laying the foundation for becoming an international symbol of refreshment. Most of the bottling plants constructed overseas continued to operate when the war ended.

Coca-Cola’s advertisements during the war focused on coming together and enjoying the little things in life and avoided imagery of conflict. The taglines used would sound familiar to us today. “…Have a Coke”, “The pause that refreshes”, “That Extra Something!”, and “The Real Thing…”.

Below are nine advertisements for Coca-Cola from the back of Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post from 1942 to 1946. The style of the illustration are familiar to us today with rosy faced people smiling, coming together to enjoy life and drink coke. Something to notice is that most of the service personal pictured are not officers but privates and corporals or no rank is shown, Coca-Cola is the drink for everyone.

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Collier’s. August 01, 1942
This advertisement assures the public that the war rationing has not changed the quality of the product with the tagline “Coca-Cola, you know it’s the real thing” and an unnamed mascot with a bottle cap hat proclaiming “I’m loyal to quality”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. October 17, 1942
This advertisement also assures the public that the war rationing has not changed the quality of the product “It’s the real thing” and Coca-Cola is going to war with the troops, “Coca-Cola goes along” a sort of we are all in this together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. November 14, 1942
This advertisement focuses on the home front and still assures the public that the quality has not changed thought it may be hard to find. The ad mentions Coca-Cola is the pause that refreshes and part of the simple pleasures in life with the tagline “That Extra Something!…You can spot it every time”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 12, 1942
This advertisement focuses on refreshment and the energy that you will need while shopping or if Santa delivering presents all night. Coca-Cola did not create the image of jolly old Santa but they did solidify our modern image of him in a red suit and pure white beard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. May 01, 1943
This advertisement features “…the pause that refreshes” by mentioning how a rest pause in the military helps with any task and gives three examples. Stonewall Jackson in 1863 (without Coca-Cola), 1918 World War I and 1943 World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. August 21, 1943
This advertisement focuses on our troops overseas and that Coca-Cola is there as a familiar friend. A little piece of home that can be enjoyed all over the globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 09, 1944
Another Christmas advertisement, this one emphases friends and family and how Coca-Cola is an everyday symbol of hospitality. A way to be friendly all over the globe is to offer people “Have a Coke…”. Strangely for a portrait of a family there are no adult woman in the illustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 08, 1945
Christmas 1945 the war is over and the troops are arriving home. All the dreams of a soldier coming home include wife, children and Coca-Cola and that it is now the way to be hospitable around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. February 02, 1946
In this advertisement the troops are heading home with their overseas stripes on their sleeves and a Coca-Cola in their hands. They enjoyed the soft drink overseas brightening many a drab moment and now that they are home a bottle of Coke is a way to continue the tradition.

Cheerios was introduced on May 1, 1941 as Cheerioats, but the name was changed to Cheerios in 1945. By the early 1900s cereal companies had wheat, corn, and rice cereals but one made mostly of oats had yet to gain in popularity. Cheerioats was made of 75% oats with corn and rye add for flavor. The name emphasized the main ingredient to distinguish it from other cereals on the shelves. It was promoted as a modern ready to eat oatmeal cereal “no cooking needed”. In the first year that Cheerioats appeared in stores General Mills sold 21.6 million boxes.

Approximately ten different shapes and sizes were considered for Cheerioats before the small “o” shape we know was chosen. Lester Borchardt was a physicist working for General Mills in Minnesota. He and his team developed a puffing gun making the dough puff into an “o” shape. The Vitamin-enriched dough is heated and shot out of the gun at hundreds of miles per hour. Puffing is a pressurized flash cooking process that has been used to make puffed rice and puffed wheat since 1904.

In 1945 the Quaker Oats Company issued a trademark infringement complaint objecting to the term “oats” as a commercial name. To avoid a trial General Mills changed the names to Cheerios in 1945. The new name Cheerios was inspired in part by the shape of the cereal.

By 1951 Cheerios was the top-selling cold cereal sold by General Mills. Today, Cheerios continue to dominate the market with about one eighth of all cereal boxes sold in the United States being Cheerios.

Below are four advertisements for Cheerioats from the back of The Saturday Evening Post in 1942 and 1943. Notice that the advertisements are not directed toward children but adults. During World War II companies and advertisers looked for ways to get behind the war effort. Today Cheerios does not have a mascot, but then they had Cheeri O’leary who appeared in printed ads in the 1940s. Their advertisement also included early examples of effective cross-marketing campaigns with such stars as Claudette Colbert and Johnny Mack Brown, both were prominent Hollywood actors.

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The Saturday Evening Post. August 29, 1942
This advertisement promotes a ready to eat oatmeal cereal and the use of maple syrup to save on sugar during the war. It also included a cross-marketing campaign for Universal Picture’s Johnny Mack Brown’s movie “Boss of Hangtown Mesa”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. October 24, 1942
This advertisement encourages eating healthy during war rationing and uses Uncle Sam and Cheeri O’leery to promote a new kind of healthy ready-to-eat oatmeal cereal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. April 10, 1943
This advertisement encouraged war workers not to skip their first meal of the day and has Cheeri O’leary helping with seven menu ideas for breakfast. All include Cheerioats of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. August 28, 1943
This advertisement is an example of cross-marketing promoting “So Proudly We Hale” by Paramount Pictures staring Claudette Colbert. Cheeri O’leary is also here in uniform informing the public of the nutritional value in a rather strange descriptions of the vitamin’s properties.

Playboy is an American men’s entertainment magazine that was founded by Hugh Hefner October 1, 1953 in Chicago. The magazine has become known for its centerfolds of nude and semi-nude models called Playmates. In addition to the magazine published in the United States, it is circulated worldwide. Though today most of the companies revenue comes from marketing their brand on clothing and accessories. The magazine stopped publishing nudity April 2016 but changed directions a year later and brought it back in the March/April 2017 issue.

Playboy has a history of publishing short stories by well known authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, Vladimir Nabokov, Saul Bellow, Chuck Palahniuk, P. G. Wodehouse, Roald Dahl, Haruki Murakami, and Margaret Atwood. The magazine also features interviews with notable individual. It was also known for its full-page color cartoons, by Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Cole, Eldon Dedini, Jules Feiffer, Shel Silverstein, Erich Sokol, Roy Raymonde, Gahan Wilson, and Rowland B. Wilson.

A fun fact: Playboy started being printed in braille in 1970. Congress cut the funding for it in 1985, but U.S. District Court reversed the decision on First Amendment grounds. See people do read the articles…

The Playboy rabbit created by Art Director Art Paul appeared in the second issue and was later adopted as the official logo. The logo is worked into the cover in some way. Below we have eight cover images, at times the rabbit is easy to spot. Other times it is hidden in the crease of a dress or the hair of a model. A sort of adult version of Where’s Waldo.

The image of the Playboy March 1992 cover is not clear enough to find the logo. It is in the lower lense of her opera glasses. On the other covers the logo can be seen.

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The struggle for women equality is an age old battle. The 20th Century was clearly a breakthrough century for women’s rights and women entering the workforce. The early 1900s saw many first FOR WOMEN.

• 1907 Dorothy Tyler the first jockey.
• 1908 Theresa Peltier first woman fly solo at a time when it was claimed woman could not drive…
• 1909 Alice Ramsey first women to drive across the USA. Between 1909 and 1975 she drove across the country more than 30 times.
• 1910 Alice Stebbins Wells first police woman, hired in Los Angeles.
• 1911 Harriet Quimby first licensed pilot.
• 1916 Jeannette Rankin elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by the state of Montana.
• 1917 Loretta Perfectus Walsh the first woman to enlist in the U.S. Navy other than as a nurse, and was sworn in as a U.S. Navy petty officer on March 21, 1917.
• 1920 Women get the right to vote with the 19th Amendment.
• 1922 Rebecca Fellon first woman to serve in the United States Senate for the state of Georgia, though she only served for one day.

Illustration seems to have had no glass ceiling when it came to artist, and women were hired because they were just as talented as their male counterpart. In a world dominated by male artist from 1900 to 1946 The Saturday Evening Post had at least twenty four women producing art work for their covers. Four of the most prominent were Sarah Stilwell Weber with around 61 covers from 1904-1921, Neysa Moran McMein with about 63 covers from 1916-1939, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle with 40 covers from 1926-1936, and Frances Tipton Hunter with about18 covers from 1936-1941.

A brief history of The Saturday Evening Post. The magazine traces its historical roots to Benjamin Franklin, The Pennsylvania Gazette was first published in 1728 by Samuel Keimer. The following year, Franklin acquired the Gazette from Keimer for a small sum and turned it into the largest circulation newspaper in all the colonies. It continued publication until 1800. The Saturday Evening Post was founded in 1821 and grew to become the most widely circulated weekly magazine in America. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer.

Sarah Stilwell Weber (1878–1939) studied at Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle. She illustrated books and national magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, and The Century Magazine. Weber was believed to be in a tie as the second highest paid woman illustrator with an income of $10,000 per year in 2017. The other being Jessie Willcox Smith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neysa Moran McMein (1889–1949) was an illustrator and portrait painter she illustrated magazine covers, advertisements, and articles for national publications, such as McClure’s, McCall’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and Collier’s. For General Mills she created the portrait of the fictional housewife “Betty Crocker”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle (1876 –1936) created 40 covers for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s and 1930s under the editor George Horace Lorimer. She studied with Howard Pyle and later married Pyle’s brother Walter. She stopped painting in 1906 to raise her children and in 1919 Ellen went back to illustration to support her family after her husband died. As an aside note her daughter Caroline married Nathaniel C. Wyeth, the oldest son of N. C. Wyeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frances Tipton Hunter (1896–1957) created covers for The Saturday Evening Post and many other magazines between the 1920s and 1950s. Her work is very similar to that of Norman Rockwell. Frances studied illustration at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art , the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial.