1918 - Everyday Life

Everyday Life

Congress enacts a "summer time" daylight saving law that follows the example of Britain and Europe. Enacted March 19, the new law goes into effect March 31 (see 1942).

The Raggedy Ann doll introduced by a New York firm is based on a doll produced to promote sales of the first book of Raggedy Ann stories. Indianapolis Star political cartoonist John Gruelle, 37, found the handmade rag doll in his attic last year and gave it to his tubercular daughter Marcella. They named it Raggedy Ann through a combination of neighbor James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphan Annie" of 1885 and Riley's poem "The Raggedy Man." The doll inspired Gruelle to make up stories that he told to entertain Marcella. She died holding the doll in March of 1916 after being vaccinated by a contaminated needle. Gruelle's book will have 25 sequels, and the Raggedy Ann doll will grow to become a $20 million-per-year business.

Lever Brothers introduces Rinso, the world's first granulated laundry soap (see Lux Flakes, 1906; Lux Toilet Form, 1925; detergent, 1946).

Kotex is introduced under the name "Celu-Naps" by the 46-year-old Neenah, Wisconsin, firm Kimberly-Clark Co., whose German-born chemist Ernest (originally Ernst) Mahler, 31, has developed a wood-cellulose wadding for use as a filter in gas masks and as a substitute for cotton to fill the desperate need for dressings and bandages in European field hospitals. When word reached Wisconsin that Red Cross nurses were using celucotton for sanitary napkins, the company began developing the first commercial sanitary napkin; it will be sold as Kotex beginning in 1921 (see Kleenex, 1924; Tampax, 1936). Johnson & Johnson will introduce Modess sanitary napkins as a way to get rid of surplus stocks of bandages.

The fashion house Fendi has its beginnings in a leather and fur shop opened at Rome by Adèle Casagrande (see 1925).

Paris jeweler René Lalique acquires a large factory at Wingen-sur-Moder to make perfume bottles and other art nouveau glassware (see Coty, 1907). Now 58, he has prospered mostly from his perfume bottles (see 1925).