1929 - Everyday Life

Everyday Life

Soap maker Andrew Jergens dies at his Sarasota, Fla., winter home January 11 at age 75.

Unilever is created March 2 by a merger of the British soap colossus Lever Brothers with Europe's 10-year-old Margarine Union. The first multinational company in the consumer products industry, Unilever is involved in enterprises as far-ranging as coconut growing and whale hunting. It will become a food giant second only to Nestlé in Europe and a household-products rival to Procter & Gamble in the United States.

Europe's first electric dishwashers are introduced by the 30-year-old German company Miele.

Pine-Sol cleaner is introduced by Jackson, Miss., chemist Harry A. Cole, who supplies the natural disinfectant and deodorizer to janitorial services that clean local banks. His fresh-smelling, effective product will not be sold outside Mississippi until 1946, but it will go on to become the world's largest-selling household cleaner.

Robert and Helen Lynd report in their sociological study Middletowne that Muncie, Ind., men are so preoccupied with earning a living and with such practical matters as car repairs that they take little part in household affairs, leaving it to their wives to care for and discipline the children, make social arrangements, and the like.

The first crease-resistant cotton fabric is introduced by Tootal's of St. Helens, England.

Crawfordsville, Ind.-born reporter and department-store advertising artist Eleanor Lambert, 25, arrives at New York with $100 and finds two part-time jobs, one doing consumer research and one designing book jackets. A publisher asks her to write a publicity release, and as the daughter of a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus advance man she sets up her own small 57th Street public-relations business for creative artists. Lambert will make herself the city's (and country's) leading fashion publicist, a role she will continue to play into the 21st century.

Nestle Colorinse is introduced in 10 shades (see permanent wave, 1906); the first home-applied hair coloring, its line includes a blue-grey shade that will be popular among older women (see Clairol, 1931).

California Perfume Co. chief David McConnell, now 72, introduces a new line of products under the name Avon, inspired by the name of the river in Shakespeare's hometown Stratford-upon-Avon (see 1898). The door-to-door cosmetic company will rename itself Avon Products in 1939 and its saleswomen will be called Avon Ladies. It will grow to have 1.5 million Avon Ladies (plus 2,000 Avon Men) and be the world's largest employer of women.

The Japanese Mah-jongg Association is founded as the Chinese game gains popularity.

Bridge World magazine begins publication at New York in October as Ely Culbertson gains backing from contract bridge creator Harold S. Vanderbilt to publicize his bidding system.

Williams Electronics Co. has its beginnings in a pinball machine company founded by California entrepreneur Harry E. Williams, 24, who will invent the "tilt" mechanism that makes the machine go dead temporarily when a player nudges it too hard. Williams will also invent the kickout hole and will make his machines "talk" with bells and gongs.

The yo-yo introduced to California by Filipino immigrant Pedro Flores is based on a weapon used by 16th-century Filipino hunters and known to Filipinos for perhaps 10,000 years (ancient Egyptians and Greeks had similar string-and-spool toys). Flores sells his company for $25,000 to West Virginia-born Chicago entrepreneur Donald F. Duncan, 38, who has seen the toy demonstrated on a visit to Los Angeles or San Francisco, improves it, produces yo-yos at Columbus, Ind., and will use modern marketing methods to promote the yo-yo into a national craze.

The Barcelona chair makes its debut at the German pavilion of the Barcelona International Exposition. Designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, the chair has a chrome steel X frame with leather-covered foam rubber cushions. Van der Rohe has designed the entire pavilion in modernistic style.