Beauties of All Races in 1922

When I saw this ad for Pepsodent toothpaste from 1922, on the Duke University site "Ad Access", which has a lot of fun old ads, I got to thinking about the concept of race, and how people thought about it back then, and how they still do.

Of course there's no such thing as different races of human beings, there's only one, the human race. But, like dogs, there are varieties, and if you're casting a movie and need a person to look a particular way, you need to use some kind of a label. Many times when we use the name of a nationality, it brings a particular look to mind, like the lovely maiden of Japan there on the left.

How we describe races has changed over the years, but of course these ladies aren't of four different races, in spite of what the illustration may lead you to believe. They may have distinctive looks, and all are attractive (although the Spanish beauty there on the right looks like she may have overdone it with the makeup!). This is advertising, you know.

Back when I was a kid, in the '60s and '70s, we had two sets of encyclopedias, once which was very current, and one that was printed right after World War I, which fascinated me. And there were three races listed. No, I won't write the names here, this is the internet, and it could cause confusion with the 'bots, but basically nowadays we would say "white people", "black people", and "asian people". I was learning to draw people at the time and I found it helpful to understand the different looks that people had.

During the last census, a good friend of mine was dissatisfied with having to identify himself as "white". He had a sense of humor about it, and told me that "he wasn't a white guy!" since he was born in Mexico.

By the way, apparently they called it "dentifrice", not toothpaste. And while I'm no expert on women's beauty products, I'm inclined to think that brushing your teeth will make you look prettier!

Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections.

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