The Past Made Intimate
Transcript
Season 1: Episode 3
I Must Increase My Bust
Hosts: Gillian Frank & Lauren Gutterman
[Music playing throughout]
[“You Gotta Have Boobs” by Ruth Wallis plays 00:00 – 00:23]
Gillian Frank: That’s the wonderful Ruth Wallis and her 1968 song “You’ve Gotta Have Boobs.” In 1965, advertisements promising women bigger breasts greeted magazine readers across the country.
Lauren Gutterman: The Mark Eden Method has been devised and perfected as an entirely new method of bust line development and contouring, a method so effective that, through its use, women are reporting gains of two, three and even more inches on their bust lines in just a matter of weeks.
Gillian Frank: For $9.95, roughly $78 by today’s standards, the Mark Eden Company said it would deliver everything you need to develop and beautify your bust line to its maximum degree or fullness. With the Mark Eden Method, that everything included a pink exercise device that looked like two hand-size clamshells connected with a high-tension spring, a guide on how to use the exerciser illustrated with photos of June Wilkinson, a blond, curvaceous actress and famous nude model.
Lauren Gutterman: Billed as famous star of stage and screen, the girl with the world’s loveliest bust line.
Gillian Frank: And a money-back guarantee. Over the next decade, tens of thousands of women sent their money to Jack and Eileen Feather, the manufacturers of the Mark Eden system. They took up the Feathers’ promise of larger breasts and better and more fulfilling lives. Despite the U.S. Post Office’s repeated attempts to rein them in, the courts ultimately protected the Feathers and the Mark Eden Corporation. The Magical Mark Eden Breast Developer remained in circulation well into the 1970s. I’m Gillian Frank.
Lauren Gutterman: And I’m Lauren Gutterman. This is Sexing History, a podcast about the ways the history of sexuality shapes our present.
The makers of the Mark Eden system recognized the many American women wanted bigger breasts and that lots of women would pay for the possibility of modifying their bodies. The American obsession with big breasts began during World War II, when changing fashions and Hollywood films reshaped ideas about what bodies could and should look like.
Elizabeth Matelski: Contemporaries really argued that in the wake of World War II, soldiers were returning psychologically, as well as physically scarred.
Lauren Gutterman: That’s Elizabeth Matelski, associate professor of history at Endicott College.
Elizabeth Matelski: And for, uh, psychologists, they believed that these war-torn years had caused an instinctive desire to return to the security of the maternal breast. I’m less convinced about this argument. I think that the historical record seems to suggest something else, uh, and what I see, rather, is that the popularity of large breasts was more a reaction to the growing assertiveness of American women. And essentially a renewed emphasis on the female figure, particularly large breasts, comes as a result of the need to re-stabilize gender roles in post-war America.
Gillian Frank: Changing bra styles helped shape notions about ideal bodies. During the 1920s, as the media celebrated young women who flaunted convention, bras flattened, rather than emphasized breasts. Young women bound their breasts in order to obtain a boyish figure made popular by the flapper girl. This androgynous style fell out of popularity in the 1930s, as uplifted breasts became a distinctive feature of the fashionable woman’s silhouette. The 1930s also saw the introduction of standardized measurements for bras with breast cups in graduated sizes. These bras fit and felt better. These newer bras also separated the breast from the chest and divided the breasts from each other.
Lauren Gutterman: As Esquire illustrator Alberto Vargas’ pinups and Playboy’s centerfolds celebrated a voluptuous figure, fashion trends in the 1940s and early ‘50s intensified the accentuation and projection of breasts. In its advertisements, Maidenform described this intensification as outlift, explaining that outlift, as well as uplift, means a bosom well-accented through the middle and with a breadth of separation, which extends to the very tip of each breast.
So what did big breasts mean at midcentury? Elizabeth Matelski tells us that popular culture declared to women that to find and keep the attentions of men, one needed large breasts. Big breasts meant attractiveness, glamour and success. It meant realizing one’s femininity. It was an outward sign of womanhood. Following the disruptions of the war years, which brought more women into the labor force than ever before, it reflected a renewed emphasis on women’s roles as mothers and homemakers. Cultural commentators recognized the growing American obsession with big breasts.
Elizabeth Matelski: Alfred Kinsey’s important studies on male and female sexuality discovered that European men actually preferred women’s backside, while American men preferred their tops. And this was such a well-publicized kinda phenomenon that in Japan, where a number of, uh, soldiers were continuing to be stationed—uh, after the war, Japan, in fact, is going to start kind of toying with the idea of silicone breast, uh, injections for - for women there in order to attract the American troops.
Lauren Gutterman: In 1957, U.S. newspapers published British anthropologist Eric John Dingwall’s observations on American men’s breast obsessions.
Gillian Frank: He wrote, “The sight of the breasts, seemingly about to escape from the fluffy embrace of bodices or nightgowns, was sufficient to register a high figure on the emotion meter when applied to the American man.” Dingwall concluded, “But when these same glands were beneath a sweater and apparently about to burst the stitches, the excitement became almost uncontrollable.” Girls who could show the desired curves were much in demand, and the sale of sweaters rapidly increased.
[“Sweater Girl” plays]
Lauren Gutterman: That’s Ruth Wallis’s 1953 song “Sweater Girl.” The Sweater Girl encapsulated America’s love affair with large bosoms at midcentury. One contemporary comedian defined the sweater girl as one who pulls your eyes over the wool. In the 1940s, Hollywood made the Sweater Girl into an international sensation. Movies portrayed large-breasted blond women as unintelligent, unthreatening and alluring. Betty Grable, Jane Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe and countless other film stars took on movie roles as stereotypical dumb blonds while wearing tight sweaters over cone or bullet-shaped bras. They were a convenient antidote to the Rosie the Riveters of the defense industry and the menacing femme fatales of film noir.
Elizabeth Matelski: The term Sweater Girl is actually attributed to the actress Lana Turner, who was discovered in 1936 very famously in a malt shop in Hollywood. She was only 16 at the time, and - and she earned the nickname the Sweater Girl in her first role in the film They Won’t Forget. It was, uh, released in 1937, and the line was something about how no one would forget the way that Lana Turner looked in her sweater. And eventually Sweater Girl became a - a kind of euphemism to describe actresses that were very similar to, uh, a Lana Turner type, um, Jane - Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, uh, Jane Mansfield. And - and the list really goes on and on in the post-war period. This is, uh, a curvaceous woman, usually blond. She emotes a childlike, innocent sexuality. Uh, we think about the - the dumb-blond type.
And the question might be, well - well, why sweaters? And, you know, instead of some other kind of article of clothing, it’s not as though sweaters were suddenly invented in - in the ‘30s or the ‘40s. Um, but this all comes down to censorship. So, the production code, the Hollywood production code, which was also known as the Hay Code—one of the stipulations of the code then was how much female, uh, décolletage would be - would be visible on film. And so, tight sweaters became the way to get around that production code. And so, these - these studios, really in an effort to outdo each other, encouraged their starlets to use padded bras and to - to strive for sheer size.
Lauren Gutterman: The Sweater Girl became a national craze, tying women’s social value to the size of their bra cup. There were countless Sweater Girl contests, in which women competed for male judges, who declared which women filled out their sweater best.
Newscaster: On the roof of the Hotel Shelburne in New York, a contest to choose the national Sweater Queen of 1949 gets into full swing. The entries include some of the country’s leading models. Now, we’ve heard that the men don’t care much for fashion stories, so will each wife in the audience please lean over and cover up her husband’s eyes? Thank you, ladies. We’re sure that hubby hasn’t the slightest interest in these lovely sweaters.
Lauren Gutterman: When the Sweater Manufacturers Association announced the winner of its annual Sweater Girl competition, it made headlines nationwide.
Newscaster: The winner is Sweet Georgia Lee. Okay, hubby can look now. Here come the sports.
Gillian Frank: Even the Supreme Court got caught up in the Sweater Girl craze. In 1953, a 34-year-old female attorney made headlines because she broke with the traditional dress code when she was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. Reporters took notice when she wore a wool knit dress. The headlines they wrote revealed just how widespread and socially acceptable the casual sexual objectification of women was in this period. The exaggerated newspaper reports were clearly meant to titillate, even as they transformed an accomplished young lawyer into a pinup girl and the Supreme Court justices into the judges of a Sweater Girl contest.
Lauren Gutterman: As the breast obsession boomed at midcentury, many flat-chested women were made to feel deficient and unattractive. In 1950, for the first time, an article in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery declared small breasts a deformity, a new type of disability that it named hypomastia. Faced with such messages, many women sought to overcome their perceived physical failures and fix their figures to better fit the Sweater Girl ideal. Entrepreneurs were only too eager to create products that offer the illusion of larger breasts while stoking women’s desire for bodily change.
Elizabeth Matelski: Breast-enlargement products are, um, [laughs] very popular in the post-war period for - for these, um, obvious reasons, and breast-augmentation surgery, the search for the ideal breast implant, was just being perfected in the post-war years. So, in the interim, a variety of products were available that are going to fill that vacuum, essentially in hopes of filling women’s bras. Um, [laughs] women’s magazines, they could talk about having better posture. Um, they’re promoting—women’s magazines are promoting isotonic exercise that might build up chest muscles behind the breast tissue, but above all the most popular adjuster were falsies, or breast inserts. And in 1948, American women purchased more than 4,500,000 pairs of falsies, which turned breast inserts really into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. But this bra padding was particularly problematic, and for many women it brought more anxiety than giving them a boost of confidence. Uh, what happens if your date discovers that you stuffed your bra? What if your falsies pop out while swimming? What if a cup in your inflatable bra suddenly deflates?
Lauren Gutterman: Bra pads and other products designed to enhance the appearance of women’s breasts appeared as early as the mid-1930s. By the 1950s, the Sears catalog offered over 20 kinds of bra inserts. Understandably, many women were eager to find other ways of obtaining a larger, more natural-looking bust. Alongside entrepreneurs selling falsies were entrepreneurs willing to offer false hope for bodily transformation. Advertisements in women’s, teen and celebrity fan magazines promised women and girls larger busts if they bought their products. And the promises of different, more beautiful, more alluring bodies themselves incited a desire for physical change.
One of the most infamous of these products was the Mark Eden Bust Enlarger. Its creators, Jack and Eileen Feather, were two fitness-club owners in body-conscious California. Jack Feather and Eileen Feather were both born in Nebraska and moved out to Berkeley, California, just after World War II. Jack borrowed $5,000 from his father-in-law and opened a small gym. By the early 1950s, Jack and Eileen ran a chain of Eileen Feather reducing salons in California and Nevada.
Natalia Mehlman Petrzela: So, reducing salons were something in between a gym and a beauty salon. Their heyday, I would say, was in the 1950s and ‘60s. I’m Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. I’m associate professor of history at the New School in New York City and working on a new book on post-war United States fitness culture, and I’m also a cohost of the Past Present podcast.
What you would have in these reducing salons, which were also called slenderizing spas or figure-control salons, figure-control spas—you would have usually a whole series of very bulky machines, where women would strap themselves in. And, in one way or another, they would vibrate or shake their way into, as it was marketed, at least, fat loss and a more desirable, beautiful figure.
Gillian Frank: In newspaper advertisements, Eileen Feather billed herself as the nation’s leading figure authority. She wore tight-fitting sweaters and pants and high heels to show off her figures. She promised figure perfection.
Advertiser: Eileen Feather promises reduce 10 to 20 pounds, lose 4 inches from waist, trim 3 inches off hips and thighs, firm face and neck, gain 10 to 20 pounds, add 3 inches to bust line all in 30 days.
Gillian Frank: As the Feathers told it, when clients who were losing weight began to complain that they were also losing inches from their bust lines, Jack Feather designed a bust-enlarging exercise device. He named the device after novelist Jack London’s fictional character, Martin Eden, a self-taught writer striving for fame and recognition. This birthed the Mark Eden Bust Developer, which looked like an open clamshell. The device was less memorable than the advertisements, which appeared in mainstream women’s magazines and featured large-breasted white women in revealing clothing. The first advertisement in 1965 declared:
Advertisement: I can give you the secrets of developing a beautiful, full bust line in the privacy of your home. Every woman wants a beautiful, full, well-developed bust line. Every man admires and looks twice at the woman who has one; however, not every woman is born with an attractive bust line. A great many women seem to have been shortchanged by nature in this department.
Lauren gutterman: Women who sent $9.95 to the Feathers received the pink clamshell exerciser and a booklet. The booklet was illustrated with pictures of the well-endowed model June Wilkinson, who promoted her measurements as 44-20-36. By the time she appeared in Mark Eden’s advertisements, Wilkinson was famous for her numerous Playboy spreads, which were given titles like “The Bosom,” “The Bosom in Hollywood” and “The Bosom Revisits Playboy.” Mark Eden’s exercise booklet, adorned with Wilkinson’s bust, reminded its readers—
Advertiser: So many women who have been literally flat as boards have achieved higher, fuller, lovelier bust lines in a remarkably short time with the Mark Eden Method, as a woman whose bust line is suddenly transformed from the average or below-average to a richer, fuller development receives more for her efforts than just a larger reading on the tape measure. She is suddenly transformed as a woman. There is an incomparable difference in the entire feminine line, shape and grace of her whole figure. Her very presence takes on a new and subtle glow of womanliness, of sex appeal and, yes, of glamour that is undeniable and unmistakable.
Lauren Gutterman: Writer Jenny Ivy remembers how she and her friend bought the Mark Eden system when they were high school students.
Jenny Ivy: Mark Eden was a big deal, and you couldn’t really tell from the ads what it was. You know, it just promised to—and they just showed these busty women and said, you know, “If you’ll buy Mark Eden and use it, then you’re gonna have a beautiful bust line like the women in these ads.” And, of course, when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old, you believe that kinda stuff. So I just begged my mother to - to give me a loan so I could buy a Mark Eden Bust Developer because I was, like, 14 years old and flat-chested, and - and I wanted to - I wanted to develop my bust. And she kept sayin’, “Honey, this is just a gimmick. This cannot possibly develop your bust. It’s—you’re throwin’ your money away.” Um, so, you know, I tried savin’ up my money. It was, like, a lot of money for back then, so it was more money than I had, more money than you could get babysittin’ for $0.50 an hour, which is what we got paid back then. So, um, you know, I was - I was pretty discouraged that I would ever own one.
And then my friend Jan got one. And, I mean, she went a long time without eatin’ lunch at school and saved up her lunch money and bought a Mark Eden. And, um, she had a really nice bust line, and my mother tried to explain to me that that was - that was puberty, and that was genetics, and, you know, that it wasn’t Mark Eden that all of a sudden gave Jan a nice bust line. But I didn’t believe it. So—and - and the problem was my friend was really—she got—when she - when she hit puberty, she hit big time. So she had been this little ugly-duckling girl that none of the - none of the boys gave the time of day. And then she - and then she got breasts, and, um, a great figure, and all of a sudden she went from the girl nobody paid attention to in junior high school to the one all the boys wanted to go out with in high school because she got a bust. And who doesn’t want that? I mean, I wanted that.
So I come home from school one day, and there in the middle of my bed was a pra - a plain, brown wrapper, and it was my Mark Eden. And, you know, I was just absolutely thrilled to death and just absolutely convinced it was gonna give me this beautiful bust line. And what they—what you did, squeezed it together, and you said this little rhyme that went, “We must, we must, we must increase our bust. We must, we must, we mu”—and you did it for, like, 10 minutes 3 times [laughs] a day, and you’re supposed to have a beautiful bust line. Um, so I worked out with that Mark Eden just faithfully for many months, and, no surprise, [laughs] it did nothing for my bust line. So, my mother was sympathetic enough with my - wi - with my yearning that she bought me a Mark Eden knowing that it was a hoax.
Lauren Gutterman: The Feathers first advertised the Mark Eden Bust Developers in nationally circulating women’s magazines in March of 1965. They received thousands of orders. The following month, the Post Office took legal action against the Feathers, alleging that the Mark Eden Bust Developer was ineffective and its advertising fraudulent. What followed was a 15-year battle between the Feathers and the Post Office. While it may be surprising that the Post Office initiated a fraud case against the Mark Eden Corporation, the Post Office Department was one of the primary federal agencies fighting business fraud.
This role had roots in the latter half of the 19th century. During this period, the boom in mail-order firms that connected buyer and sellers across wide distances was quickly matched by those who exploited those distances to make money through false advertising. Americans increasingly blamed the Post Office for this form of fraud, mail fraud, a charge Post Office officials saw as an attack on their reputation. In 1872, under pressure from the Post Office, Congress gave the office authority to deny service to those who engaged in what we’d now call false advertising. In the coming decades, the Post Office’s ability to investigate and prosecute mail fraud grew. By the 1960s, when the Post Office reported a 30 percent uptick in cases of mail fraud, it had become a well-oiled investigative machine. Most complaints from mail customers did not result in prosecution, but when the Post Office pursued a case, it won 90 percent of the time. The Post Office met its match, however, from the Mark Eden Corporation.
Gillian Frank: In total, the Post Office held three mail-fraud hearings against the Mark Eden Corporation. During the first two hearings, June Wilkinson, whose cleavage featured prominently in the first Mark Eden advertisement and the exercise booklet, testified that the Mark Eden system had enlarged her breasts. For the Post Office, the question of whether Wilkinson had actually enlarged her bust became central. Under questioning, Wilkinson admitted that she had always had prominent breasts, but she insisted that through the Mark Eden method, she had added two inches to her bosom and better filled out a D cup.
Wilkinson also disclosed that she had benefited from her affiliation with the company. She had received $1,000 for the use of her picture and her endorsement. She also received $0.25 from the sale of each device. At the time of the testimony, over 18,000 devices had been sold, earning her more than $4,000. This translates to about $30,000 by today’s standards. The Post Office also heard expert testimony from physiologists, biostatisticians and medical doctors, who debated the Feathers’ claim that strengthening the pectoral muscles enlarged breasts. The Post Office’s experts, however, said that enlarging the pecs does not change the actual size of the breast.
Lauren Gutterman: But the Feathers’ attorneys and expert witnesses denied this claim. During the Post Office trial, Jack Feather himself stated that the development of the pectoral muscle has a profound effect on the appearance of the entire bust line. The breasts are lifted, firmed. The skin is toned. The whole bust line takes on a more rounded, lifted, youthful, shapely appearance. In 1965, the first hearing, the Post Office failed to prove fraud. The following year, the judicial officer reversed the decision. He was unconvinced by the Feathers and deemed the Mark Eden ads fraudulent. The Post Office concluded, “There is nothing in the testimony to support the advertisement that he can guarantee any woman she will gain at least three full inches on her bust by following his program. This is such an extreme statement and such an exaggeration of fact that it becomes a fraudulent statement.” The examiner added, “The American people have the right to believe, and many of them do believe, advertisements.” This conclusion reflected the Post Office’s longstanding interest in combating false advertising and protecting consumers.
Gillian Frank: The Feathers sued and obtained a temporary restraining order preventing the Post Office from interfering with its mail. As a result of this lawsuit, the Feathers entered into an agreement with the Post Office that permitted Mark Eden to continue receiving its mail, so long as all its incoming funds were placed in a trust. Mark Eden and the Post office eventually negotiated a settlement. This settlement allowed the Feathers to continue to sell the bust developer so long as future advertisements did not make certain fraudulent claims. The Post Office agreed to notify the Feathers if it believed that the company had breached any of the advertising restrictions, and then the Feathers could revise their advertisements. As a result of this agreement, $400,000 from the sale of over 40,000 Mark Eden systems was released to Jack and Eileen Feather.
Lauren Gutterman: What ensued was a game of cat and mouse. The Feathers continued to push the boundaries of the Post Office’s restrictions, and the Post Office continued to give them notice. In the meantime, Mark Eden ads graced women’s magazines, and women wrote to newspapers and regulatory agencies asking if the products worked. Consumer agencies repeatedly warned women about Mark Eden, explaining, “Women enraptured by the before-and-after pictures used in ads by the so-called bust-line developers throw away their money and even risk physical injury to pursue their dream of a Sweater Girl figure.” But women still continued to order the Mark Eden system. One woman recalled, “The ads were mesmerizing: busty women promising that if I bought this device and used it religiously, I could have big, beautiful bosoms just like them.”
Gillian Frank: In December 1967, the Post Office began yet another proceeding against Mark Eden, charging that the company’s advertisement breached the terms of their earlier agreement. The Post Office’s judicial officer impounded Mark Eden’s mail and placed all incoming funds in a trust. In March of 1968, Mark Eden revised its advertisements. The new ad began as usual.
Advertisement: More and more women are reporting amazing gains on their bust lines by using the fabulous Mark Eden developer. Christine Boyle of Hampstead says, “I increased my bust line from 33 inches to 36.5 inches by using the Mark Eden developer for just 8 weeks.”
Gillian Frank: The new fine print noted—
Advertisement: The degree of effectiveness of the Mark Eden developer turns in part upon physical factors, which vary among individuals. If the Mark Eden developer does not produce for you the results which have delighted so many of our customers, this guarantee is your protection. If after using the Mark Eden Bust Line Developer and course for only two weeks you do not see a significant difference in your bust-line development, simply return the developer and the course to Mark Eden, and your money will be promptly refunded.
Gillian Frank: These modifications were not enough to satisfy the Post Office. A judicial officer issued a fraud order, requiring that Mark Eden return all the funds that came from these advertisements.
Lauren Gutterman: Mark Eden filed suit in U.S. district court, asking for an injunction and for the return of the impounded funds, stating that the Post Office had overstepped its jurisdiction. The district court issued a summary judgment in favor of Mark Eden and ordered that the impounded funds, over $900,000 from more than 90,000 orders, be returned to the company. The Post Office appealed this decision. On November 7th, 1970, more than five years after the first Post Office proceeding had begun, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with the Feathers and ordered the Post Office to return their funds. The court didn’t say whether the Feathers committed fraud. The trial and decision was procedural, and the court simply ruled that the Post Office’s attempt to order a refund to all clients was unwarranted.
Gillian Frank: As the battles with the Post Office raged, other agencies attempted to shut the Feathers down. The FDA, FTC and various state agencies all investigated the Mark Eden manufacturers for fraud and false advertising. But each time a government agency tried to shut them down, the Feathers used the courts to mount a successful defense. In the late 1970s, the Post Office even commissioned a scientific study to determine the effectiveness of the Mark Eden device. They hoped to prove once and for all that the Mark Eden system was fraudulent. The Feathers’ attorneys conducted their own studies using measuring tape to chart their clients’ purported bust growth and clay molds to illustrate women’s changing breast size. In 1979, the Post Office upped the stakes of their battle and indicted Mark Eden employees with 13 counts of mail fraud.
Lauren Gutterman: Three years later, in 1982, a federal grand jury in San Francisco finally indicted the Feathers on mail-fraud charges. But the Feathers settled the suit out of court without admitting guilt. Under the agreement, the Post Office dropped the criminal proceedings, and Jack and Eileen Feather agreed to stop manufacturing and selling the Mark Eden Bust Developer, as well as various other products, including the Mark II Bust Developer, the Astro Trimmer, the Astro Jogger, the Sauna Belt Waistline Reducer, Slim Skins, Vacu-Pants, Vacuum Pants, Hot Pants, Trim Jeans and Dream Wrap. The Feathers agreed to pay the Post Office $1.1 million, and the government dismissed the indictment.
Gillian Frank: In a sense, the Feathers were brilliant entrepreneurs who understood the desires, ambitions and expectations of their audience. They knew that women were unhappy with their looks and desperate to remake their bodies. They thrived in a consumer culture that defined beauty narrowly and everywhere told women that change was not only possible but that self-improvement was normal and necessary. With the Mark Eden system, the Feathers benefited from the shame associated with women’s bodies and body image. Very few women who purchased the Mark Eden system willingly admitted that they owned the device. One woman recalled, “I felt that surely I was growing two inches a day because the pectoral muscles become incredibly sore from all that exercise, but there was no change whatsoever. The ad really doesn’t explain what you’re getting for your dollar. There is no picture of the device, and when this little pink clamshell arrives, your hopes are dashed. But you don’t complain because it’s such a sensitive subject. You don’t wanna make a case about having such a small bust, so you put it in the closet and say, ‘I’ll live with what I’ve got.’”
Lauren Gutterman: In her reflections on American culture’s obsession with breasts, writer Nora Ephron, who once noted that she tried the Mark Eden developer, remarked, “I suppose that for most girls, breasts, brassieres, that entire thing, has more trauma, more to do with the coming of adolescence, with becoming a woman, than anything else, certainly more than getting your period, although that, too, was traumatic, symbolic. But you could see breasts. They were there. They were visible.” Indeed, one author recalled in an essay written about and to her breasts, “You showed up unannounced over the summer, in between 9th and 10th grades. It was about the same time Cosmopolitan magazine started advertising the Mark Eden Bust Developer. Their ads always showed a well-endowed woman with a before and after picture and a tagline quoting her as saying, ‘I’ve increased my bust-line measurement from a 34 to a 39 in just 8 weeks.’ I started Santa Fe High as a sophomore with a new nickname, Mark Eden, thanks to you.”
Gillian Frank: The Feathers promised American women that bigger breasts were the keys to unlock doors to popularity, success, romance and glamour. The Mark Eden system was a promise of transfiguration by way of self-improvement. In this sense, Mark Eden advertisements were not unique. They dovetailed with thousands of advertisements that promised Americans transformation through the act of buying products. The Feathers also rode the rising wave of a fitness culture that maintained that better-looking bodies meant better lives. The Feathers, in other words, capitalized on the wish-fulfillment ideology that underpinned consumer culture and fitness culture. Advertising and Selling magazine declared as early as 1926 that, “The people are seeking to escape from themselves. They want to live in a more exciting world.” Forty years later, this insight still held true. For many women, $9.95 and a home fitness regimen was a small price to pay for the possibility of inhabiting a different body and what they believed would be a better and more-fulfilling life.
Jenny Ivy: I think there comes - you know, there comes a point with a whole lotta things, where there’s things you wanna believe. You wanna believe this. You wanna believe it. You wanna believe it, and you - you got enough sense to realize it’s ridiculous. This, just a little plastic clamshell with a spring in it, was not gonna make me big-busted, and I guess - I guess there comes a point where you have a little bit of self-acceptance. And, I mean, it’s not like it - it - it - it’s not like it ruined my life [laughs] or anything, you know? You just—you go through a lotta crazy stuff when you’re a teenager, and that was just one of the crazy things I went through. And I’m not the only one. Clearly they sold millions of them.
Lauren Gutterman: Sexing History is produced by Rebecca Davis, Saniya Lee Ghanoui, Devin McGeehan Muchmore, Gillian Frank and me. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. Visit us at SexingHistory.com for pictures of the Mark Eden system and advertisements. Many thanks to our guests, Liz Matelski and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, for spending time with us. You can visit our Web site for links to their books. You can also listen to Natalia and our friends, Neil J. Young and Nicky Hemmer on their wonderful podcast, Past Present. Our sincere appreciation to author Jenny Ivy for sharing her story with us. Visit SexingHistory.com for a link to Jenny’s writing. Special shout-outs to our producers, Devin McGeehan Muchmore and Saniya Lee Ghanoui for graciously and enthusiastically reading Mark Eden advertisements.
Gillian Frank: Sexing History is made possible with generous funding from Allen Zwickler of the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation. Created in honor of the journalist, filmmaker, poet and gay activist, Phil Zwickler, the foundation seeks to promote human rights, education, health and the arts, specifically with respect to gay and lesbian communities and generally with regard to those individuals and groups who need assistance to survive and be heard. Visit them at PZFoundation.org. I’m Gillian Frank.
Lauren Gutterman: I’m Lauren Gutterman. This is Sexing History.
[Music fades]
[End of Audio]