The 101 Girls

Buffalo, New York: Gardiner Mfg. Co, 1931. Very good. A little toned.. A booklet promoting the "101 Girls", a late vaudeville stage duo comprised of Adele and Isabelle Szumlinski. Usually performing for businessmen or in adverts, they acted as mascots for the Gardiner Mfg. Company's fabric stain removal product "101". This booklet shows the lengths to which the company went to craft their story as talented, flirty, All-American girls who were discovered by the company and subsequently rose to fame. Features pictures of the girls performing in drag, singing together by the piano, smiling cherubically at the camera, and even posing by their "favorite means of travel", a plane with "101" on the tail. Contains too many humorous and charming quotes to list, but here is one of them: "Adele's regular work is to supervise house to house canvassing [i.e. sales] ... This may sound like a lot of work for a girl but to her it is a pleasure for she drives an automobile which is provided by the Company and gets much enjoyment out of showing many of the male drivers on the road how to drive ... Isabelle's duties confine her to the office every day and she also is so interested in her work that she is continually complaining about the days being too short" (p. [13]). This booklet is important because it highlights how American companies capitalized off the public's intense love of celebrity and modern celebrity culture to sell products, as well as how women were styled and idealized in the public eye. The modern sense of "celebrity" was just in its infancy, spurred on by the advent of early film stars and starlets in the early 1900s and 1910s. By creating the myth that these girls were plucked from obscurity by the company with natural charm and talent, it allowed for women at home to dream of and aspire to the same thing. Note also the infantilization of the girls, which was deliberate and, though unappealing to modern viewers, was loved by contemporary audiences since the rise of Mary Pickford in the early 1900s. They also had to be viewed as single, beautiful, youthful and attainable-- not unlike many young women in Hollywood today. Single vol. (6" by 3.5"), pp. [24], illus., in original illus. self wrps. Includes two printed facsimile signatures of the girls under a flowery "Affectionately Yours" on the first page. It does not appear as if the Szumlinski sisters were able to cultivate fame outside of being "The 101 Girls", but two newspaper articles in 1933 and 1951 caught our eye. The 1933 article lists the sisters as being present for an armed robbery at the business's headquarters. The robbery was at the hands of three "gang leaders" or "dope fiends" and was clearly embellished by the journalist, perhaps for company PR, and depicted the President of the company J. Allan Gardiner as a hero. The second article, in 1951, lists Adele as the surviving widow of J. Allan Gardiner after his passing. It was not uncommon for "the talent" to serve as arm candy at this time, so this is not wholly unsurprising, but it is amusing to think of her marrying "the boss" from our modern perspective-- it really was a different time!