Ladies Home Journal was as inoffensive as a magazine gets. In 1919, however, it ran an ad deemed so revolting and insulting that hundreds of women immediately canceled their subscriptions. There was no nudity, profanity, or violence in the ad. It simply depicted a woman gazing at the moon, beau by her side, accompanied by a headline about a bodily function that polite society pretended didn’t exist: sweat.
When Sweat and Resultant Body Odors Were Taboo Subjects
Until the 1919 Ladies Home Journal ad, sweat and the resultant body odor were not deemed social crimes. They were just unavoidable facts of life. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, perspiration was deemed a healthy way for the body to rid itself of toxins. Resultant offensive body odors could be avoided with dress shields – cotton pads – beneath clothes, or masked by perfume. Blocking sweat glands to avoid perspiration was viewed as dangerous. All that changed thanks to Odorono, an antiperspirant developed by a high school student named Edna Murphey. She occupies a distinctive place in the history of modern consumer culture as the woman whose personal problem, entrepreneurial initiative, and bold advertising helped create the antiperspirant industry.
At the time, bodily odors were rarely discussed openly, and female entrepreneurship was often constrained by social norms. Murphey transformed a personal embarrassing medical condition into a mass-market product. In the process, she reshaped attitudes toward hygiene, advertising, and self-presentation. Murphey was born in the late nineteenth century and lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. She suffered from hyperhidrosis – a condition characterized by excessive sweating. Back then, visible perspiration – especially for women – was considered improper and even morally suspect. However, it was something that polite society avoided mentioning. Murphey’s condition became a serious obstacle when she was passed over for marriage and faced difficulties in social situations. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she decided to confront the problem directly rather than accept it as a private misfortune.
Edna Murphey Created a Social Anxiety, then Sold a Solution
Edna Murphey’s solution came through family connections. Her father was a surgeon, and through his medical circle she learned of a topical preparation that could temporarily reduce sweating by constricting sweat glands. Working with a physician, she refined that formula into a usable cosmetic product. In 1912, she began selling it under the name “Odorono” (Odor-o-no). The name bluntly signaled the problem and its promised solution. Odorono was initially marketed as an antiseptic deodorant, but its true function was antiperspirant: it reduced sweating itself, not merely odor.
The challenge Murphey faced was not scientific but cultural. Consumers did not yet believe they needed such a product, nor were they comfortable acknowledging the problem it addressed. Early sales were modest, and many retailers were reluctant to stock something that implied customers had unpleasant bodily smells. Murphey realized that success required creating an entirely new category of personal anxiety, and then offering relief from it. That insight led to one of the most influential advertising campaigns in American history.
In 1919, Murphey hired James Webb Young, a pioneering advertising executive, to craft a national campaign for Odorono. Young’s approach was revolutionary. Rather than focus on scientific claims alone, he targeted emotions – specifically, fear of social rejection. The ads told fictionalized stories of young women whose lives were quietly ruined by underarm perspiration. They lost suitors, jobs, or social standing because of a problem they barely understood. Odorono was presented as the discreet solution to a problem none even knew existed, and that restored confidence and respectability.
The Legacy of Edna Murphey
The Odorono advertisements were controversial. Many readers wrote angry letters to newspapers, accusing Odorono of vulgarity for publicly discussing bodily functions. Some publishers refused to run the ads. Edna Murphey stood firm: the outrage indicated that the campaign was having an impact. By naming a previously unspoken anxiety, Odorono made consumers self-conscious, then offered reassurance in the form of a purchasable product. The results were dramatic. Sales soared, and competitors soon entered the market with their own antiperspirants and deodorants.
What had once been a private concern became a normalized aspect of daily hygiene. Murphey’s campaign helped establish the modern logic of personal-care advertising: identify a latent insecurity, frame it as a common but solvable problem, and position the product as essential to social success. That model would later be applied to everything from mouthwash to shampoo and cosmetics. Murphey eventually sold Odorono to a larger company, and the brand became a global staple. It survived well into the late twentieth century.
Although Edna Murphey’s name faded from popular memory, her influence did not. She demonstrated that advertising could shape not only consumer preferences, but social norms. Murphey transformed sweat from a natural bodily function into a personal failing requiring correction. She thus helped define modern standards of cleanliness and self-control. Edna Murphey was not merely an inventor or businesswoman. She was a cultural innovator who changed how people thought about their bodies. In so doing, she created an industry with a market worth tens of billions of dollars today. All built on an ad campaign that convinced the world that perspiration is not just a bodily function, but a moral failure.
_________________
Some Sources & Further Reading
Cincinnati Enquirer, February 14th, 2017 – Odorno Ads Made Us Realize We Needed Deodorant
History Halls – Sandblom’s Santa: How Coca-Cola Standardized the Modern Image of Santa
Smithsonian Magazine, August 2nd, 2012 – How Advertisers Convinced Americans they Smelled Bad
Newest Articles
- Henry Jennings: The Privateer-Turned-Pirate Who Set the Stage for the Caribbean’s Golden Age of Piracy
- Fighting Women: Tomoe Gozen, the Fearsome Female Samurai
- From the NFL to the Sands of Iwo Jima: Medal of Honor Recipient Jack Lummus
- The Zanj Rebellion: The African Slave Revolt That Rocked Medieval Mesopotamia
- The Dacian Falx: The Curved Ancient Sword that Shocked the Romans
