Darkie Toothpaste Box
notes: label: Description
content: In 1939, Walter Landor arrived in the United States to help install the British training pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. At twenty-six years old, Landor had left his home in Germany to study art and design in Britain, where he became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Industrial Artists. With whispers of war circulating around Europe, Landor decided to stay in the United States and travelled to the West Coast in search of design work. In 1941, Landor and his new wife Josephine Martinelli founded Walter Landor and Associates (today Landor) in their San Francisco apartment. The company specialized in packaging and label design for a number of iconic brands ranging from Marlboro cigarettes to Aunt Jemima to Sara Lee. As the company expanded, Landor’s base of operations moved from his home through several locations until it settled in 1962 on the Klamath, a docked ferryboat in the San Francisco Bay that would become an iconic part of Landor’s own brand.
label: Description
content: Hawley and Hazel Chemical Company created Darkie Toothpaste in Shanghai in 1933 and based their marketing on the minstrel performer Al Jolson. Minstrel performances featured White actors wearing blackface and relied on racial stereotypes of African Americans to entertain White audiences. They maintained popularity in the United States until the Civil Rights Movement. The company, and the toothpaste, remained based in Asia.
label: Description
content: In 1985 Colgate-Palmolive acquired Hawley and Hazel. Colgate-Palmolive never marketed the brand outside of Asia, but the company received criticism and complaints about the offensive name and packaging until the brand name was changed to Darlie. As part of this change, the company simplified the image on the packaging to be less reminiscent of minstrel shows and blackface. However, the Chinese name of the product remains “Black Person Fluoride Toothpaste,” as it was before and the product is still for sale in Asia.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bequest of Walter and Josephine Landor
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0393.090
label: accession number
content: 1993.0393
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0393.090
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Box
label: Object Name
content: toothpaste box
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 20.5 cm x 4.7 cm x 3.7 cm; 8 1/16 in x 1 7/8 in x 1 7/16 in