In a previous post, I sang the praises of Pears’ Soap, the world’s first transparent soap and first registered brand (according to wikipedia).
Well, this morning, in my second class of the semester, I was handed this ad from the late 1800s that references Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” (1899) and uses the religious, imperialist rhetoric of colonialism to sell soap as a moral product of trade.
I knew that at the turn of the century soaps in general were marketed using racialized language, but I feel shitty for having touted this particular brand so strongly, considering the content of this ad and the company’s history.
From Wikipedia:
“As with many other brands at the time, at the beginning of the 20th century Pears also used their product as a sign of the prevailing European concept of the ‘civilizing mission’ of empire and trade, in which the soap stands for progress.
“According to Pears Inc. USA, there is now only one manufacturing facility worldwide for Pears Soap and that is in India.”
An image of the ad is available here and the text is as follows:
The first step towards lightening
The White Man’s Burden
is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness.
Pears’ Soap
is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances, while amongst the cultured of all nations it holds the highest places— it is the ideal toilet soap.
