Advertising the United States:
Discovering America’s flagship through prints, posters, and advertisements
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The United States as Stage
American From Stem to Stern
Advertisements featuring the SS United States were not always specifically marketing trips aboard the ship itself. Many American companies sought out the SS United States as a stage to display their products. As a ship made completely on American soil, the SS United States was the perfect vehicle to market American-made goods. These ads worked in two ways: they promoted the SS United States' international fame as the world's fastest, most technologically-advanced, and most luxurious ocean liner, and they linked that celebrity to the product being sold. This made the products and the ship more desirable, but also established a narrative of who might engage with these products.
Companies such as Alcoa Aluminum and IBM, whose products were used onboard the SS United States, marketed themselves by marketing the ship. One 1951 ad by IBM reads, “It’s the right time by IBM aboard America’s Superliners,” in bold letters across the top of the page. This phrase can be read multiple ways: it signifies both that IBM is in charge of keeping time on the ship –an important aspect of navigation and crossing time zones– and also that it is “the right time” to travel. The phrase and an image of the SS United States are enclosed in a translucent clock face, visually suggesting the connection between IBM and the ship. Outside the clock face which encircles the SS United States, two smaller ocean liners pale in comparison to the grandiosity of the “new pride of U.S Lines.” These liners, the SS Independence and the SS Constitution, accentuate the size of the SS United States and her position as the speed Queen of the seas.
The ad by Alcoa Aluminum uses similar imagery to show the large scale of the ship. W. J. Aylward’s painting of the SS United States takes over the single page advertisement, showing the SS United States, with her iconic red, white, and blue funnels, at sea. Against blue skies and slightly choppy waters, the SS United States sails undeterred and with confidence. On her starboard side, a small sailboat is pictured emphasizing the sheer size of the superliner. Both IBM and Alcoa Aluminum picture the SS United States as larger than life, both physically and in reputation, thus associating their products with the reliability, power, safety, and strength of the ship.
The Men in command
The strength, power, and speed of ship was often also connected to ideas of masculinity, and companies used these associations to market products geared towards men. For example, the narrative put forth by the 1959 Esquire Boot Polish ad presents Chief Officer Ridington as the picture of American masculinity. The ad suggests that the ideal man, exemplified by the officers of the United States, was as “polished” as he was “precise.” Esquire centered Chief Officer Ridington because his commanding yet put-together image perpetuated visions of masculinity that appealed to postwar America. When viewing this ad, men are told they too can be “the man in command,” so long as they use Esquire Boot Polish.
Advertisements also helped to inform visions of masculinity among the postwar American public. An ad for Chesterfield King Cigarettes tells viewers that the “Men of America,” the officers of the United States, “stop and take pleasure when and where [they] can.” In reality, the officers of the United States did not live a leisurely life and instead worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of their passengers. By selling the fantasy of the handsome, uniformed, and hardworking man, one who can stop and take in life’s big pleasures at his whim, Chesterfield King was able to sell the ‘pleasures’ themselves, in this case: cigarettes. To smoke Chesterfield Kings, according to this ad, is to choose pleasure and quality, to “join the men who know.”
Women of the United States
While wartime called for women to step into new roles in the workforce, securing their own purchasing power, the end of World War II found many of these same women pushed back into the role of homemakers, shifting their patriotic duty back to the family and the home. Post-war women then became a particularly important consumer audience as national campaigns urged those with savings to spend them. With modern technologies, such as the microwave, being directed towards homemaking, the idea to buy newer and better also applied to the female audience. Post-war advertisements geared towards women also helped to establish American ideals like that of the housewife, suggesting that buying the latest fashion and making the most desirable home was fulfilling their version of the American Dream. The SS United States was a stage upon which to showcase the latest in fashion and interior design making it the perfect vessel to sell visions of femininity to the American public.
Companies like Lees Carpets, who commissioned this 1954 advertisement, understood that women who sailed on the SS United States chose certain brands for the same reason they chose the ship: they appreciated luxury, quality, and modern style. By connecting Lees Carpets to the SS United States, the brand became associated with the superiority of the ship in both design and performance; qualities that, according to societal pressures, the 1950s housewife wouldn’t want to pass up! The ad pictures a fashionable American family returning to their luxurious home carpeted by Lees. By suggesting an upper middle class consumer-audience, Lees Carpets set a precedent for the quality of their product and who should buy it.
In April 1964, a collaboration between popular clothing brand, Adele Simpson, and United States Lines culminated in a full page found in Vogue Magazine. The advertisement, cleverly called “Sail in the Star Spangled Manner,” linked the smooth and sleek lines of Simpson’s “Yankee-chic” clothing to the mid-century modern design of the United States, suggesting that the women who engaged with these products were of the same superior American quality. While selling their products, United States Lines and Adele Simpson also informed the narrative surrounding what it was to be a woman worth emulating; suggesting that the pinnacle of American femininity embodied elegance, both in dress and demeanor.
The United States as Stage
By attaching their brands to a technological marvel like the SS United States, a ship that became known as an extension of American ideals and innovation, marquee American companies could associate their products with the eminence of the United States. In acting as a stage for these products, the SS United States also helped to define and redefine narratives of consumerism and gender ideals in post-war America, setting the stage - so to speak - for the revolutionary styles and ideas of the decades to come.
GALLERY
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