One of those dancing packs was then model Grace Kelly.
I am about the age of the women in Mad Men*. For a while I worked in classified advertising at the newspapers. There were fifteen women, a woman supervisor, and a female secretary all in one room with no windows. Bout ten or twelve of us smoked all day. I can’t believe we did that. The “girl” sitting next to me was having an affair with the owner or publisher of the newspaper.
Then I moved to a publishing house where I was an editorial assistant. There were several editors – mostly male, one female == and a secretarial pool. None of the editorial assistants ever moved up into an editors position. Two of the editors were having an affair and stayed at a third editors house. The male editor had many, many children. And he was a minister. This was a religious publishing house.
I don’t know if his wife knew or not. Some wives would put up with it and some wouldn’t.
The only one who hit on me there worked in the xerox room. He was also a married minister.
I decided to look for a job in advertising. The first place that I applied, the boss said that the job was mine, but he let me know that a couch came with the job. I never went back.
I took another job in advertising and was treated with every courtesy. But I decided that I wanted to go back to school and take a less stressful job teaching.
BTW, I remember a time during the Sixties when people made fun of the Mets. That stopped after about 1969.
I think that an awful lot of women felt trapped and useless like Betty. Someone wrote all about it in The Women’s Room.
Cite, please. I know she did commercials for Old Gold, but they were running a long campaign in which celebrities were featured in their ads. Just because Groucho Marx appeared in an Old Gold commercial doesn’t mean he was a dancing cigarette pack. (That’s an image I may never get out of my head.)
I’m still wondering HOW Don Draper, child of abusive poverty, got to where he is. How did he get the education, the ability to put on a false front of sophistication, the …the ability…to become this big advertising bigwig? Is his life all lies, all made up? If so, how did he end up living the American Dream, instead of going back to Bugtussle and working in a garage or something? Did he have influences? Did someone grab hold of him and re-make him?.. If anyone knows what I mean, please have your girl call my girl so I know!
After Korea he went to California to live with the widow of the person he replaced. She was a social class up from his and helped groom him. While there he worked as a Cadillac salesman and studied sales and his rich customers.
That’s probably not the whole story. They need something for future seasons.
But emulating the middle class is pretty easy if you’re surrounded by them. I was raised in a ghetto by working class parents, something nobody ever guesses today. You adapt.
He was smart. A big part of any “front” is correct speech. He apparently did get sent to school; and maybe had one or two good teachers. So he learned to read–probably went through every book in that little school. And he began to learn how to speak in a less rural fashion. Every night, the radio beamed in programs from New York City. And he went to the movies, every chance he got. (Just guessing here–but my own mother came from a poor, rural background–without the abuse, whoremongering & boozing–and became a charming lady.)
Later, he mentions working at a roadhouse that catered to “better” people. He hated them–but probably kept his ears & eyes open. Upon returning from Korea, he could go anywhere he could get work; he would have had this freedom even if he hadn’t become Don Draper.
When Mrs Don Draper tracked him down, he was selling used cars & writing flyers. I think she convinced him to go to college & improve himself; she liked the kid–& hadn’t much liked her dead hubbie–even though there was evidently no affair.
Later we learn (& there’s no plot surprise linked with this) that Don was writing copy for a furrier in NYC & going to night school when he met Roger (through Freddy). He was bright & good with words. And good looking–which can impress even straight guys. Roger liked what he saw & offered him a job. Sure–most of the admen had degrees–that’s how you could distinguish yourself from any Joe Schmo who walks in off the street. But there was no HR dept with a list of job requirements–& Roger liked to exert his power. It was his name on the door, after all. (Well, it was his dad’s–but nobody but Old Yoda Burt ever called him on that detail.) Don did well at Sterling Cooper, got raises & was able to buy Betty the stuff she thought she wanted. Not that we ever see her “think” that much.
My guess is that Roger’s offer coincided with Don meeting Betty; she modeled for the furrier. So, whether or not he’d dreamed of a future as an adman, he took Roger’s offer so he could afford to marry this beautiful girl.
I’m sure Roger was glad to advise him on The Best Tailor & help “finish” his sophistication. Alas, Roger may even have encouraged him in some practices that didn’t help him be a good husband…
[spoiler]There’s no way Don actually went to college. After all, the original Don Draper, being an officer, was almost certainly already a graduate. Don wouldn’t have broken his cover to work for a degree his front already had.
That also explains why Roger hired him - he thought he *was *hiring a college grad, and a fellow officer to boot.[/spoiler]
We specifically hear Roger saying that Don was going to night school when they met. (Here–on a page with many spoilers.) Don took the military ID of the Original Don Draper–but didn’t take his “front.” (Most of the switch was discussed in Season 1, so I’m not spoiling it.) And Don didn’t boast of the details of “his” military career–a practice followed by many a real vet.
Original Don had an Engineering degree–which Don obviously didn’t use. After he got out of Korea, he didn’t pretend to be “that” Don Draper; he was a new Don Draper, with a mysterious past.
A familiar meme is that advertising geniuses who come up with these compelling depictions of the perfect lives their products will bring have unhappy lives, past and/or present. E.g., in an early 1960s issue, Mad magazine jokingly asserted that the ad guy who invented the term ‘togetherness’ was probably separated from his family at the time. Don Draper’s past (and present) would certainly would qualify.
An obvious result of such a childhood would be self hatred. I saw a little of that in Dick Whitman’s swapping dog tags with Don Draper. He didn’t just want to move up, but to become someone - anyone - other than Dick Whitman.
I work IT in a financial services company that has branches across the country. I’ve lost count of how many brokers still believe it’s an Old Boys’ Network. I still hear a variant “let me get my girl to take care of this” about once a month or so. Oy.
Yep. Or hearing (since I mentioned my job in my previous post), “look, I don’t have time to deal with this shit. I’ll get the gal in here to talk to you”.
No, but I would be very offput if they said “I’ll get the boy in here to talk to you.” That’s insulting, assuming they are speaking about a a man 18 years of age or older.
Exactly. I’m over 18; I’m a woman, not a girl. The attitude that corresponds with the usage of this word is generally dismissive towards that assistant. It’s not very pretty, especially when you’re a woman talking to him and you can tell he’s thinking you won’t know how to fix his issue, being a woman and all.