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Soapy sociology: London museum explores significance of laundry detergent boxes

By Graham Heathcote, Associated Press, 8/14/2001 01:35

LONDON (AP) Not content to mount a soap box, the curators of a museum exhibit in London have gone a step further: assembling a room full of washing detergent cartons to make a point about a woman's place in the home.

''The language of washing, on soap powder at least, ensures that the image of motherhood is kept in its own box,'' says a printed introduction to ''Dirty Washing,'' an exhibit at the Design Museum.

''We came up with the concept of 'dirty' because the boxes look so bright and happy and yet they deal with dirt,'' said Lorraine Gammon, a research fellow at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design. Gammon curated the exhibit with the boxes' owner, Sean O'Mara, a specialist in product branding.

The boxes span 170 years and provide a glimpse into the thinking of their times, from women's rights to racial stereotypes. The exhibit includes a detergent logo linked falsely to Satanism, as well as a box featuring the picture of a porn star.

Through the years, a recurring marketing theme has been of the dutiful housewife, the exhibit notes.

''Laundry remains a powerful symbol of women's role in relation to their home,'' Gammon said in an interview. ''There are few men on these boxes, and when they do appear they tend to be experts in white coats or super hero cleaners'' like Mr. Clean, Chore Boy or Brawny Man.

O'Mara began collecting when he was a design student, and he continued when he became creative director of graphics for a company that helps develop brands.

''The boxes interest me from a professional standpoint and they are also real pop culture,'' he said.

The boxes come from around the world, from the United States to Vietnam, but their designs are often similar, with good mothers appearing with their babies. Today, some 90 percent of women say they still clean more than their men.

The exhibit credits the invention of soap powder to a chemist named Hudson in northern England in 1830. He ground up soap to help his wife, who found washing difficult because of arthritis.

''Hudson sold it in his shop but we don't know if it was in packets. Soap flakes came later with big business,'' Gammon said.

In the late 19th century, British soap advertisements and boxes depicted black children gratefully receiving bars of soap from their white benefactors, a seeming example of colonial paternalism.

A washing powder made in Buffalo, N.Y., pictured a grinning black woman in a polka-dot turban and the slogan, ''Fun-To-Wash.'' Another American powder featured two black children and the words, ''Let the twins do your work.''

A British soap flakes box illustrated with curly haired black twins was captioned ''Won't shrink wool.''

The exhibition includes the 19th-century moon-and-stars logo of Procter & Gamble, the subject of persistent rumors that it is a symbol of Satanism. The company has repeatedly denied any link.

There's also an Ivory Snow box that was withdrawn when it became known that the fresh-faced mother on it was porn actress Marilyn Chambers. The box is now highly collectable, the display notes.

On the Net:

Design Museum: http://www.designmuseum.org/

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001