In fact, look below at the ad and you'll see our lucky young Americans gazing intently into the face of Abraham Lincoln. He is a part of their "Glorious Past" while they are "Part of a Brighter Future." As you read the ad, you'll also discover that the glorious product in question happens to be Ipana Toothpaste. This work is undoubtedly the brainchild of some bright Madison Avenue executive, shaping wartime patriotism to the needs of capitalism. In fact, we're told, if young Americans massage with just a little extra Ipana each day, their gums will take on a "healthier firmness" (and Ipana a healthier profit, one presumes).
And why is gummy firmness so important? Because these two young Americans, the ad explains, have such an extraordinarily bright and promising future. "Nowhere else in the world could they have so many advantages to help them fulfill a destiny of greatness." Read on:
Healthy gums and a destiny of greatness. Even The Onion (with a shoe horn and duct tape) would struggle to get those two concepts into the same ad in 2015.
I bought this particular February 1943 edition of The Saturday Evening Post on eBay because it featured an excellent profile of Branch Rickey, an entrepreneur I'm researching for my next book. However, one of the historical arcs I've also been following closely in my research is the twists and turns of American Exceptionalism. (I have touched on Exceptionalism in Why San Francisco is This Century's Boston, Did the Singularity Confuse Us Completely About American History?, and The Founding Fathers as Innovators: Republic 1.0.) The notion of American Exceptionalism is this: Americans are the crowning achievement of Western Civilization, put on Earth to straighten things out. It's a heavy burden (lemme tell you), but we have big shoulders and mighty backs.Hence my delight when I chanced upon this ad.
Some people trace the roots of American Exceptionalism to Alexis de Touqueville's 1835 visit when he remarked that Americans were "quite exceptional." Others--me included--think it began with John Winthrop's 1630 sermon aboard the Arbella when he told his fellow passengers that "wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us." In either case, it has been a constant theme and moving target, shifting its center of gravity from Christian goodness to Republican virtue to industrial might. Now, if my calculations are correct, the source of our Exceptionalism is centered squarely in digital technology and Silicon Valley entrepreneurship. Where Winthrop had a shipload of Exceptionalism (you'll excuse my language), we now have an entire valley of of the stuff.
For instance, Marc Andreessen was quoted in a recent profile by Tad Friend in The New Yorker as saying "Technology gives us superpowers, makes us smarter, more powerful, happier.” (When John Winthrop sought miracles and happiness he turned to God.) And Carl Schramm wrote in his humble book, The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World (and Change Your Life): "We are in every sense an exceptional nation and culture and were created to be exactly that. . .We have been a light to the world. . .We are a nation of entrepreneurs!"From a city on a hill to a nation of entrepreneurs. Created to be exactly that.
Though I consider myself a proud and patriotic American--and count Abraham Lincoln as a truly exceptional American--I still view all this self-gratifying bombast through the lens of life coach Colby "Steve Colbert" Kraus, who famously told Homer Simpson that he had "what made America great: no understanding of the limits of your power and a complete lack of concern for what anyone thinks of you."
It's the only way to get Exceptionalism into a tube of toothpaste. And now, fortunately, there's an app for that.
Postscript
The writing of Food Foolish is done, or nearly so. More to come on all subjects entrepreneurial as I resume my research.
By the way, Ipana is no longer sold in America, though it had a fabulous run from 1901 until the late 1970s. Some of you Baby Boomers will remember Bucky Beaver fighting cavities in clips like this.
Today if you want Ipana, you pretty much have to travel to Turkey. No kidding.
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