... In 1916, Mr. Obici gave a five-dollar prize to the school child in Suffolk who drew the best picture to use in advertising peanuts. The prize was given to a child who sent a drawing of a peanut shell with arms, legs, and a head. To this drawing, Mr. Obici added a tall silk hat, a cane, and spats. Thus the lowly peanut became a well-dressed dandy, and his picture is seen today in advertisements. ...

Inexpensive Peanut Is Successfully Advertised by Southerners—A Daring Experiment

“We have grown to look upon certain articles as lacking the inherent requirements of advertising.

It was not so very long ago, for instance, that when a manufacturer conceived the idea of putting up package sugar and giving it the dignity of a trade-mark insignia, special publicity and localized newspaper campaigns, his associates scoffed.

“Can’t be put over!” they declared. “People will always buy sugar in bulk. There’s so little you can really say about sugar, after all. It isn’t like selling an automobile or a perfumed soap or a patent-process bean. No, they’ll look on it as only another scheme to give short measure in a fancy container.”

And thus discouraged at the outset, this manufacturer went right ahead, conceived a trade-mark, prettied up a package and advertised it for all it was worth. The copy men and the artists, set to work on this job, discovered to their amazement that there was just as much to say on the subject of sugar as on any other product.

Brilliant advertising sprang into existence and is still going strong.

The newspaper work has been notable for its educational value and vivid success it has achieved.

Now it has come to be that a very humble little article—one that advertisers have considered hopeless for generation gone—ascends to the rather exalted altitude of “the fat appropriation.”

“Peanuts have been trade-marked!”

No longer will the smiling Italian on the corner have things all his own way. His shrewd subterfuge of the pinched bag and the ever-decreasing number of goobers inside will be open to challenge.

The public need not submit to it. The “Fresh Hot Roasted” at about three for a penny will have to brush up its conduct and make good.

For a man with the strength of a big conviction went down into the Southern home of the peanut and talked matters over with the planters.

They, in turn had conceived a kindred scheme, but were not quite prepared to know how it could be brought to a fruitful head.

From the foundation of the idea up, here is the way the committee reckoned.

Peanuts are universally liked. It is unnecessary to educate or even greatly cultivate the “peanut appetite.” Everybody likes ’em, from youth to old age.

It may happen that we may get out of peanut range for a month a time, but when we buy a package and nibble for a few minutes we remember how tasty they always are.

And you can’t stop at a dozen!

The hunger for the humble goober approaches the ravenous. “I can’t stop eating them” is an old and favorite saying.

Here was a treat factor, a business asset, the committee banked on. The market was as wide as the world.

But there were many inferior grades of peanuts on the market.

The kind that are roasted on the street corners are not always palatable.

They are scorched and burned and maltreated.

They are either overdone or underdone.

True, some package goods were on the market, but they were not well known. They had never been advertised to any extent.

No one had gone about it professionally and with the earnest intention of dignifying the business.

Would there be a steady, ready, unfailing market for a selected peanut, grown right and roasted right and presented to the public in a clean, bright, appetizing manner?

The committee thought so. It was sure of the fact!

A Daring Experiment

But to devote thousands of dollars to actually advertising a five-cent bag of salted peanuts was a daring experiment.

Could it make its weight felt soon enough to justify the expenditure?

How was the advertising to be done?

Where would the advertising appear? In what mediums and under what conditions?

An advertising agency was called into conference.

It was an agency accustomed to food products—and the Southern territory. For, oddly enough, these adventurers in advertising resolved to take the bull by the horns.

They would try out the scheme right down in the country where the peanuts were grown.

If it succeeded there it would be universally successful.

It must be explained at this juncture that the Planters Association was composed of good business men.

They represented the higher order of things.

Plantations under their jurisdiction were skillfully managed. Only the best goobers were raised. They had the finest peanut stock on the market.

There was none better.

Perhaps it was this very fact that made the proposition so promising. It is seldom possible to snow under a superior article.

People will find quality. The “just nachally” nose it out.

These broad acres seldom felt the blight of “bad crops” or uncertain weather conditions. Such peanuts as came in from outside sources were passed upon by experts, men who “lived” peanuts and knew them from the ground up.

And they formed a combine—joined together to see if the raising and marketing of peanuts could not be put on a profitable, professional plane. They pooled an appropriation and “went to it.”

An unassuming insignia was already in existence, the relic of a previous, unimportant advertising experiment.

It was a simple flag upon which “Pennant Brand” was emblazoned.

This had grown to be more or less important as a symbol of the Planters Association.

But the agency saw further possibilities in the way of a trade-mark.

Thus “Mr. Peanut” came to life, an animated peanut in the hull, fat, smiling, wearing a monocle and a high silk hat and carrying a cane most jauntily.

Next came the system of distribution.

Dealers were supplied with a large and most attractive glass container, with an outlet for filling small transparent oiled-paper bags.

They were generous-sized bags too, and with a flowing measure of peanuts. The dealer could keep them practically air-tight in the container and fill the bags as trade demanded

But he was cautioned in every case not to short measure.

The bag must contain so many peanuts, no less.

The margin of profit permitted of this inflexible rule.

The public confidence was to be won, not only because of the quality of the peanuts, but the amount given for the price. The bags were appropriately decorated.

News-stands everywhere were interested in the experiment. Subway station stands collaborated.

Railroad depots fell into line. Confectioners saw the advantage of the plan.

The distribution was skillfully and thoroughly conducted.

Nothing tends to discourage the public as much as difficulty in securing an advertised article. It is disastrous to any campaign. It nullifies and deadens the fattest appropriation.

Yet so many manufacturers are weak in this respect!

And now a word concerning the product.

Pennant Brand Peanuts are selected peanuts. They are the pick and the choice of many. Only peanuts of a certain size and quality are permitted to pass the goober censor. They are roasted by men who know, and salted according to a secret process. They really represent the last word in peanuts.

And they are always the same!

The Campaign.

Then came the advertising campaign.

Twelve pieces of newspaper copy were conceived after many conferences. The space used was three columns by twelve inches in depth—and larger.

Rather generous for a newcomer, eh?

Here was where Mr. Peanut came in.

He was pictured in every ad, in different humorous poses.

The glass container and the bags and tempting displays of peanuts were drawn by artists under careful agency guidance.

The copy went straight to the point.

It told how the public could now secure a dependable peanut. How there would be no more “guess work.” Where the goobers were grown, by whom, and how went into the text.

What was practically a guarantee went in every one of those little oiled-paper envelopes.

No more stale, tough, poorly-roasted peanuts! That trial and tribulation was over.

And Mr. Hoover’s aid and advice was gained.

The Food Administrator and Conserver very willingly stated that the food value of peanuts could not be overestimated.

They were fine as a steady diet.

They were bully for children as well as grown-ups.

Their use was, in a way, a war measure.

Peanuts were as nutritious as meat. People would do well to eat them.

The public, in this great newspaper campaign, was asked to call for Pennant Brand peanuts, not just peanuts. They would discover the advantage of this, it was promised. This initial campaign went into Southern papers.

In a town as remote and as small as St. Augustine, Florida, the series appeared first.

The results exceeded all expectations everywhere.

The public responded.

It did ask for Pennant Brand peanuts, and liked them, and kept returning for more.

And now Mr. Peanut will bow to audiences all over the country.

Newspapers will carry his message in a smashing campaign that will be second to no food product now on the market.

In fact, the experiment has been so entirely satisfactory that the association is going into the Saturday Evening Post, just to clinch matters.

The first effort will comprise eight wonderful pages—think of it!

For peanuts at five cents the bag.

But it was newspaper advertising that proved the worth of the idea!

Newspaper advertising convinced the association that the public will support a worthy project.

Contact was obtained instantly.

An advertisement appeared one day, and results could be actually traced and run to cover the next.

That is one of the fine things about newspaper publicity.

You are not left in doubt.

Your verdict is a speedy one!

M. G. Armstrong, of the Alameda Market, has a life-size crayon picture of his terrier Fido, better known on Park street as “Hoodlum,” drawn by Miss Laura Foster. It is so life-like that when the original saw it he did his best to strike up an acquaintance, and finally became so demonstrative that it had to be put out of his reach.

At the last meeting of Thompson Hose Company ex-Foreman Tom Hanson was presented with a beautifully engrossed copy of a set of resolutions setting forth in terms of praise the recipient’s services in behalf of the company while in office. The engrossing was done by Miss Laura Foster of this city.

The Oakland Tribune, February 16, 1903, said

Miss Laura Foster, the artist, a former resident of this city, has been ill with the grip [aka flu] at her home in San Francisco.

Laura Foster shows the touch of genius in her pen-and-ink sketch, “On the Crest of the Sunset Sea,” a woman’s nude body buffeted by the waves.

Camera Craft, November 1903, said

Foster was in the 1904 exhibition.

The Alameda Encinal, August 26, 1905, reported Foster’s upcoming trip to the East Coast. 

Miss Laura Foster, sister of Geo. J. Foster, of this city, and well known as an artist on the Bulletin, is to depart soon for an extended trip to the eastern states. She will go to New York, Boston and other cities, and later visit her father’s relatives in Deleware [sic].

 Foster’s plan to go east was reported in Town Talk, February 23, 1907.

... The other two artists who are to abandon the local field are Miss Laura Foster and Miss Donna Fulton. These two clever women left the Bulletin when the Sunday Supp was dropped recently and immediately began laying plans for an advance on the artistic center of America. They will leave on the first of April with a sheaf of letters calculated to open the mystic sancta of the big magazine editors. ...

Miss Laura Foster, a prominent newspaper artist, is to leave the first of next month for New York.

Miss Laura Foster, the well-known newspaper artist, is now in New York. She writes of her arrival and states that she has found congenial employment on one of the papers.

Laura Foster, who used to do some clever work on the Bulletin, is now working for Munsey’s, drawing down a fine salary, and mightily pleased with herself and the whole happy world.

... The most recent arrivals are Miss Laura Foster and Miss Fulton, both formerly of the Bulletin staff. They have taken a joint studio in the Brynn Mawr apartments and are swamped with orders for drawings. Miss Foster has accepted a staff position with Munsey and is a contributor to several publications. She has just completed a set of illustrations for the October number of the Scrap Book. Miss Fulton is doing fashions for both The Delineator and The Ladies’ Home Journal.

Californians Gather at Table in New York
New York, November 11.—At the dinner at the Everett House last Friday night, which was arranged by the California Promotion Committee’s New York bureau, more than fifty Californians were present….

… Miss Laura E. Foster of San Francisco is one of the numerous magazine and newspaper illustrators from California now domiciled in New York.

Girl Artists Do Well in New York
Miss Laura Foster, who was well known here as an illustrator, writes to a friend that she is doing extremely well in New York, where she shares a studio with Miss Donna Fulton, who also was a San Francisco newspaper artist, and who is now on a New York fashion magazine. Miss Foster writes that she is getting plenty of work on the illustrated papers and magazines, and was offered a permanent position recently with one of the latter. The salary was tempting, but the independent life of the free lance was more tempting, especially where just as much money can be made. She tells of a visit she made to a well known New York weekly.

“The editor,” she says, “looked over my drawings and expressed appreciation. ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I suppose you will be able to let me have a story to illustrate.’ ‘Why, my dear Miss Foster,’ he said, ‘we couldn’t think of giving out work to anybody that hadn’t a reputation.’ So I see that I’ll have to get a ‘rep’ before I will be able to get my signature into that particular weekly. It may be a good plan for the weekly, but it’s tough on poor unknown artists.”

Artist Returns for Brief Visit
Justifies Friends by Work in East
Miss Laura E. Foster Finds Great Demands for Her Sketches in New York

Miss Laura E. Foster has returned here for a brief visit with her relatives before going back to New York for permanent residence. Miss Foster is one of the San Francisco newspaper artists who were “earthquaked” into the big metropolis. Before that eventful 18th of April, 1906, Miss Foster worried her friends with her comfortable, unambitious view of life. At a dinner given by Charles Victor Miller, the picturesque materialist and friend of Calve, at his Bush street home one night, in honor of the Chinese consul and his suite, Miss Foster was one of the guests. Reference was made to a splendid sketch of hers shown at the newspaper artists’ exhibition at the Palace hotel.

“Why don’t you go to New York and become famous instead of hiding your light out here in the west?” she was asked.

“But why? To what good?” queried Miss Foster. “I’m perfectly contented here. New York has no attractions for me. You see, I have a lovely home, good things to eat and payday every week.”

The upheaval having lessened San Francisco’s fascinations, however, Miss Foster followed the eastern trend, gained recognition by her illustrations for James L. Ford’s article, “The Girl Who Comes to New York,” in Success, and after that found an ever increasing quantity of work waiting for her.

But she still loves San Francisco and is glad to spend her vacation here.

Miss Laura E. Foster, well-known magazine illustrator from California, formerly of the staff of the San Francisco Bulletin, who joined the New York artist colony some time ago, was married last Tuesday evening at St. Andrew’s church, New York, to Donald C. Monroe, well-known mining broker of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Monroe will live at 547 West 123rd street, New York.

Laura Foster Married.
Miss Laura E. Foster, a former San Francisco artist, and Donald C. Monroe, a New York mining stock broker, were married in the Little Church Around the Corner recently. Miss Foster is one of the San Francisco artists that were earthquaked into New York after the disaster of April, 18, 1906. It was soon after coming to New York that Miss Foster met Mr. Monroe, who at once became a suitor. However, it was not until a few weeks ago, after her vacation spent in San Francisco, that she consented to be married. Miss Foster’s success as an artist in New York has been little short of phenomenal. She had not much more than unpacked her belongings in the metropolis until she found work to do. Her first assignment was to illustrate James L. Lord’s article, “The Girl Who Comes to New York,” in Success. This brought more orders. Miss Foster has been busy ever since. In San Francisco she was a member of the art staff of the Bulletin. Mr. Monroe is a wealthy bachelor, who has long since been considered proof against matrimony. The couple have dispensed with a wedding trip, and have taken a lovely apartment on One Hundred and Twenty-third street.

California Artist Is Married in New York
Miss Laura Foster, Well Known Illustrator, Weds Mining Broker
Alameda, Oct. 13.—Cards have been received here from New York by relatives and friends announcing the marriage of Miss Laura Foster, an artist, and Donald Cameron Monroe, a mining broker of the eastern metropolis.

The wedding took place September 28 and was solemnized by Rev. Dr. Houghton in the “Little Church Around the Corner.”

Mr. and Mrs. Munroe [sic] will live in New York and the bride will continue her art work and illustrating under the name by which she is so widely known.

Mrs. Munroe visited her relatives here this summer. Mrs. Munroe was employed as an illustrator on San Francisco papers for 10 years.

Talented Alameda Girl Is the Bride of New York Broker
Alameda, Oct. 15.—Cards have been received by Alameda friends and relatives announcing the marriage of Miss Laura Elizabeth Foster of this city and Donald Cameron Monroe, a wealthy broker, in New York Tuesday, September 29. The wedding was performed. by the Rev. Dr. Houghton in Church Around the Corner.

Mrs. Monroe, who is the daughter of Charles H. Foster of 1429 Oak street, is the well-known artist and magazine illustrator who went to New York after the fire in San Francisco and has made a name for herself in the art circles of the great metropolis.

Mrs. Monroe was in California during the summer, spending part of the time of her visit with her father and brother in this city. When she left for her eastern home no definite plans had been made concerning her coming marriage, though the engagement was known by her more intimate friends.

Artist and Broker Wed
Mrs. Donald Monroe, who was Miss Laura Foster up to two weeks ago, has written her friends in this city that she is now settled in a charming apartment and is going on with her illustrating work for the Gotham papers as before her marriage with the New York stock broker. They did not go upon a honeymoon trip. Quite a few of their friends saw them married at the Little Church Around the Corner. The bride wore a brown cloth traveling suit, with hat to match, which was exceedingly becoming. Mr. Monroe is about fifty years of age and is comfortably well off, so that his bride does not need to bother about pot-boiling work for the future, but can work for art’s sake alone.

A Famous Woman Artist in Town
Laura Foster, the artist, who is now Mrs. Monroe of New York, is visiting her relatives and friends on both sides of the bay. She is one of the many clever Californians, who have made our city famous in New York, as a cradle of talent. Mrs. Foster Monroe’s drawings appear frequently in Life, Colliers and the leading magazines. In her peculiar line—humorous and satirical skits on the sex, and suffragettes in particular,—Laura Foster Monroe is unequalled.

Like many celebrities, Mrs. Monroe made her start on The Wasp. She drew political cartoons for this journal for two years and is the first woman in America, if not, in the world, who did political work of that class. Her cartoons were good ones, too—so clever that some of them were used in the McKinley campaign by the Republican National Committee. A quarter of a million copies of one of her cartoons in The Wasp were circulated throughout the United States by the campaign committee and helped to discredit the Free Silver craze.

When the catastrophe of 1906 left most of the artists in San Francisco without an occupation, Miss Foster left her Alameda home and cast her lot in New York. She thanks her lucky star that the fire drove her East, for she might have remained here all her days and not found the rich field she is now exploring. Other clever artists and writers, who were forced out of San Francisco in 1906, have had similar experiences. They have done remarkably well in New York and established a colony of writers and illustrators. By their success, it has come to be regarded as a recommendation that one hails from San Francisco.

Miss Foster obtained recognition very quickly in New York, though at first, she suffered by the fact that she had been employed so long on the daily newspapers and had acquired the sloppy style into which daily newspaper artists fall inevitably. Being ambitious and painstaking. Miss Foster overcame her technical disadvantage and was soon able to sell her drawings to the high-class weeklies like Life and Colliers; also to the leading magazines. Her work has greatly improved since she became a metropolitan celebrity, and she is now classed, properly, as in the front rank of American Illustrators.

Miss Foster’s marriage to Mr. Monroe took place several years ago and has been a very happy one. She and her husband occupy a pretty flat on upper Broadway, overlooking Central Park. She will return to New York in a few weeks.

... Homer Davenport was another art celebrity whose work saw light in The Wasp. So also that justly distinguished draughtsman, Harrison Fisher of New York. Joe Raphael, the great impressionist painter, began as a cartoonist for The Wasp. Laura Foster, whose work in Life is often seen and always admired, began with The Wasp, and was the only woman cartoonist in the world, I think. Donald McKee, of Life, was another Wasp artist. Theodore Langguth, of the Chronicle staff, was for several years with me after he came from his studies in Munich. Charlie Dickman, the painter, did some splendid work for The Wasp. So did Gordon Ross, now in New York, and Gordon Grant, another very clever artist.

Mrs. Grant Carpenter has returned east from San Francisco where she remained three months upon account of the illness of her father, former tax collector Bloch. The brilliant Grant is working away on more new plays. At the call of Bessie Beatty, formerly of the “Bulletin” and now editor of McCall’s Magazine, about forty Californians met and had dinner informally at the Old English Tea Room on West 40th street. Among those present were: Edwin Markham, the poet; Frank Bacon, who has made a sensation on Broadway in “Lightnin’”; Robert Mackay, editor of “New Success’; Laura Foster Monroe, the artist; Rose Wilder Lane, Lucille Wallenberg, Genevieve Yoell Parkhurst, Herbert Roth, the cartoonist; Sophie Treadwell, who is writing plays; Helen Barry, Eva Chapelle, Sam Lash, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant Carpenter. The most interesting announcement was the recent marriage of Elmer Hader and Berta Hoerner, the two California artists who have recently achieved success in New York. Mrs. Georgia Bordwell, club editor of the Oakland Tribune, has been in New York for about three weeks, waiting to meet her husband, Capt. Fred Bordwell, on his return from France and incidentally gathering material for letters to her paper. Capt. Bordwell cabled his wife that he would expect to meet her at the Brevoort. Mrs. Bordwell cabled her husband that she would await him at the Brevoort. Neither cable was delivered, but they met at the Brevoort by merest chance. The captain, who saw engineer service in the Philippines and was for years in charge of construction work for the Southern Pacific, distinguished himself abroad and received several citations. Ralph Renaud, formerly dramatic critic of the Chronicle and during the war serving with the Creel committee in Washington, is night city editor of the New York Tribune. Jack Waldorf, who was for a long time engrossing clerk of the U. S. senate, has resigned to accept a position upon the same paper.

Famous Artist Dies Visiting S.F.
Mrs. Laura E. Monroe, better known as Laura E. Foster, the famous magazine artist, is dead. She was visiting her sister, Mrs. Catherine Marani, whose home is in Fifteenth avenue. Mrs. Monroe was suffering from stomach trouble and was operated on Monday night. Yesterday she suffered an attack of heart failure and died at 4:20 yesterday afternoon.

Mrs. Monroe was at one time an illustrator and cartoonist on a local newspaper. Upon going to New York she became nationally famous. Her drawings have appeared regularly in Life and other high grade journals. She was a close friend of T. A. Dorgan, the cartoonist, known as “Tad” to millions of readers.

While in New York, Laura Foster became the wife of Donald C. Monroe, a broker. She was to have returned to New York on Friday.

Illustrator Dies
San Francisco, Sept. 22.—Mrs. Donald C. Monroe of New York city, known as Laura E. Foster, an illustrator whose work appeared in many national publications, died here last night at the home of her sister. She failed to rally from an operation. Mrs. Monroe began her career on newspapers here and went to New York 14 years ago.

Mrs. Donald C. Monroe, a newspaper and magazine illustrator under her maiden name of Laura E. Foster, died Tuesday suddenly in San Francisco.

Mrs. Donald C. Monroe, a well known newspaper illustrator who signed her drawings under her maiden name of Laura E. Foster, died suddenly September 28th [sic] at San Francisco. Mrs. Monroe started her career in San Francisco with the Wasp and San Francisco Bulletin.

Laura Foster Monroe, who passed away in San Francisco in September, was the first woman cartoonist on the Pacific Coast. She began her career on the San Francisco Wasp, when T. E. Flynn was its editor. Later she went over to the Bulletin, and later still went to New York where she did splendid work as an illustrator. She married in New York, and with her husband was on a visit to her sister in San Francisco when she died.

Zena Friedland, ’48, an editor for National Publications in New York, is engaged to Eugene Brody, ’47, A.M. ’48, who is studying at Long Island University Medical School. They plan to be married in June.

To the Memory of Zena Brody who was with me this time around, too.