Product Label for Sweet Georgia Brown Cocoanut Oil Shampoo, 1936

Summary

Valmor Product Company, founded in the mid-1920s, sold beauty products to Black Americans. The company's product packaging was designed by Charles Dawson, a successful Black commercial artist whose illustrations of attractive modern Black Americans contributed to a burgeoning culture of positive Black identity. But the company's legacy is complicated--many of its products pushed a white assimilatory ideal, promising effects like skin lightening.

Valmor Product Company, founded in the mid-1920s, sold beauty products to Black Americans. The company's product packaging was designed by Charles Dawson, a successful Black commercial artist whose illustrations of attractive modern Black Americans contributed to a burgeoning culture of positive Black identity. But the company's legacy is complicated--many of its products pushed a white assimilatory ideal, promising effects like skin lightening.

Artifact

Label (Identifying artifact)

Date Made

1936

Location

Not on exhibit to the public.

Object ID

2022.56.74

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford.

Material

Paper (Fiber product)

Technique

Printing (Process)

Color

Multicolored

Dimensions

Height: 4.75 in.

Width: 2.375 in.

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