Ding dong! Avon calling! : the women and men of Avon Products, Incorporated / Katina Manko.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Manko, Katina, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Avon Products, Inc.

Cosmetics industry--United States--History.

Cosmetics industry.

Selling--Cosmetics--United States--History.

Selling.

Direct selling--United States--History.

Direct selling.

Women sales personnel--United States--History.

Women sales personnel.

Selling--Cosmetics.

History.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 285 pages: illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

""Ding Dong! Avon Calling!" A whole generation of Americans can sing those words to the tune of a two-chime doorbell. The Avon Lady was made famous in the 1950s by the legion of suburban women who rang doorbells and gave away tiny lipstick samples shaped like bullets. Some would know the Avon Lady through a stack of catalogs left in a staff lounge or on a counter at the beauty shop. Today, the Avon Lady most likely appears as an e-representative through a webpage who, if requested, will personally deliver beauty and cosmetics products right to your door. The Avon Lady is a company representative who sells lipsticks and lotions, eye shadows and mascara, shampoo and perfume. She is an independent contractor, so she keeps a portion of her sales as commission and can build her business as big or as small as she wants. A woman in business, the Avon Lady serves as a model to test assumptions about what business is, what an entrepreneur does, how managers work, and what economic independence looks like. This book is a women's business history about a company that promoted women as entrepreneurs, not merely consumers. While Avon, known as the California Perfume Company during the first fifty years of its history, sold cosmetics and beauty products, this book is not about the products themselves. It instead focuses on the hundreds of thousands of women who owned their own businesses selling those products"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. The California Perfume Company: A Formula For Sales, Motivation, And Female Entrepreneurship

2. "Now You Are In Business For Yourself": Representatives, Gender, And Business, 1900

1929

3. Agents And Agency: The Work And Business Culture Of California Perfume Company Traveling Agents, 1890S

1930S

4. "The Dawn Of A New Era": Introducing Avon Products And A Depression - Proof Business Strategy

5. The Men And Women Of Avon: City Sales And The Gender Division Of Management

6. "Ding Dong! Avon Calling!" Selling Women's Economic Personality In The Era Of The Feminine Mystique

7. Women Of Enterprise: Avon And The Women Who Wanted It All.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Manko, Katina. Ding dong! Avon calling!

ISBN:

9780190499822

0190499826

OCLC:

1196037125