Friday, February 15, 2008
In Memoriam
The Los Angeles Times’ obituary section on February 8, 2008 included commemoratives of two dramatically different women, but leaders both.
Adrienne A. Hall (1926-2008) was an “Ad executive [who] broke barriers for women” while Ruth Stafford Peale (1906-2008) was “the Pastor’s wife [who] co-founded Guideposts.” Twenty years apart in age, they represented a gaping spectrum between women who made the world different by their accomplishments. One was a path-breaking female business entrepreneur, the other was an enduring aide to her husband’s mission. I would not want to participate in a world today which had not benefited from their individual contributions.
Ms. Hall founded her own advertising firm (Hall & Levine Advertising, formed with Joan Levine) long before it was the acceptable thing to do. She made a better success of her firm in 1970 than most women do thirty-plus years later. With clients that included Max Factor and Neutrogena, her agency received the Advertising Award of the Year in 1976 from the Western States Advertising Agency Association. In 1980, her firm was acquired by Foote, Cone & Belding.
She and some friends founded the Committee of 200 in 1982 and later she was active in the International Women’s Forum, which grew from 1,000 members in 1985 to over 4,800 women of note in 61 affiliates in 42 countries today.
Ruth Stafford Peale co-founded with her husband, Guideposts (1945), the “global inspirational organization led by Norman Vincent Peale.” She was a religious leader in her own right, but handled publication of all his sermons for the Pawling, NY Peal Center for Christian Living.
More importantly, she encouraged him to persist in the face of countless rejections from publishers. When he was discouraged enough to toss a draft of The Power of Positive Thinking into the trash in frustration, she took it back and persuaded him to continue. Eventually, the book sold over 21 million copies.
One woman was an innovator on the outside, the other on the inside of a family, and both changed the world and our lives. They were from opposite poles of the political spectrum, yet in all likelihood each would probably have respected the other woman and her accomplishments. They both certainly would have been civil to each other. Lessons we all could take from their exemplary lives, among many other stories.
But thirty years have passed, and we take their revolutionary contributions for granted today, in our world more obsessed with Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle and other Stiletto Spin-Sister Stereotypes.
These good women and a whole host of others laid the groundwork for this generation to choose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to become as women. This generation was given the gift of choice by women at either end of, and in-between, the spectrum represented by Ms. Hall and Ms. Peale. Let’s hope the stories about today’s young women are equally inspiring.
Adrienne A. Hall (1926-2008) was an “Ad executive [who] broke barriers for women” while Ruth Stafford Peale (1906-2008) was “the Pastor’s wife [who] co-founded Guideposts.” Twenty years apart in age, they represented a gaping spectrum between women who made the world different by their accomplishments. One was a path-breaking female business entrepreneur, the other was an enduring aide to her husband’s mission. I would not want to participate in a world today which had not benefited from their individual contributions.
Ms. Hall founded her own advertising firm (Hall & Levine Advertising, formed with Joan Levine) long before it was the acceptable thing to do. She made a better success of her firm in 1970 than most women do thirty-plus years later. With clients that included Max Factor and Neutrogena, her agency received the Advertising Award of the Year in 1976 from the Western States Advertising Agency Association. In 1980, her firm was acquired by Foote, Cone & Belding.
She and some friends founded the Committee of 200 in 1982 and later she was active in the International Women’s Forum, which grew from 1,000 members in 1985 to over 4,800 women of note in 61 affiliates in 42 countries today.
Ruth Stafford Peale co-founded with her husband, Guideposts (1945), the “global inspirational organization led by Norman Vincent Peale.” She was a religious leader in her own right, but handled publication of all his sermons for the Pawling, NY Peal Center for Christian Living.
More importantly, she encouraged him to persist in the face of countless rejections from publishers. When he was discouraged enough to toss a draft of The Power of Positive Thinking into the trash in frustration, she took it back and persuaded him to continue. Eventually, the book sold over 21 million copies.
One woman was an innovator on the outside, the other on the inside of a family, and both changed the world and our lives. They were from opposite poles of the political spectrum, yet in all likelihood each would probably have respected the other woman and her accomplishments. They both certainly would have been civil to each other. Lessons we all could take from their exemplary lives, among many other stories.
But thirty years have passed, and we take their revolutionary contributions for granted today, in our world more obsessed with Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle and other Stiletto Spin-Sister Stereotypes.
These good women and a whole host of others laid the groundwork for this generation to choose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to become as women. This generation was given the gift of choice by women at either end of, and in-between, the spectrum represented by Ms. Hall and Ms. Peale. Let’s hope the stories about today’s young women are equally inspiring.
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