Vintage Ad

“USE CHLORINAL, AND BE LIKE DE WHITE NIGGER.”                                                                                     1

“Use Chlorinol, and be like de White Nigger.”

Adam Galloway

AIC College of Design

“USE CHLORINAL, AND BE LIKE DE WHITE NIGGER.”                                                                                     2

As doing more and more research on vintage ads, I’ve noticed how much racist, sexist, and offensive these ads were. The ad that I decided to choose was  “Use Chlorinal, and be like a White Nigger.” These types of ads push the moral rights of people in a bad way. Like it or hate it, this set of ads is a piece of history worth seeing for everyone. I truly believe this will help people be nicer to others and also understand others and where they come from, just through a old vintage ad.

The ad shows three little boys riding in a Chlorinol soda-bleaching box. It’s bad to show that the little boys just happen to be African American.  Showing in the ad that one of the three boys is white. The ad continues to say “And be like de white nigger.” This ad pushing morals in today economy I can understand back in the early 20’s because that’s how life was. All of the segregation, and sexist people out there would like and agree with this ad. But why are the kids in a boat?

I’m having some trouble with understanding why the kids are in a boat like environment. Is it because you have to wash off bleach when you’re finished using it? What was going through the designer’s head when he was thinking up of concepts? 

“USE CHLORINAL, AND BE LIKE DE WHITE NIGGER.”                                                                                     3

Was it more of the client that wanted to have this as his ad? From what I understand is that “ Chlorine Bleach” is used to kill bacteria, and also to clean pools. This product also helps purify drinking water. This can be a good indication to way the three boys are in a boat. To me its not fun trying to find research on something that was so long ago. I would love to meet the designer of this ad and just pick his brain.

When I was trying to do some research I wanted to try to find some information on the company or manufacture but I cannot find anything on it. After some research I did find information on the chemical itself. The product is used to clean and purify water. But because of this ad does this mean that this company has been out of business for this long? Was this the cause of the end of the company? To me there are all these questions unanswered, but what was the designer getting at with this ad?

Trying to understand the logic back then is amazing. It seems like there were no moral rights back in the 20’s, and I don’t see how the people can be racist towards someone else they don’t even know. To me this paper goes more than just a vintage ad. This turns into a history lesion. I can now use the knowledge from learning how people treated others back in history, and apply it to my design skills in present time.

“USE CHLORINAL, AND BE LIKE DE WHITE NIGGER.”                                                                                     4

In the end, we can all learn something about how people were treated back in the 20’s and how their designs reflected on it.  If you would like to see more about this topic look up vintage ads. There are more than just racist ads out there.  Some maybe sexual and offensive, but that is just life back in those days.

“USE CHLORINAL, AND BE LIKE DE WHITE NIGGER.”                                                                                     5

This vintage ad shows the three little boys in the boat, promoting the Chlorinol product.