Waldo, Ruth Fanshaw (1885–1975)

American advertising executive . Born on December 8, 1885, in Scotland, Connecticut; died on August 30, 1975, in Bridgeport, Connecticut; daughter of Gerald Waldo and Mary (Thomas) Waldo; graduated from Adelphi College, 1909; Columbia University, A.M., 1910; never married.

Worked for the J. Walter Thompson Company advertising agency (1915–60); appointed first female vice president of the Thompson Company (1944).

Born in 1885 and raised on an eastern Connecticut farm, Ruth Waldo was the eldest of three children. After studying languages at Adelphi College and attending Columbia University until 1910, she spent four years in New York City as a social worker before deciding to find a career that would allow her more room to advance. In 1915, she became an apprentice copywriter at the New York office of the J. Walter Thompson Company, an advertising agency; the job was offered to her by an acquaintance whose husband was just taking ownership of the company.

Between 1915 and 1930, Waldo's chosen field boomed as it became commonplace for large companies to spend millions on brand-name advertising, and her career skyrocketed as well. Her creativity and knack for writing concise, attention-getting copy that appealed to women as mothers, housewives, and individuals earned her an impressive reputation. After spending some years working in the agency's Chicago and London offices, in 1930 Waldo returned to New York and began supervising all of the Thompson Company's women's copy. A "high-intensity" person, Waldo promoted the practice at the New York offices of female copywriters wearing hats to avoid being mistaken for secretaries.

Waldo's ability to develop superior advertising campaigns allowed her control over creative issues most of the time, while she left the business of agency-client relations to the all-male account executives. She was, however, very intelligent and well aware of how the economics of a depression, a war, and then television impacted her profession. Through the 1930s and 1940s, slogans that she and her colleagues dreamed up became household phrases, and in 1944 the driven and intense Waldo was appointed the first female vice-president of the company.

One of the industry's most prominent women at the time, Ruth Waldo called getting along well with people—especially difficult people—her "hobby," and took pride in the women she had trained who had followed her into a vice-presidency at the company. Consumed by her interest in her work and never having married, in 1960 she retired after 45 years at the J. Walter Thompson Company. She died 15 years later, at age 89. Her trust fund money went to Adelphi University and the American Friends Service Committee, and her 18th-century homestead was left to the public.

sources:

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980.

Jacquie Maurice , freelance writer, Calgary, Alberta, Canada