iceboxes and Esquimaux

[James A. Landau]

On  Thu, 24 Jul 2003 21:32:01, Barry Popik's friend Ed wrote the following:

>SELL SNOWPLOWS IN HAWAII
>
>   I had posted a 1950s citation about selling refrigerators to Eskimos.
Same deal.
>
>   12 November 1932, HOLLYWOOD HERALD, pg. 13 ad:
>HE COULD SELL SNOWPLOWS...IN HAWAII!
>   There may be a sucker born every minute...but the day Jimmy Bates was >
born...the clocks weren't running.
>   _THE HALF NAKED TRUTH_
>based on the life of Harry Reichenbach...the dean of all press agents.

H. Allen Smith _Low Man on the Totem Pole_ New York: Doubleday Doran, 1941
(first edition, other editions from various publishers).  No known ISBN

has a chapter on a press agent named Jim Moran, who (according to Smith) once
not only sold an icebox to an Eskimo but managed to acquire some sort of
affidavit that he had in fact done so.  (I'm quoting this from memory, and I don't
recall if the sale involved a refrigerator or a true icebox.)  Hence we can
conclude that "selling iceboxes to Eskimos" was a well-known cliche by 1941.

I haven't heard the variation about snowplows in Hawaii.

(I have been told that Eskimos/Inuit, no fools, regularly buy refrigerators
for storing their catch so it doesn't spoil.)

          - Jim Landau