[Ads-l] Antedating by Barry Popik of "Supermodel"

[Peter Reitan]

An earlier possible influence is the use of "Super Model" as an advertising term.

The Media History Project's Lantern database has a couple dozen examples before 1940 for vacuum cleaners, film projectors, cameras, radios, snow cone makers and cars. The earliest is from the late 1920s.
________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 7:23:20 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating by Barry Popik of "Supermodel"

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Antedating by Barry Popik of "Supermodel"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting topic, Fred. It looks like Helen Fraser, director Barbizon
Studio of Fashion Modeling in New York, helped to popularize
"super-model".

Date: December 31, 1945
Newspaper: Daily News
Newspaper Location: New York, New York
Article: CHATTER!
Author: A.D.
Quote Page 10, Column 5
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72515837/super-model/

[Begin excerpt]
A brand new type of fashion model is predicted by Helen Fraser,
director Barbizon Studio of Fashion Modeling, account television
demands . . . "She will no longer be a manikin in one or two
dimensions, but an actress and woman of the world . . . She will not
be merely beautiful and attractive, but a living, speaking, acting,
charming woman of fashion and international society; in other words, a
super-model"
[End excerpt]

In 2010 Max Cryer's "Common Phrases: And the Amazing Stories Behind
Them" mentioned that super-model was in the 1953 edition of "So you
want to be a model!" Has anyone accessed the 1943 edition of "So you
want to be a model!" to determine whether "super-model" was present?

Garson

On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:41 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I see that barry.popik at yale.edu has antedatings of _supermodel_ (OED 1967):
>
> 6 October 1942, Chicago Daily Tribune, pg. 21:
> "Super" Models Are Signed for Fashion Show
>
> So you want to be a model!
> by Clyde Matthews (Dressner -- ed.)
> Garden City, NY: Halcyon House
> Revised edition 1948 (original edition 1943)
> Pg. 256:
> She will be a super-model, but the girl in her will be like the girl in you -- quite ordinary, but ambitious and eager for personal development.
> (In another edition, this second-to-last page is Page 237. The "model of tomorrow" is discussed -- ed.)
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org