D. Dudley Bloom
Encyclopedia
D. Dudley Bloom is an American
businessman who made notable contributions to the consumer products industry as an inventor, advertising
copywriter, and marketing
executive during the 1950s
and early 1960s
, including proposing and designing the first conventional travel luggage
built on wheels and designing and marketing
the first "magic milk bottle" for dolls
.
, second child and only son of Harry and Cecile Gaffin Bloom, where he was known for putting on magic
shows in his family's backyard. His father was co-owner and sales manager of the Bloom Brothers Department Stores
in Chambersburg and Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
, and his mother, raised in Manhattan
, had worked as a bookkeeper for Macy's
Department Stores before her marriage. Bloom graduated from Dickinson College
, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
, and during World War II
served in the United States Navy
. After the war, he attended Dickinson School of Law
(now a division of Pennsylvania State University
), also in Carlisle.
, law firm
, Bloom moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, where he became assistant buyer of men's clothing at Lit Brothers
' Department Store. While working at Lit's, he met his future wife, Nancy Blum, and the couple married in June, 1953.
Bloom then joined the New York
office of A. J. Wood, Inc., market research
counselors. Training in mass marketing
research at Wood's prepared Bloom in the spring of 1954 to become director of product research and promotion at the American Metals Specialties Corporation (AMSCO), a then-struggling toy manufacturer located in Hatboro, Pennsylvania
.
At AMSCO, Bloom expanded the company's line of reality
-based toys that eschewed traditional themes of cowboys and soldiers and encouraged children to imitate constructive adult roles. "If we teach our children war and crime," he was quoted in 1959, "we haven't much of a future to look forward to." He taught the industry that children become consumers long before they earn money. "Tie-ins" between AMSCO toys and the consumer products of the major manufacturers enabled children to play cook with brand-named products from General Foods
, Procter and Gamble, and Kellogg's; to feed dolls with a "magic milk bottle" whose Pet Milk
disappeared as "Dolly" drank it; and to care for dolls with real Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo
and powder
. Children played doctor
with toy stethoscopes, playwright
and stage director with magnetic puppet
theaters, and astronaut with rockets. Soon, consumer product manufacturers were initiating reality
-based campaigns of their own, such as General Foods
for its AMSCO-made Maxwell House
Coffee Time Set, blurring the merchandising line between vastly different industries.
Bloom packaged virtually everything in see-through acetate
rather than the cardboard paper
to which the industry had been accustomed.
, where he created the "sea horse" logo that the company uses today. In 1958, he proposed that Atlantic put luggage on wheels and built a "mock-up" of a suitcase attached to a platform that had caster
s and a handle. The company's chairman dismissed the idea as impractical. (Although at Christmas
, 1949, Bloomingdale's had sold a novelty device that attached to existing luggage so that it could be wheeled, and camp trunks had been manufactured on wheels since at least the 1880s, no one had ever put ordinary luggage on wheels. The concept was finally taken up and patented by U. S. Luggage Corporation in 1972, fourteen years later. Bloom, of course, was not credited for the idea and soon left Atlantic. By the 1980s
, virtually all luggage had wheels.)
broker.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
businessman who made notable contributions to the consumer products industry as an inventor, advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
copywriter, and marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
executive during the 1950s
1950s
The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...
and early 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
, including proposing and designing the first conventional travel luggage
Luggage
Baggage is any number of bags, cases and containers which hold a traveller's articles during transit.Luggage is more or less the same concept as "baggage", but is normally used in relation to the personal luggage of a specific person or persons Baggage is any number of bags, cases and containers...
built on wheels and designing and marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
the first "magic milk bottle" for dolls
Dolls
A doll is a model of a human being, usually a toy.Dolls may also refer to:*Dolls , short British film directed by Susan Luciani*Dolls , a 2002 film by Takeshi Kitano...
.
Early years
Bloom was raised in Chambersburg, PennsylvaniaChambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg is a borough in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is miles north of Maryland and the Mason-Dixon line and southwest of Harrisburg in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley. Chambersburg is the county seat of Franklin County...
, second child and only son of Harry and Cecile Gaffin Bloom, where he was known for putting on magic
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
shows in his family's backyard. His father was co-owner and sales manager of the Bloom Brothers Department Stores
Bloom Brothers Department Stores
Bloom Brothers Department Stores were located at sites in Franklin and Fulton County, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, from the company's founding in 1897 as the Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store until the closing of the last store in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1944.The Old...
in Chambersburg and Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
Waynesboro is a borough in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, located northwest of Baltimore, Maryland, 67 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The population within the borough limits was 9,614 at the 2000 census. When combined with the surrounding...
, and his mother, raised in Manhattan
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, had worked as a bookkeeper for Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
Department Stores before her marriage. Bloom graduated from Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...
, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle is a borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The name is traditionally pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2010 census, the borough...
, and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
served in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. After the war, he attended Dickinson School of Law
Dickinson School of Law
Penn State University Dickinson School of Law is the law school of The Pennsylvania State University...
(now a division of Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
), also in Carlisle.
Toys for future earners
After clerking for a small Waynesboro, PennsylvaniaWaynesboro, Pennsylvania
Waynesboro is a borough in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, located northwest of Baltimore, Maryland, 67 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The population within the borough limits was 9,614 at the 2000 census. When combined with the surrounding...
, law firm
Law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other...
, Bloom moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, where he became assistant buyer of men's clothing at Lit Brothers
Lit Brothers
Lit Brothers was a moderate priced department store based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Samuel and Jacob Lit opened the first store at Eight and Market Streets in 1893....
' Department Store. While working at Lit's, he met his future wife, Nancy Blum, and the couple married in June, 1953.
Bloom then joined the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
office of A. J. Wood, Inc., market research
Market research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
counselors. Training in mass marketing
Mass marketing
Mass marketing is a market coverage strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and go after the whole market with one offer. It is type of marketing of a product to a wide audience. The idea is to broadcast a message that will reach the largest number of people possible...
research at Wood's prepared Bloom in the spring of 1954 to become director of product research and promotion at the American Metals Specialties Corporation (AMSCO), a then-struggling toy manufacturer located in Hatboro, Pennsylvania
Hatboro, Pennsylvania
Hatboro is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,360 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hatboro is located at ....
.
At AMSCO, Bloom expanded the company's line of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
-based toys that eschewed traditional themes of cowboys and soldiers and encouraged children to imitate constructive adult roles. "If we teach our children war and crime," he was quoted in 1959, "we haven't much of a future to look forward to." He taught the industry that children become consumers long before they earn money. "Tie-ins" between AMSCO toys and the consumer products of the major manufacturers enabled children to play cook with brand-named products from General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
, Procter and Gamble, and Kellogg's; to feed dolls with a "magic milk bottle" whose Pet Milk
Pet, Inc.
Pet, Inc., was an American company that was the first to commercially produce evaporated milk as a shelf-stable consumer product and later became a multi-brand food products conglomerate. Its signature product, PET Evaporated Milk, is now a product of The J.M. Smucker Co...
disappeared as "Dolly" drank it; and to care for dolls with real Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo
Shampoo
Shampoo is a hair care product used for the removal of oils, dirt, skin particles, dandruff, environmental pollutants and other contaminant particles that gradually build up in hair...
and powder
Baby powder
Baby powder is an astringent powder used for preventing diaper rash, as a deodorant, and for other cosmetic uses. It may be composed of talc or corn starch. Talcum powder is harmful if inhaled since it may cause aspiration pneumonia or granuloma. Drugs such as cocaine are sometimes cut with...
. Children played doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
with toy stethoscopes, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and stage director with magnetic puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
theaters, and astronaut with rockets. Soon, consumer product manufacturers were initiating reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
-based campaigns of their own, such as General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
for its AMSCO-made Maxwell House
Maxwell House
Maxwell House is a brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Foods. Introduced in 1892, it is named in honor of the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. For many years until the late 1980s it was the largest-selling coffee in the U.S. and is currently second behind...
Coffee Time Set, blurring the merchandising line between vastly different industries.
Bloom packaged virtually everything in see-through acetate
Acetate
An acetate is a derivative of acetic acid. This term includes salts and esters, as well as the anion found in solution. Most of the approximately 5 billion kilograms of acetic acid produced annually in industry are used in the production of acetates, which usually take the form of polymers. In...
rather than the cardboard paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
to which the industry had been accustomed.
Luggage too far ahead of its time
In between stints at AMSCO (1954–57 and 1959–62), Bloom was director of product development at Atlantic Luggage Company in Trenton, New JerseyTrenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
, where he created the "sea horse" logo that the company uses today. In 1958, he proposed that Atlantic put luggage on wheels and built a "mock-up" of a suitcase attached to a platform that had caster
Caster
A caster is an undriven, single, double, or compound wheel that is designed to be mounted to the bottom of a larger object so as to enable that object to be easily moved...
s and a handle. The company's chairman dismissed the idea as impractical. (Although at Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
, 1949, Bloomingdale's had sold a novelty device that attached to existing luggage so that it could be wheeled, and camp trunks had been manufactured on wheels since at least the 1880s, no one had ever put ordinary luggage on wheels. The concept was finally taken up and patented by U. S. Luggage Corporation in 1972, fourteen years later. Bloom, of course, was not credited for the idea and soon left Atlantic. By the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
, virtually all luggage had wheels.)
Later career
Bloom retired from consumer marketing in 1962 and spent the rest of his business career as a commercial and residential real estateReal estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
broker.
External links
- American Plastic Toys, http://www.americanplastictoys.com
- Atlantic Luggage Company, http://www.atlanticluggage.com
- Bloom Brothers Department StoresBloom Brothers Department StoresBloom Brothers Department Stores were located at sites in Franklin and Fulton County, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, from the company's founding in 1897 as the Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store until the closing of the last store in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1944.The Old...
, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, 1897–1944 - DDB WorldwideDDB WorldwideDDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc., known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group Inc, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies...
, http://www.ddb.com - Gulshan, Helenka. Vintage Luggage: A History. Philip Wilson, 2003.
- History of American Toys, http://www.drtoy.com
- Jaffe, Deborah. The History of Toys. The History Press, 2006.
- Playthings, toy industry trade journal, http://www.playthings.com
- The Toy Industry Association (TIA), http://www.toyassociation.org
- The Toy Directory, http://www.toydirectory.com
- Walsh, Tim. Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them. Andrews McMeel, 2005.
- World War II Fighting Ships, US Navy, USS Mizpah, http://www.navsource.org
- World War II Fighting Ships, US Navy, USS LibertyUSS LibertyUSS Liberty may refer to:, an American Revolutionary War ship, was an animal transport launched in June 1918 and decommissioned in May 1919, and as USAT Liberty, a United States Army transport ship sunk in 1942...
, http://www.navsource.org