Eye of the Beholder
In 1937 a photographer in York Harbor paid tribute to the big business of beauty.
f there was anything that Florence Nightingale Graham craved, it was perfection. When her name didn't match the style of her line of beauty products, she changed it to the more highbrow-sounding Elizabeth Arden. So the cosmetics queen would no doubt have been tickled as pink as her products to see how artfully photographer Philip A. Gordon had captured them in this York Harbor drug store back in June 1937. Through natural-sounding creations such as the orange skin cream and blue grass perfume on the top shelf and the "June Geranium" soaps, bath salts, and brushes on the bottom ("A 'Thank You' gift for your hostess," according to the sign at lower right), Arden created a multi-million-dollar empire even as the Depression sent many Americans in search of soup kitchens.
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