Neverisms

Never take counsel of your fears.THOMAS “STONEWALL” JACKSON

This was a favorite saying of the legendary Confederate general, heard by his officers and troops on many occasions. It has been adopted by many subsequent military leaders, most notably George S. Patton, who said it this way: “After you make a decision, do it like hell—and never take counsel of your fears.”

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.GEN. DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR, citing the single most

important thing he learned from his father, a Civil War hero

Never look back;

something might be gaining on you.LEROY “SATCHEL” PAIGE, in the 1948 book Pitchin’ Man:

Satchel Paige’s Own Story (written with Hal Lebovitz)

This is the most famous saying from one of the most famous players in sports history. And though this is the way Paige wrote it in his 1948 autobiography, it was phrased in a slightly different way in a profile on Paige in a 1953 issue of Collier’s magazine. The magazine profile included a “Rules for Staying Young” sidebar that offered this version: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Paige used both sayings over the years, but appeared to favor the more forceful neveristic one.

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Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman: And a Lot of Other Things as Well

“Never Underestimate” Neverisms

In February of 1883, the popular American magazine Tribune and Farmer inaugurated a single-page supplement for the wives of its overwhelmingly male readership. Titled “Women at Home,” the original feature was written by the magazine’s publisher, Cyrus Curtis. When his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis, read the piece, she wasn’t exactly impressed. She liked the idea of a female-targeted supplement, though, and volunteered to produce the next issue. Mr. Curtis wisely accepted his wife’s offer to help.

Ten months after Mrs. Curtis took the helm, the supplement became so popular with female readers of Tribune and Farmer that it was spun off as an independent publication: The Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper. With Mrs. Curtis serving as editor and chief writer, the magazine quickly dominated the field of publications aimed at a female audience. The title was soon streamlined to Ladies’ Home Journal, and for the first time an apostrophe was added after Ladies. At five cents per copy and fifty cents for a year’s subscription, the magazine was becoming a true American success story.

By 1889, the job of editing the publication became so demanding that Mrs. Curtis told her husband she could no longer serve as full-time editor. Mr. Curtis decided to keep control of the magazine in the family, naming his twenty-six-year-old son-in-law, Edward W. Bok, as editor. The move was a huge gamble, but it paid off handsomely, as the young man began to show unexpected business acumen as well as promotional ingenuity. Beginning with his first issue in January of 1890 and continuing until his retirement thirty years later, Bok took the magazine to a level its founders only dreamed about. By the end of the century, Ladies’ Home Journal was America’s best-selling magazine. In 1903, it became the first magazine in publishing history with a paid circulation of more than a million copies.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the magazine reflected every major trend in American culture, and created a number of them as well. As you sit in your living room tonight, you can thank Edward Bok for the term. When he took over as editor, drawing room and parlor were the preferred terms for a formal room that was used only on Sundays and special occasions. In proposing the idea of a “living room” that would be used daily to replace “drawing rooms” that were expensively furnished and used only rarely, Bok wrote:We have what is called a “drawing room.” Just whom or what it “draws” I have never been able to see unless it draws attention to too much money and no taste.

Despite its commercial success and influential role in American culture, Ladies’ Home Journal did not have a steady and reliable slogan for the first sixty-three years of its existence. That all changed in 1946, however, when the October issue hit the stands with a lushly designed cover containing the words:

Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman.

While this now- legendary saying was declared an official slogan with the publication of that historic issue, it was first created in 1939, when a copywriter at N. W. Ayer & Son, America’s first advertising agency, proposed it as a possible advertising slogan. The idea was batted around for a while before being tossed aside. That is, until it was resuscitated in a fascinating tale of serendipity.

A few weeks before the meeting in which the never underestimate slogan was rejected, an Italian emigre named Leo Lionni had been hired by Ayer as a graphic designer. A few years earlier, Lionni had abandoned his training as an economist (he had a degree from the University of Genoa) to pursue his interest in art and design. And even though he had no formal artistic training, he was able to secure a position as a graphic designer for a firm in Milan.

The growing Nazi threat was looming, however, and in 1938 Lionni and his wife became alarmed by the deteriorating political situation in Italy. In 1939, he left his wife and two young children behind as he boarded an ocean liner bound for New York City (they would join him several years later). After failing to land a job in Manhattan, he headed to Philadelphia, a city he had lived in briefly as a boy. Lionni was thrilled when he was soon offered the position at N. W. Ayer. Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, the firm was an industry powerhouse, responsible for scores of successful advertising campaigns and such legendary advertising slogans as “I’d walk a mile for a Camel” and “When it rains it pours” for Morton Salt.

Two weeks into his job, Lionni was chatting with Betty Kidd, a veteran copywriter at the firm, when his eyes spotted a crumpled piece of paper in a nearby wastepaper basket. He could make out only a few words, but he was intrigued enough to reach down and snatch it from the basket. As he smoothed out the paper on his lap, he began reading the words “Never underestimate . . .” when Kidd interrupted to say, “Oh, that! It was an idea for Ladies’ Home Journal, but hopeless to illustrate.” Nobody knows for certain who first suggested the slogan a few days earlier. It might have been Betty Kidd, or possibly Charles Coiner, the firm’s art director. But this much is clear. As often happens with ideas that are floated in brainstorming sessions, this one had been briefly considered, rejected as unworkable, and then—quite literally—dumped.

As his conversation with Kidd ended, Lionni folded the piece of discarded paper, tucked it into his shirt pocket, and promptly forgot about it. Several days later, when the crumpled piece of paper resurfaced, he started doodling with his pen. Almost immediately, he began constructing a series of two-panel drawings just under the Never underestimate the power of a woman saying. The first panel showed a man failing at an activity and the second a woman succeeding at the same task. Believing he might be on to something, he sent the doodles to Betty Kidd along with a note that said:

Never underestimate the power of a cartoonist.

Kidd loved the drawings and asked Lionni to produce a final set of six cartoons. A week later, when the campaign was formally pitched to the editors and art director of Ladies’ Home Journal, it was enthusiastically received and approved for an immediate launch. Over the next three years, Lionni drew nearly a hundred of the cartoons for advertisements in The New Yorker and other leading magazines. His final