Branding with a Bang

Most of us today have heard of the retail clothing outlet Abercrombie & Fitch, most likely because of a string of nationally publicized controversies including sexualized advertising to teens, the sale of t-shirts displaying racist and offensive slogans, and a statement in 2006 by then-CEO Mike Jeffries that Abecrombie & Fitch clothing is only for "good-looking people." Although this statement is offensive for its elitist and exclusionary stance, it's also in keeping with the organization's founding vision. In 1892, the Abercrombie Company opened its doors in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan, bent on catering only to an elite clientele. Instead of teen clothing, however, the company's focus was on a different sort of lifestyle: sporting and excursion goods for the wealthy and well-to-do. Abercrombie Co. was an outfitter for expeditions by Theodore Roosevelt, Richard E. Byrd, and Ernest Hemingway, among other notables.

Abercrombie became Abercrombie & Fitch in 1900 when Ezra Fitch, a wealthy lawyer and avid client of the store, bought a major share in the company. Fitch eventually bought out Abercrombie in 1907 and pursued his vision for the company by making it more accessible to the public and not just to high-brow, would-be explorers and adventurers. To that end, he published the company's first mail-order catalog in 1909. Fitch quickly became known as an innovator and, under his leadership, the company flourished. Here in Special Collections, we have a letter written by Ezra Fitch to Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1908, soon after Fitch took the helm of the company. Stefansson, a rising star in the field of polar exploration, was ostensibly preparing for his five-year ethnological survey of North American Central Arctic coasts. For that excursion, he needed a rifle, and so he visited Abercrombie & Fitch. In the letter, Fitch continues a conversation that must have begun in person at the store: he provides Stefansson with specifications for a Mannlicher-Schönauer rifle, which was very popular at the time with big game hunters (including Ernest Hemingway, who mentions the rifle in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber).

To see the letter, come to Special Collections and ask for MSS-196, Box 2, folder 27.

A Plan for World Peace

On July 9, 1917, Vermonter Belno Marsh Whelden enlisted as a private in the Machine Gun Infantry. For the next two years he would serve on the front lines in France. Whelden was one of the 4.7 million Americans who served in World war I. He was also lucky, because he got the chance to come home alive. Whelden was a member of Dartmouth College's Class of 1921. At Dartmouth, he was an avid fan of the track team and member of Phi Gamma Delta. After graduation, Whelden attended the Tuck School for a short time, before taking a position with Stetson Shoe Company in New York City. In 1925, he returned to Vermont and went into the family hardware business.

Whelden was never able to forget what he had seen during World War I and became an ardent proponent for the need of world peace. In 1945, he took matters into his own hands. In the report for the Class of 1921's 25th Reunion, he writes:

I am still on the losing end of the fight for World Peace, as I am an out and out World Government man. I have worked out my own plan for World government, based on an approach for the viewpoint of the individual who fights the wars and not from the viewpoint of nations who manage and operate same.

In 1945, Whelden sent his 147-page plan, entitled World Trusteeship of Life and the Means of Life, to Senator Tom Connally, a member of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. Whelden enclosed a message reading:

I enclose herewith my suggestions of a way to lasting peace. I have submitted it to no other group anywhere. You are the men who will make the peace …. Will you please read it today – now – before you go to San Francisco. I stand ready to come to Washington on a moment’s notice, if you wish to talk to me.

Whelden believed that his education at Dartmouth under President Hopkins contributed to his desire to take action. In his class letter, he continued:

Hoppy told us in ’16 when he took over that his thesis of the liberal college was to teach young men how to think and not what. … If we as people don’t damn soon cut out the fol-de-rol, flim-flam and bluff we are perpetrating at this moment, and really get down to the task of leading this tired old world or ours into the ways of peace by carrying out into the world the heritage that is ours as a nation of freeman under law, then the next war which is too far away, will wind up our life, and Dartmouth College, its Alumni Fund and its endowment won’t be worth a damn, and there won’t be any more reunions, because there won’t be anyway of getting there except in foot or canoe, the way old Eleazar got there and maybe we’d all be a helluva lot happier if that was the case anyway.

I do not know if Whelden was ever called upon by Senator Connally to speak in Washington. However, if you would like to read his plan, come to Special Collections and ask for MS-157.