Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic, Bonus: Communists and Alleged Communists

     Wildroot Cream-Oil, manufactured by a Buffalo, New York based company, was a men's hair tonic that was popular in the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s. The product provided a nice slick grooming with a medium hold and high shine. 

     The company first started selling Wildroot Hair Tonic in 1911. In the 1920s, the tonic was primarily marketed to women with advertisements warning that bobbed hair and tight hats would cause baldness, unless they used Wildroot!

     Wildroot started marketing the product to men in the 1930s. In 1937, the Federal Trade Commission admonished the company for claiming the product kept the scalp "healthy", "penetrates" the sebaceous glands, cleans up dandruff "completely", and that the results were "guaranteed."

     The company's original tonic was alcohol-based, but alcohol became more scarce during World War II, in the early 40s, chemist Emanuel Gundlach invented a new alcohol-free formula. 

     At first, he presented the Wildroot executives with a cream that came in a tube, but they rejected it. However, by adding more water they were able to bottle the product, and the new Wildroot Cream-Oil became a big success. 

     It’s main ingredient was lanolin, also known as wool grease, which is a wax secreted by the sebaceous glands of sheep. 

     The new Wildroot Cream-Oil was first sold in 1943 and by the 1950s, the product was associated with teenage boys (including me) who slicked their hair down. 

     In 1951, the Wildroot Hair Tonic Company set up the Wildroot Foundation (now the Western New York Foundation), which provides funds for local organizations in Buffalo. 

     The Wildroot company was sold to Colgate-Palmolive in 1959 for $10.5 million. A "Wildroot Hair Groom" is still being marketed today by the Oakhurst Company.

     At the height of the product's popularity, the company advertised extensively in print, radio and television, claiming that is "again and again the choice of men who put good grooming first." 

     In print ads, the company encouraged consumers to try "the Famous Finger Nail Test": "Scratch your head and see if you find dryness or loose, ugly dandruff. If so, you need the new Wildroot Cream-Oil formula." 

     Wildroot sponsored many radio programs such as The Woody Herman Show, The King Cole Trio, The FBI in Peace and War, The Shadow, Twenty Questions and Sam Spade. 

     The Adventures of Sam Spade aired from 1946 to 1950. Sam Spade star Howard Duff and the program’s creator Dashiell Hammett were listed in the anti-Communist tract Red Channels.

     Wildroot didn’t like their names being associated with the show. Sam Spade was removed from the air in 1950, and replaced with a more Wildroot-friendly title, Charlie Wild, Private Detective. It ran from September 1950 to July 1951.

     Counterattack was an anti-Communist journal that published “Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.” It was a pamphlet that named 151 actors, writers, musicians, broadcasters and journalists, accusing them of fostering Communist manipulation of the entertainment industry. 

     At the time the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin were making wild unfounded accusations of disloyalty or subversion against many prominent people without a shred of evidence. However, he did uncover some Communists, but in the process ruined the lives of many who were not. 

     McCarthy’s goal was to purge suspected Communist sympathizers from government service, Hollywood and other areas. He believed the Communists were making an effort to achieve “domination of American broadcasting and telecasting, preparatory to the day when … [the] Party will assume control of this nation as the result of a final upheaval and civil war.” 

     Duff was a staunch Democrat, not a Communist. He had signed a document supporting the Hollywood 10. Actually, there were 11, but one German born writer fled back to Germany. They were a group of motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, and refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations. As a result they spent 6-12 months in prison for contempt of Congress. 

     While in prison one of them agreed to cooperate and admitted to being a communist and he gave the names of 26 others. The ten never worked in Hollywood again, but some wrote scripts under assumed names. 

     After Sam Spade was canceled, Duff couldn’t get work on radio for two years afterward, but he continued working in pictures and the stage. When he asked what he had to do to end the blacklisting he was told to just say you're not a Communist and it worked. 

     Dashiell Hammet’s story was different. He was politically active for decades, participating in several organizations including the Communist Party USA. In the age of McCarthyism, Hammett was swept up in the Red Scare and was imprisoned for refusing to name the sources of bail funds for communists. Later in 1953, he was blacklisted after testifying to a Senate Committee and his writings were branded “subversive.”