prologue
12 SMITHSONIAN | March 2020
N AN APRIL AFTERNOON in 1897,
thousands of women packed the
Boston Theatre to see the nation’s
most beguiling female entrepreneur,
a 45-year-old former homemaker
whose talent for personal branding
would rival that of any Instagram ce-
lebrity today. She called herself Madame Yale. Over the
course of several hours and multiple outfi t changes, she
preached her “Religion of Beauty,” regaling the audience
with tales of history’s most beautiful women, a group
O
By
Emmeline Clein
HA
TH
I^ T
RU
ST
Beauty and
the Brand
A century before today’s
celebrity health gurus , an
American businesswoman made
a fortune marketing herself
Maude
Mayberg,
a.k.a.
Madame
Yale, as she
presented
herself in her
1909 product
catalog.
WELLNESS