The Backstory: A Woman Takes Madison Ave

Elvis Duran and the Morning Show ON DEMAND

Elvis Duran Podcast Network and iHeartPodcasts

Entertainment News, Music History, News, Comedy, Music, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The key to making your dreams become reality, is not accepting limitations. We're revisiting the first female powerhouse in the Madmen era of Madison Avenue, Mary Wells Lawrence. She rose from a working class life in Ohio to creating iconic ads for TWA, Pan Am, Hertz, IBM, Proctor and Gamble . . as well as the “I Love New York“ campaign. And she was still living the dream well into her 90s!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever asked yourself if there's a limit to your dreams?
0:04.2	Maybe you think you're not talented enough or connected enough, or you're going to have the right
0:08.1	looks or background to make it to the top.
0:10.5	Well, guess what?
0:11.7	You are only limited by yourself.
0:15.0	None of the rest of it matters, and the person I'm going to tell you about proves it.
0:19.5	Ever heard these from the golden age of Madison Avenue ad agencies?
0:24.2	I love New York.
0:26.0	Ooh, I'm a bad voice, sorry.
0:27.6	Plop, plop, fliz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.
0:30.8	Well, they came from a really surprising source.
0:33.5	I'm Patty Steele.
0:34.3	This kid from Youngstown, Ohio, became the most powerful and wealthiest woman in the ad world
0:40.9	at a time when women were not really welcome.
0:44.3	Mary Wells Lawrence believed in herself and the future.
0:47.7	That's next on the backstory.
0:51.5	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:56.4	Adventures should never come with a pause button.
0:59.0	Remember Movie Pass?
1:00.4	All the movies you wanted for just nine bucks?
1:03.0	I'm Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
1:05.9	And this season, I'm digging into the tech stories we weren't told.
	...

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