This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.

Today, we're used to seeing public figures lend their names and their faces

to the products we buy. For magazine ads to radio spots to television commercials, celebrity

endorsements have long shaped American consumer culture. But there was a time not all that long ago

when this kind of marketing didn't exist.

And yet one company figured out the power of celebrity influence long before the rest of the world had a name for it.

And that company was Mabelene.

Joining us with the story of Shari Williams, the great niece of Mabelene's founder

who just happened to be a man, Tom Lyle Williams.

Let's get into the story.

My great uncle was born in 1896, and about the time he was 15, he bought a bicycle and he tore it down, he painted it,

and he put it in the classifies of the Police Gazette.

And he got 50 offers to buy the bike for $50, which seems insane, he sold the bike and he said, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life, is I want to make advertising my profession.

Well, the whole town in Morganfield, Kentucky, back at that time, just thought he was a dreamer.

The only thing really open for him would to be a farmer or maybe a minister.

But he was coming up with these highfalutin ideas that did not register at all.

But he still went forward and the first thing that he decided to sell was gag gifts.

So he did pretty good on that, you know, he made some money on that.

But then after a while, how many times can you reorder a gag gift?

So then he decided, okay, well that didn't work too good.

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