Maybelline's Runaway Bride and Groom. Tom Lyle Williams Jr and his Bride Marquerite Neel Williams

Once upon a time, in 1936, there was a young man named Tom Lyle Williams Jr., who was so shy, he'd rather cancel his Wedding and elope, than face all the drama.  So his beloved - Marquerite Neel - agreed, but not without a loophole.

Marquerite's mother had sent the invitations, the gifts were arriving and the Church was reserved.  Marquerite, had to save face, so when her dear father became seriously ill, the loophole was found.

The big Church Wedding was canceled, and a small intimate ceremony was set at the Brides home.  The Groom breathed a sigh of relief, and the Bride saved face.

Marquerite killed two birds with one stone.   She pleased her family and her new husband - and was forever remembered as a beautiful Bride.

And when the ceremony was over, Tom and Marquerite were out of there, as fast as their legs would carry them.. But the good news is,

 They Lived Happily Ever After.......

 Tom Lyle Williams, owner of the Maybelline Co. with his son Tom Lyle Williams Jr.

Maybelline's Super Star Models, during the Golden Age of Hollywood

Maybelline was synonymous with Hollywood Glamour in the 1930s.

Before and After Maybelline ad, with Paulette Goddard.

Carole Lombard, one of Tom Lyle's favorites.

Betty Grable, Maybelline Star.

Paulette Goddard, a personal friend of T L Williams.

Gloria Swanson, a Maybelline model from the 1920s.

Jean Harlow, another Maybelline model, Tom Llye, helped groom.

Marion Valle' brought fashion and Maybelline together.

Maybelline box, in the 1930s.

Black and white Maybelline ads appeared in the gossip magazines.

Typical Maybelline ad found in Photoplay.

Tom Lyle Williams, with his son Tom Lyle Jr in 1934.

Read all about the Golden Age of Hollywood in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It. 

Visit my Hilarious 1964 High School Blog...Saffrons Rule at http://saffronsrule.com/

After Maybelline-Plough merger, Abe Plough failed to carry out his promise to Tom Lyle Williams and his commitment to Maybelline employees.

According to a letter from Tom Lyle Williams Jr., to all Maybelline employees, dated October 6,1967:

"We hardly need to say that one of the paramount considerations that caused us to select Plough, Inc., instead of other concerns, was their agreement to continue to operate our business in the Chicago area and thus assure your ability to continue with the Company if you with." http://www.maybellinebook.com/2013/05/original-newspaper-articles-and-letters.html

After the merger was a done deal, Abe Plough, reniged on his promise to Tom Lyle Williams and moved Maybelline to Memphis.  This caused most of the original Maybelline employees, including Harris A. Neil Jr., to resign and find new employment.  The loss of the tight knit group of employees that ran Maybelline so well, caused "Plough's, Maybelline Company," to tail spin, as far as production and distribution were concerned.  

Tom Lyle Williams felt a personal obligation to help his devoted employees, (who had been promised their job's would continue after the merger,) to have a fair severance pay and help them until they relocated.

  The letter outlined an employee gift that T. L. had put together, whereby each employee would receive a gift of $1000 tax free for each year of employment, from date of hire to December 31, 1967.

The letter from Rags Ragland gives some insight into the problems Plough faced after the the original Maybelline executives were no longer involved. 


Stay tuned  as Harris A. Neil Jr.'s, "Chicago's Maybelline" continues...

In 1967 the effectual buyout of the Maybelline company was $132.3M! - That would be $923,076,923.08 today.

Harris A. Neil  Jr. yearbook
 picture 1952, Michigan State

This week I will be posting the original newspaper articles and letters explaining the Merger between Maybelline and Plough Inc., (most graciously given to me by Maybelline Executive Harris A. Neil Jr.)  I can assure you that Business or History Students will appreciate the magnitude of these documents.  Stay tuned as this incredible merger unfolds through priceless communications between 1968 through 1989.


Letter to Maybelline Co. Employees from Tom Lyle Williams Jr., dated October 6, 1967

Article in the Chicago Tribune, Dated Saturday, Oct. 7, 1967.

 MAYBELLINE and PLOUGH AGREE TO MERGER PLAN

 102.3 Million  

Article in the Wall Street Journal October 6, 1967

Plough was quickly and shrewdly chosen as the suitor:  They offered a minimum of  $100M  and there was a period of grace, whereupon the stock would float, then a specific day, which was 2/28/68 that the Plough stock price would be "pegged" for the official exchange.  On 2/28/68 the price of Plough had rallied so dramatically that the effectual buyout of the Maybelline company was now $132.3M!  Yes, it was leverage that caused this!  Demand plus fewer shares caused a stock breakout, which is a scenario seen on Wall Street each day.

$132,000,000 of 1967 dollars would be worth: $923,076,923.08 in 2013


Stay tuned tomorrow as the drama unfolds in letters from Abe Plough to his new employees at Maybelline.

Maybelline - Plough Merger in 1967 starts off as a Nightmare!!!

Harris A. Neil Jr. with his
friend DeAnne

6. THE PLOUGH MERGER

By Harris A. Neil Jr.

The morning of Saturday, October 7, 1967 began normally enough at our house. My wife and I got our two boys, ages 4 and 2, down for breakfast and set about putting it on the table. Then I went to pick up the Chicago Tribune from the front lawn, for something to read while we were eating. After a while I got to the Business Section, and down at the lower half of the first page was a headline—

Maybelline and Plough Agree to Merger Plan

102.3 Millions Are Involved

This was the first I had heard of the merger, and I didn't know how to take it. First I felt left out, wondering why I hadn't been in on this news. Then it went down hill from there, and finally I did something I’d never done before: I picked up the phone and called Tom Jr. at his home.

Despite what we now know was a marathon work schedule to get the merger complete, Tom couldn't have been more concerned or helpful in our conversation. He took half an hour or so and helped me understand why the lead-up to the announcement had to be held in secrecy. After our discussion he had me fully on board with a new perspective, and that helped a lot. Incidentally, that was the last time I either talked with or saw Tom. He retired immediately.

Monday morning came, and walking in to work was like entering a morgue. Everyone was in a daze, seeking information, and nobody could help much. I did get some insight from John Cole, and that helped. The biggest shock was that Tom Jr., Rags Ragland and Dorothy Molander were no longer with the company, they had all retired. The four executive offices now had only two occupants, John Cole and myself. Tom’s and Rags’s offices sat vacant as a reminder of the event. It was spooky.

As days went on, we began to get visits from various Plough executives and managers, and even Abe Plough himself. Most of my own contact was with their Production Vice President, Joe Sternberger and his staff. In particular, the Industrial Engineering Department group of six or so showed up regularly beginning almost at once, and began asking questions to gain quick knowledge of the Maybelline operation. This took time from my other duties and was redundant, but it went with the territory.

Somewhere in this time period Mr. Plough made his first visit to the company with Joe Sternberger. Since I was the youngest and most expendable member of our management group, I fell into the job of picking them up at O’Hare field and bringing them downtown to their hotel or to the company. This became a repeating pattern, whenever Mr. Plough came to town I’d pick him up with whomever he was with on that trip. It could be Joe, or Lanny Smith, or just about any of his key executives. I began to dread these runs to the airport.

Mr. Plough was old even then, and boasted that he had reached the age where he could draw full salary and could also collect full Social Security! He treated me with almost mock respect, calling me “Mistah Neil.” I cringed when I heard that, because he would then follow up with a work-related question, to which of course he already knew the answer. All this went on while I was driving in Chicago traffic, getting those people either downtown or to the building on Ridge Avenue. By some miracle we always made it.

There was so much going on in this early period that it’s hard to sort it out, but one thing that they saw immediately was the woeful lack of space we were working in. Also, in the Plough operation they had a regional distribution system for order shipment, spread across the country. As I remember it, they had distribution centers in Cartaret, New Jersey; Miami, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; LaMirada, California; and in Alsip, Illinois.

To integrate the Maybelline product line into this decentralized system, Joe took the helm and immediately had us put a full second shift, bolstering the small night shift we had at the time. Plough also found and leased a warehouse space near the Ridge facility, which we called “Wolcott” after the street location. This became the finished goods warehouse and shipping point. The idea was to ship

merchandise not directly to customers but to the regional distribution points and have them handle customer shipments.

The Wolcott facility was a rather quiet setting compared to the hectic pace that was going on at the Ridge location. Herb Zimmerman, who succeeded Ches Haines, when he retired, was more or less in charge over there, continuing as Traffic Manager. I got over there at times too, in the course of my job.

One of the things that developed in this arrangement was that Rags Ragland, would visit over at Wolcott.  Of course he was now in retirement, but he bled Maybelline and it hadn't let go of him yet, nor he of the company. This also put him into the changing picture, and he didn't like what he saw or heard any more than the rest of us. However, he handled his observations always in the context of his investment, and that part of it was moving along very well.

By the spring of 1968 I came to the personal conclusion that I was not fitting into the Plough template at all, and felt very out of place. It was mutual, and finally one day I made a mistake and had a red-faced scene with one of the Industrial Engineers who had been bugging me. Joe got wind of it and called me into John Cole’s office for a “woodshed” session. He raked me over the coals pretty well, but part of it was positive, suggesting that I look into training courses to tame my temper. This I took, and then I surprised myself and returned Joe’s favor. I thanked him for his thoughts, and suggested to him that if he and Plough, Inc., continued to come at the Maybelline operation in the rough-shod way they were going, “The wheels would fall off.” That ended our discussion, and I don’t remember ever seeing Joe Sternberger again.

Truth be known, I was already searching a way to leave the company, and soon made a connection. My wife and I decided that if we had to make a move we’d make it a big move, and relocate to Colorado. This we did, to pursue a franchise business with an outlet in Colorado Springs, so I submitted my resignation to John Cole.

We left Maybelline and Chicago in August, 1968 to begin our new life. After a few setbacks things smoothed out for us, and the memories of Maybelline and all those wonderful people began to fade, but not altogether.

In early 1968, Dun and Bradstreet listed the Maybelline management group (as of 1967) in its “Million Dollar Directory,” a compilation of major U. S. companies. They followed later that year with a “September Cumulative Supplement” that happened to show the lineup after the Plough merger. Here is how those two listings looked:

PRE-MERGER

Thomas Lyle Williams Pr. & Tr.

Thomas L Williams Jr Exec VP & Sec

John W Cole VP Pur

Harold W Ragland VP Sales

Harris A Neil Jr Prod

Mary Ann Anderson Adv

POST-MERGER

Abe Plough Pr

Harry B Solmson Exec VP

R Lee Jenkins VP

John W Cole VP Pur

Herbert H Bunchman Sec

Sam B Hollis Tr

Harris A Neil Jr Prod

Mary Ann Anderson Adv

This is another way of expressing the sad story that had unfolded, even that early in the merger. There would be more sadness. 

1915 -1967

Maybelline's 1966 "ULTRA" products, reached out to the booming teenage market, before the Plough Merger.

After the Plough merger Maybelline-Plough  incorporated "ULTRA LASH" into a mini-make-up kit with new colors and products.  Up until 1970, "Ultra Lash" had been the best selling mascara in the world.

Maybelline Great Lash was born in 1971 and is still the number one mascara of all time.

Maybelline was known as "THE WONDER COMPANY" in the Cosmetic Industry

Harris A. Neil Jr with Harris A. Neil lll

5. PEOPLE, CULTURE AND STYLE
by Harris A. Neil Jr.

Nothing in my work experience, before or since, came close to matching the work environment of the Maybelline Company. The people, from my mentors Tom Lyle Williams Jr. and John Cole on down, were outstanding. Rags Ragland, was the father figure for all of us, the glue that held the place together, no disrespect to Tom Jr.. The management style was professional, but very simple and workable.

COMMUNICATION:

Communication is probably the best indicator of how the company operated. I can’t remember writing or receiving more than a dozen or so internal memos in all my years with Maybelline. If there was an “Employee Handbook,” I can’t remember it. We all knew where we stood, and treated one another with respect and good will. Life was simpler then, with almost no Federal or State personnel oversight except for minimum wage and overtime provisions. There was no OSHA, no ADA, and very few other “alphabet soup” agencies. There was some presence at the City government level. For example, the company had to operate the “Chicago way,” such as the annual courtesy call at Christmas-time from the Chicago Fire Department. Several fire officials would call on Tom Jr., and leave with whatever tribute was prevailing for that year.

ACCOUNTABILITY:

While that streamlined system of communication kept things going internally, things were much more conventional in external affairs. In my case, I had heavy daily contact with our supplier group, and I did almost everything in writing, to put a form of importance and accountability into our relationship. It worked for the most part, and it beat trying to remember what it was that we discussed when so many contacts were buzzing around.

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT:

As declared by  (Tom Lyle Williallms,) T. L. (as explained in The Maybelline Story), there was no pattern of nepotism within the company. Of course, there was the arms-length relationship, company to vendor, with Deluxe Mascara. Also, Ches Haines was the Maybelline Traffic Manager, responsible for all material and order movement, in and out of our loading dock. The company was 100% dependent on truck movement, so this was a vital function. It could get quite exciting if the Teamsters decided to walk out, or if Chicago had one of its trademarked blizzards.

SPACE MANAGEMENT:

Just as the management group was small in number, so were the personal office needs. In my early days, I worked in the general office area, and there were four private offices on “executive row.” In later years, Mary Ann Anderson came into the company as Vice President of Advertising, and the company converted some apartment space adjacent to the general office and created offices for that function. As mentioned earlier, this expansion also moved further to provide space for the new Computer Department, Credit Department, and for Rag’s now two assistants. Bob Medlin had joined Carle Rollins to assist Rags.

Teamwork:

In addition, Ches and his assistant, Herb Zimmerman, had an office near the Receiving/Shipping areas downstairs. Also, Julius Wagman was a “vagabond,” spending much of his time across town with the action at Munk Chemical Company, but visiting the Maybelline building frequently.

After the management group loosely outlined above, there were many more wonderful employees involved in clerical, production, warehousing, material handling, accounting, you name the function and there were people covering that square. Most of the employees were long-time veterans, although we had newer hires that came aboard with the growth that moved us all.

LEADERSHIP:

The employment profile was a reflection of the neighborhood surrounding the company. We sat in a North Side neighborhood called “Edgewater.” Chicago, like all large cities, was a city of neighborhoods, and Edgewater was a mixed area of single and multiple residences, retail and commercial, but no industrial. There was also a large public high school across Ridge Avenue from Maybelline..

Overarching this idyllic pattern of operation was the mostly invisible hand of our founder and leader, Mr. Tom Lyle Williams. He and his California staff communicated mainly with Rags and Tom Jr., but also from time to time with Dorothy Molander, of course, and John Cole and Julius Wagman. I personally never talked with the gentleman, but one time John recorded a detailed guideline for us and I heard his pleasant, deliberate voice.

EXECUTIVE CONFIDENCE:

The telephone was the conduit for all of T. L.’s daily contact, and it was constant. Rags, of course, traveled in his national contacts, and told me one time, humorously, that T. L. would find him at his hotel and go on and on, whether or not Rags could talk right then. When that happened, Rags would just set the handset on the bed and go about what he needed to do. When he got back, T. L. would still be talking and Rags would rejoin the conversation. Rags said he never got caught!

PERSEVERANCE:

This was the pleasant and very active work environment that we enjoyed with one another over the years. It was pleasant and functional without being stuffy. The only cloud on the horizon was that nagging question of how we’d dodge the bullet on the space crunch we were facing by 1967. The answer came one morning in October.    

               Stay tuned next  Monday as part 6 unfolds.
                                      "The Plough  Inc. Merger."

"What made Maybelline a Giant in it's Field" Interview with Maybelline Executive Harris A Neil Jr. Explaining growth and production strategies

 My name is Harris A. Neil Jr.  I worked at Maybelline  in Chicago from January, 1959 to August, 1968, a period of great growth and excitement in the history of the company. Among the wonderful people I had the privilege of working with were your cousin, Tom Lyle Williams Junior,  and Harold “Rags” Ragland. I was very much their junior, 28 years old when I started in 1959. The math tells you that I’m now 82. 

 As Production Manager, in a highly marketing-oriented company, I would like to explain the packaging program, as it came down during those years of growth and new product rollouts. The changes and improvements you mentioned in your book, finally resulted in a whole new look and methodology, and kept our production floor plenty busy.

 I would also like to explain the outside vendor program, which people nowadays call “supply chain management” or simply “logistics.” That involved both packaging and product components, which became more of a tightrope act as volume and product increases pushed us forward. It was even more exciting because we only had a finite amount of floor space for warehousing and production.

     I want to comment on the Maybelline management style and interactions as I saw them from my “worm’s-eye” view. I still remember it well, and learned as I moved on in life that it was unique, but it was I think bewildering to the Plough group who did things very differently.

     And yes, I want to give my thoughts on the Plough merger, as it was announced and as I lived through it for the ten months I remained with Maybelline afterward. It became a different company immediately without Tom Jr., Rags and Dorothy Molander. That topic alone is one that maybe will make this story worthwhile all by itself. Also, and only in this subject area, we’ll have to discuss some negative events, but they happened and we’ll face them head on.

     Then there’s T. L.’s gift to his long-time employees. I couldn't find the letter outlining the details of the gift, but I clearly remember the basics, and can give you a pretty fair idea of the scope and impact of this wonderful gesture on his part. 

1. A SHAKY START

It all began in one day in January, 1959, when I received a phone call from an employment agency on the north side of Chicago, where I lived in a bachelor pad with three other friends. I had registered with that agency earlier, part of a job search that I’d been on for weeks, going back to late 1958.

The nameless voice on the phone asked if I was available to talk to a local company about an opening they had in “inventory control.”

I said yes, and he set me up for an interview at the Maybelline Company, a mile up the street from our apartment. I got there at the scheduled time, to meet a Mr. John Cole. The street address was 5900 North Ridge Avenue, and as I entered the building I saw a large sign proclaiming

MAYBELLINE

World’s Largest-Selling Eye Beauty Aids

It wasn’t too late to chicken out, but I swallowed hard and opened the swinging door and walked in. After all, I was so broke I couldn’t even afford gas for my ’53 Ford, among other things.

John Cole couldn’t have been more gracious. He was older than me by ten years or so, a trim and friendly man. He gave me a brief rundown on the company and the job in question, and politely asked me about my background and experience. After that exchange I guess he thought we could go to the next step, and made a call to a Mr. Tom Williams.

That cleared us to walk down the hall to another, larger office. I met Mr. Williams and we continued the interview, the upshot of which was a job offer. John offered a starting salary of $5,500 per year, with annual raises to be discussed on each anniversary. The company would also reimburse my employment agency fee, about $300, after 90 days on the job. I accepted, and we agreed that I would start on January 19. (Tom Lyle Williams Sr. Birthday.)

As I learned very quickly, John would be my boss and trainer. He functioned across all operating areas of the company, with heavy involvement in purchasing and supplier relations. Also, I learned that Mr. Williams was the son of the company founder, T. L. Williams. At that time and for years afterward, I heard the elder Mr. Williams referred to only as “T. L.”

John needed me to help him with the heavy detail in keeping the inventory balanced. In turn, this function required heavy contact with the wide range of packaging and product suppliers, located literally across the country at that time. This would relieve John to concentrate on his many other responsibilities, both external and internal.

That was the thinking and high hopes as we began. No luck. Things began to unravel almost immediately because I had no direct experience in that kind of work and couldn’t avoid making an almost immediate mess of things. Of all things, Tom Williams saw the disaster shaping up, and stepped in personally. The main tool in daily inventory actions was a hand-posted weekly inventory report listing all Maybelline items, starting with the finished-goods quantity, followed by the quantities of all component parts that related to that item. Well, those numbers were supposed to shout for action if they were out of position, particularly if they were dangerously low. Shout? Those numbers just sat there on the report, and they all looked the same to me.

Okay, Tom and John could have fired me right then, but I guess they figured I was the bird in hand, and they’d be farther ahead if they could salvage me rather than starting over again. So Tom would get that weekly inventory report ahead of me, and leave me with an “action list,” hand written, with detailed instructions to call such-and-so and order this much material. While this burdened Tom with what I should be doing, it was something he had done in his earlier years with the company, and he was good at it.

Slowly, slowly, two things began to happen. The inventory began to resemble the profile that Tom wanted to see, and I began to understand what needed to be done without Tom’s time and attention. In my case I was like a newborn bear cub, coming into the world unable to see for the first part of his life, then slowly gaining vision and focus.

If Tom hadn't spent the time he did in this early phase of my Maybelline experience, this would be the end of the story. Both he and John had salvaged my job, and now I was out there in solo mode, thanks to them. In sum, that was a close one!

Stay tuned tomorrow.  I will be posting more of Harris A. Neil Jr.'s story everyday for the next four weeks.  If you are interested in business, marketing and production, you won't want to miss the inside workings of a Mega-Company from the man who was there and saw it all unfold everyday.