If I had an ogre in my closet; if I had to confess to having one thing which makes me want to turn bright red and get on a soapbox and bawl impassioned speeches, that ogre- or, rather, those ogres, would be corporations.
I would bawl loudly that nothing appalls me quite so much as the frog-in-boiling-water way we are immersed in Things and told what to think, insidiously infiltrated by those who bend our minds and take our money and make us captive to modern life.
I will never forget the day Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Iowans: “Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”
I was apoplectic. Happily so because, still, at least everyone tripped this ogre up before it got any further: we are not flailing our little froggy legs so near boiling point that we cannot recognise such a blatant absurdity.
But we’re warmer than we think.
Today, though, I’m getting off the box. Today I have for you an enchanting tale of a corporation filled, to bursting, with sunlight.
It begins with a grocer’s child.
William Hesketh Lever’s father was into all sorts: he was not just your average corner-shop grocer, but had a wholesale empire too. He was an accomplished Bolton businessman, married to the daughter of a local mill owner. Young William grew up steeped in business.
But it seems the boy had an extra feather to his cap: he understood the emerging trend for marketing to the masses.
He watched his father’s customers: poor Lancashire housewives. And then he turned his eyes to America, where they were manufacturing huge tranches of product, branding it so it was instantly recognisable, and marketing it to make it a household name.
In 1894 he set up his own business with his brother. He chose a new kind of soap, made with vegetable oils instead of tallow: and he called it Sunlight Soap.
He packaged it so people would know it meant a certain quality. And then he began to mess with people’s minds, advertising and promoting so that the masses wanted Sunlight, and only Sunlight. They would go to their shop and ask for it, and woe betide any retailer who dared to try to ignore the wave of demand: there lay ruin.
William Hesketh Lever made a fortune, bought houses in beautiful elevated places and filled them with objects questionable taste, and travelled.
But here’s the thing: the money went into his pocket, true. But he spread it around.
And nowhere more so than with a Utopian village, designed for his workers, called Port Sunlight.
Business was booming, and the brothers needed somewhere to expand. They set their sights on 56 acres on the Wirral, then in Cheshire, between the Mersey river and the railway line. And he collected 30 architects together to build a wonder.
Houses for the workers: but no utilitarian railway cottages these. The houses were built with style, each subtly different from the last. 900 properties had been built by the time the village was complete. And not only that, but schools, a concert hall and a cottage hospital were provided for the workers at the Sunlight factory. This was not just houses, it was a prototype for the garden suburb.
It is a remarkable place: even today it exudes wellbeing and optimism. Port Sunlight must, even through gritted teeth, be called an extraordinary achievement which has stood the test of time.To this day the Sunlight houses are prized, listed, and feted.
Oh, how the masses must have clamoured to come to work for the Mr Levers at Sunlight.
A stunning piece of social engineering.
It is only when William opens his mouth that my admiration turns to ashes.
The mission of this great new enterprise? The Lever brothers wanted “to socialise and Christianise business relations and get back to that close family brotherhood that existed in the good old days of hand labour.”
A laudable aim. But listen on. William wanted this to be his way of sharing the profits with the people. In documents from the Sunlight Development Trust Association, he says just handing over money would not be beneficial: “It would not do you much good if you send it down your throats in the form of bottles of whisky, bags of sweets, or fat geese at Christmas.
“On the other hand,”he added, “if you leave the money with me, I shall use it to provide for you everything that makes life pleasant – nice houses, comfortable homes, and healthy recreation.”
Ooooh. Sinister.
Needless to say: I won’t be moving to Port Sunlight anytime soon.
Written in response to Side View’s weekend theme, Sunshine. You can find her challenge here.
Picture source here
Kate Shrewsday 
Cadbury and Rowntree offered good housing and working conditions as well, if my A Level History memory is correct, but without the sinister overtones.
It was excellent practice in those far-off days, Tilly, wasn’t it? I think they are wonderful ideas, provided they’re not examples of businessmen controlling what people do with their lives. And Lever made it patently obvious that’s what he wanted to do.
Dear Kate, you seem to keep reading my mind – I have a half written post on Port Sunlight but from the Lady Lever Art Gallery point of view. Many of the Victorians were philanthropic – Cadbury/Bourneville, my acquaintances the Kunzles whom I wrote about last August and Peabody, the London based American banker who built over 19,000 properties in London to ameliorate the conditions of the poor and needy. Its an interesting phenomenon.
Rosemary, I so look forward to reading that post – I know Lever traveled far and wide collecting, and am very interested – given his taste in home decoration – to see what he came up with!
Philanthropy: everyone has their reasons, many laudible: and the end result is better-off people. I shouldn’t grumble really: but Lever’s attitude has me reaching for my soap box all over again…
Aha! the shadey side of sunlight. Great post Kate
Thanks, Sidey 🙂
Rascals all, throw the politicians all out of office every two years and start fresh again. The they would have too little time to do all the damage they do now.
Well intentioned corporations should just do what they do and not build these places as being “good for the people”. If they want to do good, pay more and increase benefits and provide bonuses shared equally based on the profit level of the company.
Let Judy Collins chime in
4 years after the revolution
and the old kings execution
4 years after remember how
those portia took their final bow
String up every aristocrat
Out with the priests and let then live on their fat
Four years after we started fighting
Marat keeps up with his writing
Four years after the bastille fell
He still recalls the old battle yell
Down with all of the ruling class
Throw all the generals out on their ass
Why do they have the gold
Why do they have the power why why why why why
Do they have the friends at the top
Why do they have the jobs at the top
We’ve got nothing always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living in holes
Dying in holes
Holes in our bellies and
Holes in our clothes
Marat we’re poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don’t make us wait any more
We want our rights and we don’t care how
We want a revolution
Now
Four years he fought and he fought unafraid
Sniffing down traitors by traitors betrayed
Marat in the courtroom
Marat underground
Sometimes the otter and sometimes the hound
Fighting all the gentry and fighting every priest
The business man the bourgeois the military beast
Marat always ready to stifle every scheme
Of the sons of the ass licking dying regime
We’ve got new generals our leaders are new
They sit and they argue and all that they do
is sell their own colleagues
And ride upon their backs
Or jail them
Or break them
Or give them all the ax
Screaming in language that no one understand
Of the rights that we grab with our own bleeding hands
When we wiped out the bosses
And stormed threw the wall of the prison you told us would outlast us all
Marat we’re poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don’t make us wait any more.
We want our rights and we don’t care how
We want a revolution
Now
Poor old marat they hunt you down
The bloodhounds are sniffing all over the town
Just yesterday your printing press was smashed
Now their asking your home address
Poor old Marat in you we trust
You work till your eyes turn as red a rust
But while you write their on your track
The boots mount the staircase
The doors thrown back
Poor old Marat in you we trust
You work till your eyes turn as red a rust
Poor old marat we trust in you
Marat we’re poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don’t make us wait any more
We want our rights and we don’t care how
We want a revolution
Now
What a treat, Lou: the song is so apt. And I agree totally. When a corporation sets itself up as the very definer of what is good for men, it is beyond arrogant. Autonomy is the very breath of freedom.
“….and if I use your money to provide for you, you will pay it back to me.” That’s how it worked over here, anyway.
Insidious, all you cantankerous bloggers are…pretty soon I’ll be reading ten blogs a day, just like Lou and Andra.
😀 Hi Michael! Great to hear from you! It’s a conspiracy, you know. I’m in deep. I check 30 a day for new posts. Blogosphere: it’s where the zeitgeist lives.
And you have hit the nail on the head: philanthropy is very rarely unconditional, because we humans live life using an unconscious barter system anyway. However I think Port Sunlight is affectionately regarded here as one of our first purpose built garden suburbs: and I believe the workers who lived here were happy, on the whole.
Welcome to the dark side, young Shadow Ninja.
😀
Only 10, MTM? You think I read only 10???
🙂
😀 😀 😀
Drat.
And I was so looking for a Utopia at which to at least vacation.
I suppose I’ll have to just go back to drinking too much and listening to Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street on an endless loop.
We all do what we must.
Kamekomurakami,it is far better to drink too much to the strains of Baker street than to stray onto the web of a big fat eight-legged corporation. I have only just escaped from the clutches of the North European Centerparks holiday village corporation: which was chillingly like The Prisoner, except I will own that there were no big white balls chasing us everywhere.
Take another swig, Comrade.
Does the well-intentioned–and sinisterly misguided–Lever’s name live on my husband’s bar soap? Now I have to go find out.
Oooh! Do report back!! You could have sinister soap in your bathroom!
I do!
So do many of us, I suppose, as William Hesketh Lever is the founding father of Unilever. http://www.unilever.com/aboutus/ourhistory/
Sweet mother of insinuation – they are everywhere! http://www.unilever.com/brands/
Even ice cream. Erk.
Thanks. Some excellent undercover work there, Cameron ;-D
I am so sick of our political process and share your ire over such a stupid, stupid comment. Both our parties are owned by corporations and are walking, talking, legislating puppets for them. It is nauseating and disgusting, and it leaves one helpless when considering the vote. I only know mine will all go to non-incumbents this year, and I think Mickey Mouse would make a better President than anyone who will be running ever could (provided he is independent of the mammoth corporation Disney, of course.)
When touring Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, built by one of the Vanderbilts, I was struck with the same level of disgust. I was struck at the opulence in which they lived, while the basement servants’ quarters looked like a bunch of cells. And, I am sure Mr. V thought he was lifting them up and providing them so much by putting them there.
Andra: next time you come over: You. Me. Soapbox. Hyde Park Corner.
You’re on. 🙂
Ditto what you two said.
I am NOT anti-capitalist.
I am anti-greedy-bastards . . . including the-politicians-in-their-back-pockets.
It would be refreshing to find someone straight down the line, Nancy…
Question: Is the development out of Lever ownership/control now, and does Lever Bros still have a manufacturing plant there or its corporate offices? Can the average worker afford to live there? must you work for Lever Bros to live there?
Great article and I agree wholeheartedly! Starting when our boys started watching television, we instructed them about how to watch TV – especially the commercials. We told them that the sole purpose of most of TV – especially the commercials – is to make money! They often don’t care how they get it, and they desperately want you to part with your money, even if the product is useless and/or totally not needed – and often poorly made and shoddy. Of course this included not only tows but also food – especially the non-nutritious sugary/salty stuff that is aimed at children and creates such a hubbub at the checkout counter in the grocery and toy stores.
Whenever they saw something that they just “had to have!” we told them that they should thoroughly investigate the product first, and consider all the angles. It took them a while, plus a few hard lessons learned when they spent their hard-earned money on junk – but they are very astute now about the whole commercialization industry these days – hopefully they will teach their own children.
What a great attitude to training your kids to be critical thinkers! A brilliant approach, Paula. I shall dwell on the ideas you have used. Port Sunlight remains as a conservation area, but by the ’80s there were 10,000 Lever Bros employees in Merseyside and with the great weight of competition, it became tricky to fairly select tenants. In 1980 some houses were put up for sale and more than half the houses have been sold into private hands. In 1999, a Village Trust took over responsibility for running Port Sunlight.
Take a look at their website (makes you want to move there immediately :-D) http://www.portsunlight.org.uk/
I was watching Romney on live TV when he made that pronouncement, and he seemed so proud of himself for saying it. Unctuous and condescending as well. I too, was apoplectic, and knew in that moment I could never, ever vote for the man (although knowing he’d once traveled 1,000 miles with his dog in a crate on top of his car had pretty well settled the matter for me).
Whoa: didn’t know that about him. That settles it. The man needs help.
Dear Kate, As an Anglophile and one who has spent many hard-earned quid traveling your great land, I’m always surprised when you create these stories about places that I’ve never heard about. Can you still visit this? Glad to hear you won’t be voting for Romney 😉
You can go to see it, and you can live in it, Tammy- I believe there is holiday accommodation available. If you fancy a bit more online rummaging around Port Sunlight try http://www.portsunlight.org.uk/, the official site. It now promotes itself as a working museum.
I visited Port Sunlight a few years ago and had an enjoyable few hours there.
The Victorian philanthropists were an interesting bunch of do-gooders – and maybe the good they did, taking into account the era, alters the view from the ‘here and now.’ ? Paternalistic employers were taking the place of the paternalistic lords of the manner, perhaps? Also I reember from my tour, though I haven’t yet found the evidence to support this, that the rights of women and maternity rights etc were improved during this time….
(Although I agree with your point of view, of course! Controlling, ‘I know better than you’ types are types to be very wary of…)
Pseu, of course, you are right: we are looking at it through a lens from the 21st century and for its time paternalism was how it was done. Welfare improved immeasurably during the time as a result of this attitude, and it was a vast improvement on what had gone before.
Lever spent good money he didn’t have to spend to make a beautiful village which is prized even today. A successful social experiment.
But somehow I cannot help feeling a parallel between the early marketing techniques- how Lever moulded people to buy what he wanted them to buy- and his words about Port Sunlight show more than paternalism. It feels like the beginning of the corporation proper, with its arrogance and emphasis on moulding people for commercial gain.
I would love to see Port Sunlight, though. Must book a trip sometime.
It is truly fascinating and I’d like to go back and have a tour. We primarily went through the museum at the Art Gallery.
Control is frightening, and seems so easy doesn’t it, Kate? Great thought provoking post. I don’t live too far way from Port Sunlight, but have never visited the area. May go for a look-see, for historic research purposes you understand! 😀
Oooh, es: and take lots of photos for us all when you do, Tom!
Sweet dreams tonight. Wonder who the celebrity will be tonight…
Mining town mentality with window dressing… It predictably comes down to profit – protecting the continuation of the corporation’s existence.
WestJet was the dream of a young man who dared to build a new Airline with a difference. He managed to do it and, when earning profits, turned it over to his employees. Flying on that airline means seeing, hearing and experiencing the difference. Other Airlines attempt to emulate the spirit of the staff, but ownership of that plane cannot be fabricated.
Clive Beddoe came to Canada from England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Beddoe. Seems he extrapolated the better parts of Port Sunlight and empowered employees.
That’s the stuff, Amy. Much more like it: fair and equitable, and I bet it motivates employees very well….your ‘making a downpayment’ piece has been sitting in the back of my mind ever since I first read it (and the cat made a comment). I can’t help feeling this approach has something to do with the debate here today. It was a lovely post.
That soap was very much a part of my early years. The washing machine was a tub and a set of hands, and the set of hands would ply Sunlight Soap with vigour and a fair amount of wastage.
😀 Then you’ll remember the packaging, Col: http://www.thevalueengineers.com/tag/definitions/page/2/
Fantastic post, Kate! You had me for a moment…thought I was going to read a bit more about our evil empire (aka, the current political bruhaha). As an Iowan, I very glad to be done with the whole lot. You can only imagine that Mitt’s commentary was just one of many twisted speeches heard over the last few months in ad campaigns.
Your blog, though, never fails to please with information regarding your own land. Sunlight *sigh* good intentions, but with underhanded motives. One must then wonder; was it a diservice to the people that already were giving their life to the company? I shall stop here for you’ve triggered another thought I shall save for a rant in my own writing. ~
Good question, Angela: they scrambled to live at Port Sunlight, and if you ever get to see it, you’ll realise precisely why. It is beautiful.
It is unfailingly seen in a positive light here in Britain.
This corporation and campaign finance “to do” here is USA will continue to be heated discussion. Frankly, I am not sure that elections can be bought as those fearful of corporate political power suggest. I mean is seeing a TV add every 14 minutes going to change or influence my vote? Well it does not influence me at all and neither do the robo calls and the junk in my mailbox. Why does President Obama need to raise 1 billion $ for the campaign? Is there a problem with name recognition or something? Why would an incumbant president need to spend anything when he is in every news blip on every station all day long every day?
Why, indeed? It’s a huge sum which could well be spent elsewhere, Carl. Sometimes I think the world has sold out to marketing. But I’m sure that’s polarised thinking…
Ah, corporations. That other ‘c-word’!
😀 Quite.
I upset my dinner hostess not long ago by announcing that I was a “lapsed capitalist” and apparently it was equated with one having lost their faith. Can I just say here, Kate, that you have a better grip on American politics than many of my friends. What does that tell you…about me? About my friends? Ha! I feel my temperature rising and I’m getting close to climbing on my own soapbox, which would be preaching to the choir! I am not sure how we are ever going to get through the next season prior to the elections without gouging out our eyes! I may lose some friends. Glad I have you! Debra
Ah, Debra, I’d love to claim the credit, but the American blogs I follow keep me nicely up to date with what is going on over there and I mass pass it all to them. And Corporations Are People was a red-flag moment for everyone over there!! Good luck as you enter the election season…
You can stay on the soapbox for as long as you like, Kate. I was disgusted when I heard that comment, and there have been many others in this political season we are in. I wonder if all this hot air being blown about is why it is so warm here this winter? I should check on that.
Not far from where we live, in Chicago, is the Pullman Neighborhood and its founding is much like that of Sunlight. Built by the baron who manufactured the Pullman Sleeping Car, it was designed to control the company’s laborers; school, worship, speeches, even how clean one’s house was were all controlled by Pullman.
Thanks, Kate, for another good one!
The Pullman Neighbourhood sounds even more sinister than Sunlight! Gracious, the excesses of the Corporation; money accords an unsettling amount of power, doesn’t it?
Kate, in case you missed the pingbacks, I’ve suggested an award for you at: http://souldipper.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/awards-accepted-with-gratitude-passed-on-with-love/
Amy, I really am very honoured. Thank you!
Another example Kate of a workers village created by the company owner… http://www.saltairevillage.info/
I think one of the greatest politically lead get rich quick schemes, driven by corporate greeed, has to be the privatisations in the 1980’s – I can’t believe that people were conned into buying something that they already owned:-( It worked because everyone is a little bit greedy and I guess most people hoped to make a killing for themselves. The railways were probably the worst example of looking after the fat cats – The ordinary investor could only buy shares in the network (never going to make a profit) whilst the trains were something for the big players only (Loadsamoney there – especially with a nice range of government subsidies!). Those small investors who bought in came a cropper just a few years later as the shares ceased to have any value and the network had to be renationalised.
Sorry Kate… Rant over!
Martin, just for the name Titus Salt, you have my undying gratitude 😀 So: it seems Yorkshire gets its world heritage site while Lancashire lags behind? The wars of the roses are not dead, but sleeping….
Privatisation: I so totally, utterly and completely agree with all you say. The whole business was a complete shambles, a turbine for greed. That particular grocer’s child will never have my regard.