Have you ever asked yourself, “I wonder what their story is?” For example, I’ve always wondered about Joan’s backstory. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall knowing anything about Joanie except that she and Roger had an affair while she was office manager at SC. But what initiated it, how long did it last, and does Joan have any family that we know of? And Bert; We know he has an appreciation for Japanese culture; has a sister, and apparently he has cattle somewhere. But how did Bert get into advertising in the first place; did Bert ever have a love of his life, and what was it that made him see the “very good storyteller” in Don? And as for Don, if my memory serves me correctly, he was a car salesman first. How did he get into advertising? I could go on, but I think you know what I mean.
95 Responses to “I wonder….”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Yes! I absolutely love that!
I think that's one reason there's so much fan fiction written around well-written shows. The writers leave us things to speculate about, and people write their speculations down.
And that's one reason why I don't read much of it – even if it's well-written, if people's speculation differs too greatly from my own, it can be jarring.
Well, now we know that she's had two 'procedures', one by a 'midwife'. I wonder if one of them was the result of her affair with Roger. We also know that she's been with other men, including Paul, who 'had a big mouth'.
Joan had aspects that we've only scratched the surface of. At one point (I can't remember who she said it to) but she mentioned something about losing something important and how it would affect one.
I always look forward to knowing more about this wonderful character, and Good Luck Christina at the Emmys!
Is there Mad Men fan fiction? I've never gotten into fan fiction but I am obsessed enough with this show that it might be worth a look!
I still want to know more of the Don and Betty back story. A flashback to their wedding would be interesting, particularly the tension with Gene. Also some of the evolution of how he got from the smitten young man in the "Mountain King" flashback to the character we meet in the pilot.
I don't know if there's a lot, toni, but I do remember hearing of one story where a grown-up Sally dates Jack Donaughy from 30 Rock, and gets him to consult with her aging father on publicity.
I think I remember Joan's lesbian roommate saying that they met in college, so there's that.
I, too, would've liked to have seen earlier flashbacks of Don & Betty's relationship. I thought they might do that last season while their marriage was falling apart.
Didn't Bert allude to having a wife at some point? I wish I could recall when he mentioned it, what season it was, etc., but I'm almost certain he referenced something about his wife, and it was stated in such a way that it appeared she had died many years ago.
Ahh, another thing we've lost from the 60's.
Back then, if a show lasted a season someone like Michael Avallone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Avallone
would write a tie-in novel with some backstory. Then the producers realized that if they didn't do it, the fans would, and for nothing.
I've always wondered if Bert has ever met Ayn Rand in person. Or even hung out with her and her friends (like former FED chairman Alan Greenspan).
Melissa, That'd be so weird!
Anyway, I did find a MM fan fiction link:
http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Mad_Men/
which is just great, because I *really* need another distraction from work, don't I?
It was my impression that Joan had dated the doctor that she had that conversation with and at the time I wondered if the "procedure" he was aware of was one he had performed, and if the fetus could have been his.
I think she's probably the character whose life prior to the show I am most curious about.
IIRC, Bert's cattle are in Montana.
I remember that Don was working for a furrier(sp?) doing in-house advert. when SC hired him. Maybe he sold the fur man a car and impressed him?
I wonder if Burt sold the ranch to help start SCDP. Wasn't Burt's father one of the founding partners along with Roger's dad?
Joan told Peggy when she sent her to the doctor, that she "hadnt been there " or, "isnt saying shes seen it" but that he had a house in the hamptons – implying that they had been intimate- and I seem to recall the doctor , in his repulsive comments to Peggy , talking about Joan , admiringly
( I think this was in the pilot )
and off topic, one of my all time favorite lines , when Peggy is asking Joan for advice, Joan says she cant help- "youre in thier country"
LOVE LOVE LOVE Joan
More about Joanie. Do we know much about Harry? I'd like to pin him down better, socio-economically.
And way more about Carla. Have been wanting to see her at home, with her own family, since S1:1.
We do know that Joan went to college, but not exactly where. We know her old roommate was in love with her. I would like to know more about her and Peggy too. I'd like to know if it was just her blue-collar background or family that kept her from going to college instead of secretarial school (she's obviously much smarter than Jane -at least in an intellectual sense not in terms of manipulating people which Jane is very good and smart at- and we know Jane went to college).
#Lawnmowerman – It wasn't Bert's father who started SC, but Bert himself, with Roger's father.
#13, I think Burt himself was the founding partner along with Roger's dad…and that the cattle ranch was an acquisition he made after obtaining his initial fortune.
I'd love to see early scenes of Don and Joan together at SC in the mid fifties. Joan must have started at SC around 1953, based on Guy McKendrick toasting her "nearly ten years of service" in July 1963.
I'm thinking that's about when Don started too, right around when he and Betty got married. We know during their courtship he was still working for the furrier and going to night school, but maybe with marriage looming, he made his break for SC.
I've always been intrigued that Joan went to college. That suggests either she comes from a pretty well-off family (which doesn't ring true for me) or she worked her own way through school. A two-year junior college maybe, as opposed to a secretarial school?
As for a Mrs Cooper- yes, Burt has mentioned her at least once — I think he said she introduced Roger and Mona.
Damn, we need a whole parallel season of episodes of 'Mad Men — The Early Years'
I believe both Joan and Peggy came from working class families where, pre '60s, there was little expectation that "girls" would or could go to college.
But Joan lucked out, and would have gone to college on a scholarship — some high school teacher noticed her intelligence and competence and steered her to scholarship possibilities her parents never dreamed of.
In Peggy's working class family, Peggy hid her light under a bushel, and in the outer borough enormous high school she was also lost in the crowd, no teacher singled her out.
Peggy may even have been directed into "commercial" subjects in high school by her parents: typing, shorthand (still offered in my high school at least up to 1968, as well as classes in becoming a cashier, and the like, for the students not in "college prep" courses.)
Peggy did well in her commercial courses, well enough that she was directed to Miss Seavers Secretarial School, the top of such. And well enough there, that she was hired by Sterling Cooper, who could have the pick of the girls graduating from secretarial schools, and well enough that Peggy went straight to Secretary for a Partner, with no stopping off in the typing pool.
Girls from lesser Secretarial schools with lesser marks ended up as receptionists (especially if they were as decorative as Megan) or relegated to the typing pool, until or unless they showed themselves as able enough to rise to secretary of someone important.
With her college degree, Joan would have also spent little or no time in the pool, and no doubt someone at college would have suggested, or Joan herself figured out, that learning typing and shorthand would make her more "employable" when she graduated.
(Women college graduates of the 1950s were expected to get their "Mrs. Degree" out of their stay, and if not, found their career offers stymied by their being female, other than in occupations like teacher or nurse. The secretarial pool was still the primary in to business, even for college grads.)
Joan's rise may not have been as fast as Peggy's, but it would have been fairly fast, also starting as the secretary of someone important at SC, who would have had to be blind not to notice her deportment and abilities.
When the older woman in charge of supervising the secretarial pool (or office manager) retired, Joan stepped into her place, the highest available to a woman, at that point, but for the odd female copywriter on "women's" products.
Don't remember the episode, but it was Roger who "discovered" Don when he was working in-house at the furrier.
Gypsy, you didn't have to be wealthy to go to college. My parents both went to college in the 50's with no parental support. They got by with scholarships and part-time jobs. It could be done. But then, as now, a college degree didn't give you any guarantees regarding employment — but it helped.
In the early-to-mid twentieth century, most state and city colleges were free to highly-qualified residents.
That said, I just don’t see Joan as a poor kid working for a scholarship. She’s competent at her work, but it seems o be because it’s easy for her – it’s almost perfunctory. She seems like the embodiment of the classic report card comment: “Does not work to potential.”
She’s obviously intelligent, but she doesn’t do work that challenges her; when she’s about her administrative duties it’s like she’s on autopilot. Anything she really does want and get, is something that she’s used sex to get. She’s an office wife rather than a housewife, but she doesn’t really seem to have any more passionate interests than Betty does. She an enthusiastic cheerleader for the patriarchal narrative that ruled her out for the one job she showed a spark of real interest in and put any intellectual effort into, and that led her to settle for Mr. Right Now. She’s trying to get pregnant, but I can’t imagine her being an enthusiastic mother. What will she do if she has a daughter who’s more interested in baseball than sexy dresses? Will she give her the same advice she tried to force on Peggy? If her son flunks out of med school, will she break a vase over his head?
Empress Rouge, I agree that Don was not at all likely to have been brought in as Creative Director- more likely, given his level of prior experience, a junior copywriter of some sort. I still maintain he joined SC around 1953-4.
Then he worked his way up the ladder to become creative director.
In "Smoke" Midge jokes with him about a creative block for an advertising campaign that he overcame five years ago (which would have been 1955). I inferred from whatever it was she said (can't remember the exact words now) that that he was working at SC at the time, not the furrier.
Mike, I'm not even sure Don was selling cars in Calif — do we know that? He could have been selling cars anywhere when she tracked him down.
Maybe Anna moved to CA after she met Dick.
But either way, I'd love to see how he went from selling cars, where ever it was, to night school and a job at the fur company in NY.
Mike, I misread your comment — I see we're both asking the same questions. To which we will probably not get answers, sadly!
Well, Joan had to learn her life-saving tourniquet-tying skills somewhere. Part of me does (and part of me doesn't) want to see the origin of that.
I'd like to see (hold the groans, everyone) young Betty and her Viola, perhaps as a counterpoint to Sally and Carla. Betty got to be "bad mom Betty" somehow; there is a child in there that we need to meet. I would like to see her in, and out, of the company of her parents — and in the care of the woman whose comfort she sought when she brought up the word "orphan" the first time.
I continue to wonder what Carla's story is. And insist that she deserves one.
Anne B you are absolutely correct! Carla does deserve to be explored more. I can't believe I forgot her. I would love to know what goes on inside that soft spoken reserved exterior. You know she knew the score on Henry Francis & Betty the first time she met him. Yup, I'd love to know more about her. She seems very canny and wise.
Dark Peggy, I doubt that any Mad Men character has been in more episodes, yet spoken fewer lines, than Carla.
Not that acting is always about speaking. To me, anyway.
Still, Matt and company: Give the woman a story. Or lines, at least, that are not "advice".
Don: Sold used cars location unknown at least until he met Anna (circa '51-53), then moved on to work for a fur company in New York where he met model Betty. Announced to Anna that he wanted to marry Betty Christmas '53, divorce was finalized the following February ("Valentine's Day, three months before {Drapers} got married" says Betty). Betty has alluded to having been pregnant sometime between their engagement and their wedding, I think in her therapy sessions, which was acceptable as long as they were engaged first. So they married in May '54 and had Sally that same year. Roger says he met Don & Betty when they were newlyweds, so Don probably went looking for a better job than the fur company when he had a wife and baby to think about. Therefore Don was at Sterling Cooper from 1954-1963 and his performance in the earliest episodes indicates that he hadn't been in charge of Creative for very long and was still making his stripes.
Burt & Roger: Burt was one of the founders of Sterling Cooper, and was partnered with Roger's father. He was a sort of uncle to young Roger Sterling and his late wife introduced Roger and Mona. He has no children. Roger of course lived the life of Larry until WWII and then served in the Pacific and married Mona. Margaret is around 17 or 18 in 1960 so Roger and Mona probably married before Roger shipped out.
Joan: I'm guessing she came from a bit more money and status than working-class Peggy, given that she attended a university rather than a secretarial school (Vassar maybe?) and that early on she displays a lot more sexual freedom and self-assurance than Peggy (lesbian girlfriends notwithstanding). She's had her choice of beaux for years and had many offers of marriage – that she held out for so long indicates that she probably had something else to fall back on until she started to feel the draw in her early '30s to have children. That she knowingly entered into a long-running relationship with her married boss indicates that she was not ready to settle down yet in her late-'20s.
#27 Melissa – State colleges may have been free before the 1950's but by the 60's they weren't. I have heard that state colleges in California were free for a longer period of time. My state, Wisconsin was pretty progressive about education, but it wasn't free.
In any case most working class kids wanted to get out of the home, get a good job and become independent. If you went off to college you wouldn't be totally independent. Of course when the war heated up and the draft started the boys wanted get the deferment, by becoming full-time students.
If you wanted to go to college, especially if you were a girl, you wouldn't get too much family support. The parents too felt that the kids should move out and be independent and in the case of girls get married. The only community colleges that I knew about were trade schools, like Peggy's secretarial school.
Joan's background is not upperclass: she's obviously a self-made woman.
Not in the mold of self-made women now, but of self-made women then.
I recognize her, because I came from the same background and had to be a self-made woman myself.
I'm no Joan, and born later enough to escape some of the more rigid sexism, no less internalizing it.
Having been born in 1950, I rode the line between then and now: and girls in my lower-middle class area were urged in high school to take both steno and typewriting, even if in college prep, for a very good reason — "everyone" believed that there were only three career paths open to girls: secretary, teacher and nurse (with lower pink collar work as waitress, cashier, etc.)
In 1968 the taxi driver driving me to the state college from the train station also subjected me to a rant about how my education was a waste because I was "just going to get married."
His was by no means an exceptional attitude.
And that was the '60s — in the '50s it was even worse, in that many fewer girls expected to go to college, expected to have a career.
Joan has internalized the '50s attitude to women: you may go to college, you may work, but your real job is finding a husband and having a family.
Joan has also internalized the sexism at Sterling Cooper: even if she'd spoken up and asked for the job Harry handed over to the guy, she wouldn't have gotten it. And Joan is smart enough to know that.
She's smart enough to be a partner at SCDP, but she's been made the traffic manager. Peggy is smart enough to be a partner at SCDP, but Pete is that, and she is not.
The reason is sexism, as it existed then.
Mad Men is showing the changes as they began, but to expect Joan to have current attitudes to women's place in this world is unrealistic.
Joan sent Peggy to a gyno on her first day of work. I thought that was werid. Was that an employment physical? And I thought the background story to Peggy's leave of absence was that Don and Joan BOTH knew the real deal. Joan handled the secretaries and probably the confidential health forms that Personnel would ask for. I just always felt Joan knew the secret of Peggy's leave.
Remember, both Peggy and Joan are exceptions to the rule for women at work, then.
The typing pool, the secretaries were the reality for the majority of women in the '50s and early '60s.
Even if Joan had asked for the job of scriptreader, she wouldn't have gotten it for several reasons: also that would be the equivalent of an entrance level job for a man at the agency (although the salary he might be offered could be more than Joan's, women's work was so little respected.)
It would be less power, and in the unlikely event it would be given to her, it wouldn't be at an equivalent salary to the one the junior exec would receive. But it would be the first step up for the man onto a ladder to executive that Joan would not be allowed to climb.
(Jobs were still advertised in the newspapers separately for Male and Female work, and guess which area paid less and offered no executive work?)
This may all seem impossible to you now, but when I entered the job market in the '70s women were still fighting to get into the "male" jobs. For instance, Newsweek and Time still restricted reporting jobs to men, and women to "research", even if their work went in word for word, women were not bylined.
The New York Times hired no women reporters and insisted on labeling women either Miss or Mrs in it's reportage. As late as the middle '70s, a friend started writing freelance for the Real Estate section only because that section was considered "fluff" by the onstaff male reporters.
The difference being that '70s young women had the benefit of the previous decade of Second Wave Feminism, so our internalization would have been different from that of the Joans, and even Peggys.
We asked Why? and Why Not? and broke into fields at greater numbers, so that the Peggys and Joans were no longer the only exceptions.
But the '70s is the future for Joan, and she isn't there yet, no less the 21st Century.
Maggie, your timeline is a bit off.
Don and Anna's divorce decree is dated 2/14/53 (it's on the AMC website scrapbook)
So, here's my timeline:
1950 – Dick becomes Don.
Anna finds him selling cars (location unknown) late 1950, early 1951
Don and Anna spend a couple of Christmases together- 1951 & 1952.
1952 – Don meets Betty while working at the fur company.
Dec 1952 – Don tells Anna he's met Betty and wants to marry her (he's probably still at the fur company) Anna points out they won't be spending any more Christmases together.
Feb 14, 1953 — Don & Anna divorce
May 1953 – Don and Betty marry ("You got a divorce 3 months before we got married, Don" — Betty Draper)
April 1954 — Sally is born. Betty was not pregnant with Sally when they got married.
Somewhere between mid- 1953 and 1955, Don goes to work at SC. I'm thinking it's end of 1953- 1954, but that's just a guess.
There's just no way Joan went to Vassar.
I just always felt Joan knew the secret of Peggy’s leave.
Hmmm… interesting! I never thought about that.
Do you say that because Joan's given some hints that she knows, or is it just that Joan being Joan, you think she would have figured it out?
I agree that there's no way Joan went to Vassar.
College, yes, but not Ivy League.
I never bought Don's "aww shucks"/semi-blushing bit when he was telling Anna about Betty. Even if he was ten years younger, it just didn't ring true with the character (and yes, even if it was Dick Whitman). In fact, Harry Crane's about the only guy I can see doing that, which isn't to say I can't see Don or other MM male charcters being romantic, just not in that coy "I've got a secret" fashion. One of the few false moves I've seen Hamm and Weiner make in 3+ years. Though, admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the CA/Anna stuff even if I recognize its purpose.
In terms of what Don's and Betty's courtship was like, maybe we got a little view of it on that Connie Hilton boondoggle.
I, too, agree that Joan didn't go to Vassar. Betty went to Bryn Mawr, another Seven Sisters college, and I'm not sure I see any shared experience of that with what we've seen of those two women. There are Lots of colleges around and plenty of colleges and universities — private and public — that might have been options for Joan even with scholarships or a little family support.
Joan was sympathetic to Peggy when writing the roommate ad and Peggy tried to express her appreciation then and most recently when the tractor incident occurred. Joan was about to say that she took some credit for Peggy's success but then Lois floored it and Guy was unable to golf ever again.
That imagie of Lois on the lawnmower still makes me laugh. What a figurative and literal hazard she was.
@15 jzzy55-I want to see more of Harry’s home life too. I would love to see Jennifer throw a dinner party, either for television execs, or SCDP co-workers.
Susan F. – I didn't see the Joan;s roommate notice instructions as sympathetic at all. Joan basically told Peggy, "You should want the kind of like I would want at your age. And even if you were smart enough to know you want to be me, you couldn't figure out how to do it yourself." Joan is so full of the notion that she's perfect that she can;t imagine anyone not wanting to be and live exactly like her.
As far as Don's pah to NYC, at the time I remember thinking that the boy he sold the used car to kind of looked like he was wearing a Cornell sweater, potentially placing Don somewhere in small-town Central NYS. But that was just an impression, and might not be accurate at all.
Bert and Roger. Hands down. No question.
There’s a photo, isn’t there, of Roger on Bert’s lap? The whole father-son story, not just of the two men but of the original Sterling-Cooper: this is what I want to see. Despite Roger’s big stories about his half-manicured father and et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.
“Come on, peanut.”
Show us that.
#22 – I think Roger said that in “The Color Blue” when he was moping about the SC gala dinner and how he’d have to sing Don’s praises. He also said Mona said they looked like the couple on top of the wedding cake.
On a similar note:
#20 I don’t believe Don has been working at Sterling Cooper for that long because “Ladies Room” is the first time that Roger and Don sat down to dinner with the wives, and the first time Betty met Roger and Mona (MW says this in the commentary). Roger’s pass at Betty in “Red in the Face” was definitely the first time he did that because, knowing Don and his revenge tactics, it wouldn’t happen a second time. And we know Roger wouldn’t waste time to hit on a subordinate’s wife. Lane and Don had dinner w/ the wives just a few months after Lane’s arrival.
My guess is that Roger did discover Don in maybe the mid/late 50s and brought Don into SC. Then Don worked his way up to become creative director (and scores dinner w/ the boss and the missus) shortly before the time of the pilot. Don’s reaction to Bert’s reinstatement of Pete Campbell in “New Amsterdam” also gives me the impression he hasn’t been in a executive position for very long because Bert has clue him in on “how the sausage is made” in the industry. His stress over the Lucky Strike campaign and his outburst at Rachel Menken in the pilot show that he is not yet completely confident in his role as creative director, and Roger has to reassure him (“we want you here” over Pete) in New Amsterdam.
I’ve always wondered how/why Don made it to New York. Did he go to California immediately after the war and Anna found him there, or did Anna somehow track him down in New York?
Also would love to see more of a young Bert Cooper in the 20s getting SC off the ground.
#38 Freelancewoman – This contribution to the discussion is very important. It should give everyone a real feel for what it was like and how a feminist feels about today. I totally agree.
#37 Susan F – Joan sent Peggy to the Gyno for birth control pills. There's really no indication that Joan knew that Peggy was pregnant, she may have but she certainly wouldn't have known that Pete was the father.
#42 Whitmanesque -" I never bought Don’s “aww shucks”/semi-blushing bit when he was telling Anna about Betty. Even if he was ten years younger, it just didn’t ring true with the character (and yes, even if it was Dick Whitman). "
I totally believed him. What would be the point in making it up? One of Hamm's best scenes IMO.
#46 Melissa – I agree. I don't think Joan's instructions were sympathetic either. She was always on her high horse with Peggy.
I'd love to get a look at Miss Blankenship circa 1945. I bet she was a firecracker.
Lianne,
You would find answers to many of these questions by watching Mad Men.
For instance, we know that Don was working in marketing for a fur company and attending night school when Roger recruited him to come to Sterling Cooper. This information came from both Don and Roger.
We also know Bert was married, because when Roger left his (first) wife, Bert commented that his own "late wife" had set up Roger and Roger's wife. I also believe either Bert or his sister has said his cattle ranch is in Wyoming.
I sort of figured that Joan went to a business school of one kind or another in NYC; one of those that has rooms available for students from out of town.
I imagine Joan had a sad childhood. Kinda like Marilyn Monroe. Remember how moved she was by Marilyn's suicide? Roger found her lying down in his office. She is a self made force. But, somebody paid for those accordion lessons!
I bought Don's aw shucks "I'm in love!" attitude toward Betty before they married: he thinks he's hooked his dream girl, the Golden Girl, the girl with money in her voice.
But he's a Gatsby, and although it may take years, Don's lies and facade will crumble as will the marriage built on sand, and his Daisy will flee to the more familiar and safer arms of someone of her own class.
However, when Don describes Betty to Anna he isn't factoring in his own hollow core, his own inability to love a woman completely, because he isn't even who he respects.
Both Don and Betty are deeply flawed, but don can be giddy in the belief for a time that he's finally found love in his life, although he may be incapable of keeping it.
By the way, accordian lessons would not be something an upperclass family would give to their girl children.
Piano lessons, the harp maybe, something on which classical music could be played, tennis lessons, surely.
But accordian lessons were still big for kids in my lower middle class neighborhood in the 1950s.
one more clue joan didn't attend one of the seven sisters.
I also don't doubt Joan had an unhappy childhood.
It was highly unusual for (especially) an attractive woman to be unmarried that late in life in the early '60s.
Joan's inability to make that connection is a fairly good indication that something had happened earlier in her life that screwed up that part of her adulthood.
Also her final choice of Dr. Rapey, not an indication of someone who has good judgement, based on examples of marriage in her early life, patterns she can follow.
Joan created herself from wholecloth, but there are missing pieces.
#49 – Lisa,
I do watch MM. I was just wondering about the backstory of some of the characters, such as Joan and her family background, what Bert saw in Don that made him think he'd be the person who could tell a good story through advertising. And I don't recall where Bert's appreciation for Japanese culture came from, but I'd be interested in that as well.
Joan could have gone to Hunter College, which was free to women in the 1950s or to City College. She also could have gotten a scholarship to any number of schools. But I doubt she went to a Seven Sisters school (the Ivy League was male only).
Here's another question: why didn't Joan marry sooner? Did Roger support her on the condition she wouldn't? Did she have to support a disabled father?
I also want to know what the Drapers were like when Sally was born. We suspect Don missed the birth. How did he feel about having a girl? What was his relationship like with Betty?
Don was writing advertising copy inhouse for a fur company — original enough that it caught Roger's attention, he tracked down the young Don and hired him for SC.
How Don made the transition from car salesman to the fur company is a mystery, but I imagine that he took a stab at writing the ads for the car company first.
Maybe after taking some advertising classes at City College, and once he had a sample book of published ads, Don may have answered an advertisement for the fur company looking for an inhouse copywriter.
I had a newspaper reporter boyfriend working for a New Jersey paper, who wanted to make a switch to something more lucrative in the '70s — he took a class, wrote mocked up ads, but that went nowhere.
We moved to New York, after he ended up in Public Relations, which was always looking for someone with writing skills who could make contacts with reporters, having been on that side — and he later switched over to editing a trade magazines.
That was the point of New York City, you could use your experience elsewhere to move up and onward because of all the opportunities in the big city.
Like we moved from New Jersey, where I'd worked for two local weekly newspapers, and ended up in a sort of paid internship at a national magazine in New York, off the recommendation of someone I met at a party.
Upstate New York would have it's limitations — a self-made man like Don with no ties, would be eager for both the anonymity of a big city, and the promise of unlimited opportunity which that city seems to offer.
(According to wikipedia, the word "anonymity" is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness" — nice coincidence for Don!)
"Mink: It's Not Toasted!"
I attended classes at Hunter College in the '70s, but it didn't have student housing then, I believe.
(Even now: "Only 612 of Hunter's 25,000 students have the opportunity to live in the Residence Hall." http://www.google.com/search?q=hunter+college+stu…
So, I'm not sure Joan's roommate situation with the lesbian in love with her could have happened there.
#56 When Joan's NYC roommate confesses having a crush on Joan since they met in college, she goes on to say she followed Joan to NYC. That would rather rule out Hunter or CCNY, since both are in NYC.
My mother graduated from Vassar in 1925. Although she grew up in comfortable circumstances and her family paid for her expenses, Mother volunteered each summer teaching less fortunate high school office skills. At Vassar one of Mother's best friends was on scholarship. Following graduation the friend got a job as a secretary, expecting to either marry soon or find a career. Twenty-five years later that friend was a slightly less sexy version of Joan, managing the office of a mid-size publishing firm.
During WWII I remember that lady having dinner at our Greenwich Village apartment. She was escorted by a man my father's age, 18 years older than Mother. Later Dad remarked that man was president of the publishing firm. Maybe she was being "kept" Perhaps she was vastly over qualified. Certainly at that dinner she appeared very happy.
Joan didn't accept Roger's of financial support and an apartment for several reasons: if it got out, she'd be screwed at the office.
And as she made clear to Roger during their affair, she was still husband hunting, being kept by Roger would have put a crimp in that. No respectable bachelor would want to marry a woman kept by another man.
Many men were still expecting that they'd marry a virgin, no matter how many women they'd slept with.
Roger wasn't offering marriage, and Joan was focused on the goal before it was "too late" to make a "respectable" marriage.
I don't completely agree. Yes, Joan comes off as condescending, but I believe her intentions with Peggy were good. She looks at Peggy and sees someone who right now is all work/no fun and says, "This is about two young girls out on the town having an adventure – am I wrong?" (paraphrasing so forgive me if I got some of the wording wrong) The "am I wrong" part shows that she's willing to have Peggy correct her if she's misunderstanding things, but she also genuinely feels that Peggy wants to have fun, enjoy her youth, and take advantage of all the city has to offer. The best time to do that is when you're young and single! So yes, I feel she is trying to help, even if she also comes across as know-it-all.
To go back to Lianne's original post: yes, I have often wondered about the various characters's backtstories. I remember after we were discussing "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency," someone speculated here that Joan might have some nursing background in her past. I don't imagine she ever actually worked as a nurse, but possibly she did some candy-striping or volunteering or something like that. And I am always interested in knowing more about the characters's families — not just the major characters like Joan but also the more minor characters like Ken or Kurt or Smitty. Who is Carla's husband? Does Harry have a big family? Things like this are not necessarily things that we'll ever find out, or even that we need to find out, yet to get a few more details at some point would still be interesting.
How about Alice Cooper? Who else gets the feeling that she's a lesbian?
The first time we see her, Bert asks about her "companion" (can't remember her name). Watch Alice's reactions when she talks about her and that she can be moody.
Bert also mentions that Alice never settled down and got married and that this one seems to make an excellent companion for her.
Don't know about you, but the gaydar was pinging the first time I watched the episode.
Read The Group by Mary McCarthy (Betty's bath time reading in Season 3). Eight Vassar graduates who all intend on entering the workforce in some capacity after graduation. They all know themselves to be intelligent and capable, but it doesn't enter anyone's mind that they can actually compete with men in the workforce: Joan to the letter. We don't know where Joan went, but we do know that she went to university and does WANT to get married; therefore more aligned with Betty than with Peggy in terms of background and expectations. It is highly unusual for her to have stayed single for so long, which is why I figured she had something other than her own moxy to fall back on.
Oh, definitely Alice Cooper is a lesbian: "companion" would be upper class code for that.
In the l9th century (and earlier) wealthy women had paid companions to keep them company, often a penniless female relative. In those centuries "respectable" women went nowhere alone, and there would be talk if they went somewhere with any male but a relative.
Not a necessity in the 20th century, so "companion" definitely could be code for a non-related woman living with a wealthy woman.
Especially since a paid companion couldn't get away with being "moody." (Read Vanity Fair, for an example of the tyranny of the wealthy woman over her companion.)
Besides, so much easier to say socially, than "My older sister's lover, um, friend, um roommate."
Nope, not buying it. If Joan went to a Seven Sisters School and had family money there'd be some indication.
Like Trudy's name-dropping of Pete's family name, Roger's allusions to having inherited SC, Harry dropping his Ivy League status (and being embarrassed by the reveal that he went on scholarship, given away by his preppy drug dealer obviously from a wealthy family.)
Eventually, those sort of people drop hints about their family status, Ivy League affliation, or money.
Joan's so obviously a self-made woman of the period, and that she reveals nothing about her background, means she's come from nothing, that it might be an embarressment to discuss. Kinda like Don.
(Another indication: her first abortionist, may or may not have been a midwife, Joan had to take pot luck. But by the time she's worked her way up in a Madison Ave advertising agency, Joan's able to connect to the doctor of the Upper Eastside's elite.)
When Don first met Conrad Hilton at Roger's country club for Derby Day, I got the impression that he might have also worked as a bartender at some point.
I've always thought that Don worked nights tending bar and met Roger that way. It's not impossible that he was working days at the furrier as a copywriter and making extra cash as a bartender.
Earlier, when he was selling cars, he might have been doing that to pay for his night school classes and then began his work doing the ad copy for the furrier, once he finished his courses.
As Don Draper, Dick would have been eligible for the GI Bill, which would have paid for his night school classes.
In one episode, Roger clearly states that he found Don writing ad copy for a fur company.
(It would also be too much of a neat coincidence for Don to have met both Roger and Hilton from behind a bar.)
Since Don says he cobbled together a degree from City college, that would have had to have been since he moved to New York City, not when he was a car salesman upstate.
Anything is possible, but it's more likely Don learned how to mix a drink, or work behind a bar, in between parking cars as a teenager at the roadhouse.
I've lived in New York City and upstate New York, and attended college in both areas.
And whenever anyone spoke of "City college" they meant New York City based.
Upstate you'd refer in the shorthand form to that area, such as "I went to school in Albany," or "I go to Syracuse," etc. and everyone knew you were refering to one of the state colleges or universities.
Never heard them referred to as "city" colleges, even in that city. "City college" meant New York City alone, for some reason.
Perhaps because New York City was simply referred to as "The City" in a surrounding portion of the tri-state area, including New Jersey and Conneticut.
If I had to guess, Joan probably went to a SUNY school upstate (like Albany). Joan would have been about the right age to have been one of the first SUNY students, and tuition was dirt cheap, if not free.
City college as distinct from New York (city) University, which is and was always referred to as NYU.
And back then City College would have been more commuter and night school oriented than NYU.
From her deportment, I'm assuming Joan got a full scholarship to one of those private women's colleges, just below the Seven Sisters.
Where the rich sent their not-as-bright daughters, but a school that would give a free ride to a very bright, poor girl.
Joan learned a manner up there from the rich girls, but it was all girls, which made it less likely she'd earn her Mrs. Degree.
And Joan knew she had to make her living after she graduated, so she also took typing and shorthand courses from somewhere, either her high school, or a summer course at a Secretarial school.
Freddie discovered Don, writing copy for the furrier & going to night school. Then he brought him to Roger's attention. This may have been mentioned in the episode where Freddie got his "six months' leave."
Getting GI benefits required a bunch of paperwork & showing up at offices with multiple ID's. (Family history has taught me about these procedures.) Original Don Draper earned his engineering degree as a member of ROTC, so his academic record was part of his military record. I think Our Don was paying his way through school by working for the furrier because claiming educational benefits would have been too dangerous. (Did he ever think that, if he'd survived Korea, he would have had a much easier time afterward? He made that decision very quickly & could never go back.)
Had Our Don always dreamed of an advertising career, or did he accept Roger's job offer because he'd met this beautiful girl & needed to support a family?
However, I'm not so much interested in the Don/Betty Origin Story. He's struggling to move forward & I sincerely hope she is capable of growth. I really want to know more about Joan.
My theory: Joan had a Great Love early on that went very bad. (The first abortion? The comment to Roger about losing someone important?) So she decided to move to the big city & get a job; eventually, she'd find somebody to marry & have a family. If marriage had been her real first priority, surely she could have found somebody quickly. But NYC was an exciting place & learning about the ad business was interesting. Paul might have worked out, but he lacked discretion. Roger was only a distraction–but such a charming one that she wasted valuable time. So she settled for the next opportunity that looked promising.
Joan didn't need a medical background to learn first-aid skills; the Red Cross did (& does) offer classes. Of course, not everybody has the strength of character to step up & do what must be done when the blood & body parts start flying.
And I can't help but visualize a Very Young Joan, her hair in braids, earning college money at Uncle Stan's restaurant. I'm sure she got very tired of playing "Who Stoke the Kishka."
@36, 38, & etc. freelancewoman
Also born in 1950. "I rode the line between then and now." You have it, exactly. (But you forgot beautician as a pink collar career option.
I yearn to know more of Joan's back story, more than any other character.
Accordian lessons could have been given by a family member, and thus would not needed to have been paid for.
Nice backstory work, Not Bridget, Retrogirl and Bornin50.!
All of what you write makes sense.
Didn't forget beautician, but you're right, that's more skilled than either waitress or cashier. We had a Beauty School in the next biggish town, and as a lower middle class girl, I went there to have my hair done for the Prom.
Also accordian lessons more likely to be given in a lower-middle class or working class family.
Definitely, not a WASP family (can you imagine anyone in Pete's, Roger's or Burt's family playing the accordian? Sure, it's fun to imagine, but improbable.)
In the hotel scene in season one when Roger wants to order lunch, Joan declines saying food in the bedroom reminds her of a hospital. She may have had a seriously or terminally ill parent (most likely a mother) when she was very young.
As a result she may have had the burden of caring for younger brother and siblings which could be a reason for wanting to postpone parenthood and family responsibilities and indulge herself for a time. It could also explain the authoritative tone she sets at SC and later at SCDP
Nice catch, cecelia.
But we hear and see nothing of these relatives: Joan, like Don, "has no people."
Which suggests she cut herself off from them, or they died.
With the possible exception of Roger, we've seen that Joan thinks of men more as either status symbols or providers of free meals. My guess is that she put off marriage because she was holding out for a top-shelf model with the iviest degree and the fanciest country house, instead of getting to know men and finding one she actually liked and wanted to spend time with. I think she's always thought of marriage as a transaction and only wanted to spend her capital on the wisest invesment.
#29 – I do you think you're right about Don's start date at SC, now. I guess I just didn't think Roger would wait that long to make a pass at Betty
#81 I think it's reducto ad absurdom to reduce Joan to a simplistic gold digger: men as either "status symbols" or "providers of free meals."
In the 1950s and earlier, marriage was considered the only way for a woman to earn a living over her lifetime, despite some evidence otherwise.
Also the only way to comfortably raise your children, enjoy a consistent sex life, and experience love.
The economy was such that a family could live on a husband's salary alone, even in working class and lower middle class, especially since in those economic groups the wives made all the meals for the family from scratch, and cared for the children, house and clothing 24/7.
By contrast, most "women's work" paid so badly that it would be difficult to raise children without marriage, or even live comfortably as a single woman, and women were frozen out of the well-paid professions or advancement in professions.
Where they could be employed in the same jobs as men, women received a fraction of the salary for the same work, on the assumption that men would be "breadwinners" for a family — whether that was the case or not.
It was also the expected courtesy that men paid for all expenses on dates. Joan is a realist in that period, not a goldigger. Advice books of the period (such as Helen Gurley Brown's) advised women to get meals out of men, for the simple reason that single women weren't paid enough to afford restaurants, or other upscale entertainment, on their own.
(For instance even in the early '70s, I was paid exactly half the salary of each of my two eventual live-in boyfriends, even the one with whom I shared a profession.
That was a more egalitarian time than Joan's, so I insisted on splitting the rent and utilities and paying all my own personal expenses, but the boyfriends had to pick up the check on any entertainment, or we would never have been able to go out together at all.)
Joan's expectations of a husband, and dating, were perfectly aligned with society's in the first half of the 20th century. Love was considered part of the package, but the man you married supposedly determined your entire economic future, and that of your children.
Mad Men is painting a portrait of a time of change, but there's no reason to tar Joan with the brush of your distain from the far reach of the 21st century.
freelance woman, sorry to nitpick but Syracuse isn't a state school it is and always has been a private university. I'd have saved a lot of money if it had been a state school
There is a SUNY school right which has a campus adjoining Syracuse's and their students do live in the SU dorms, can use all of the SU facilities and may enroll in SU classes if they like but it is a the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry School (ESF) but I'm not sure it was around in Joan's time and I doubt she'd be interested in any of the things they study there.
Concerning Joan's accordion playing as a marker for her socio-economic childhood background, Christina Hendrick mentions in a recent interview that the show's writers had initially asked if she could play the piano – to which she replied 'not really, but I can learn' – for the dinner party scene in which we discover Joan can sing and play on request, but then okayed the substitution, due to her accordion abilities, instead. ( I think accordion worked better in the end than piano for the emotion they wished to convey )
Joan's reluctance, but at the insistence of the others' ready-capacity for performing her little entertainment bespeaks a middle class upbringing, in which the children's music lessons expense was rationalized in part because their parents could hope to later impose upon the child to provide a little ditty when their friends would visit the home socially, once a respectable proficiency at the piano or violin had been reached.
Working class folk paying for accordion or ocarina lessons would be more along the lines of 'play me something that reminds us of the old country'.
Maybe middle-class (when the middle class including working class, in the 1950s and '60s," but not upper middle class.
I grew up in a lower-middle class community in the 1950s: kids got lessons (ballet for me, accordian for other kids, gymnastics.)
As a poster noted upthread, in ethnic communities kids might also be taught by Uncle Stash.
In the 1950s, working people could be middle class, during the boom.
Although Joan would have been a kid during the '30s and '40s, when the economy not booming, and smaller or next to no "middle class."
When I first ran across the upper-middle class, or the true middle class: not an accordian in sight.
Even in my community, the daughters of the banker and lawyer learned the piano, the daughters or sons of factory workers, accordian.
For one thing, an accordian was a hell of a lot cheaper for a family to buy than a piano. For another, an accordian was more likely to create "ethnic" music, than classical. back then. (When was the last time you saw a classical concert with an accordian?)
Classical music was considered "high brow" a mark of class, accordian music, not so. (Usually associated with the polka, back then.)
We still had music lessons in our public high school during those boom years, but they were "band" instruments.
Neither piano nor accordian included.
Joan was very cute on that one song, but exotic to those doctors and their wives: none of their children would be given accordian lessons.
Joan's reluctance to play for the doctors and their wives would have had more to do, in the early '60s, with the idea that the accordian was considered "lower class" than the piano, or other instruments favored by the upper middle class. (Of which doctors were, which is why Joan aspired to be a doctor's wife.)
But being Joan, she pulled it off, very cute.
But I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, and accordian lessons were still very much dictated by class then, so would be even more so, when Joan was a child 20 years before during the Great Depression.
(And yes, I know the story of the writers and Christina Hendricks, but that doesn't mitigate the reality of accordian/piano, but may have been the reason the writers were so enthusiastic about writing in the accordian — Joan's husband has put her in a potentially even more embarrassing position.)
freelancewoman: I agree. You develop the larger point behind my mention how the accordion came to be present in the scene instead of a piano quite nicely. Call it serendipitous Christina couldn't play piano, since the writers wished to underline Joan's embarrassment – that they proceeded to make hay from, possibly, because Joan's cringing about playing that instrument, points to the belying of a middle class childhood adversely affected by depression conditions. She knows she missed her chance to learn piano or violin, like perhaps her older sisters had, instead.
In other words, accordian lessons had less to do with lack of money, than supposed lack of class.
No WASP family down on it's luck would think to give a child accordian lessons.
Like Pete's family, they would keep up appearances even if the coffers were empty.
They might go on scholarship to the Good Schools, but they were no more take on the trappings of the working class, than they would otherwise want to advertise their slide from the monied middle class.
For a time after WWII, ethnicities and working class people became middle class in greater numbers through a booming economy and opened up educational opportunities.
So that's where your confusion may lie about the "middle class."
But class in America has more to do with just money.
Or, the accordion could be an idiosyncrasy. It could have been a "fun" thing she picked up in college, like other girls did with the ukelele. It's something small, portable, and fun that you can take to parties. Most of the big bands, and lots of the small jazz combos, of the '30's and '40's had an accordion player. And while ethnic Polish music had a working-class connotation, French jazz (also accordion-heavy) always had a certain chic.
No, I'm not going with the fun thing for parties, either.
The ukelele was basically a '20s thing, and it is a light thing.
Have you ever picked up an accordian? Because I have, and it's a heavy mother-fucker.
Never once, in college, saw a girl or a guy drag an accordian to a party, and I went to a lot of colleges (small, big, university, etc.) in several states and on two continents.
Yes, I know about french jazz, but I grew up on the east coast in the middle of the 20th century in the lower middle class, and I'm here to tell you, the accordian was not what traditional middle class family gave a girl lessons in.
Italian families, polish families, working class families (maybe making middle class money in the 1950s), but not non-ethnic, white middle class families.
Like I said, pretty Joan playing that particular popular song of the moment, would be exotic and entertaining to the crowd of doctors and their wives, but it's not an instrument they would have been given lessons on when they were children, nor would their own children be given lessons on that instument.
And that's part and parcel of Joan's embarrassment, and why the writers were so thrilled that it was that idiosyncratic instrument with which they could make their point.
Jazz combos of the '30s and '40s: the musicians usually didn't come from middle class and certainly not upper middle class families.
(Check out the Benny Goodman story.)
Still gotta disagree about the possibility of a middle class childhood for Joan.
If a middle class household couldn’t afford piano lessons, the kid wouldn’t get piano lessons.
Sorry, but the accordian was seen in the early part of the 20th century as much lower middle class, working class, and ethnic, usually, if not exclusively, Polish.
Slightly cheesy. As late as the ’60s Polish jokes were still widely told, (poles were stupid, hairy, etc.) it wasn’t conceived as a middle class ethnicity, although it may have been.
And a “middle class childhood adversely affected by depression conditions” isn’t middle class.
Joan is a striver, one of the reasons why she’s married to Dr. Rapey: his profession was supposed to be her ticket, permanently, out of the poverty and the lower middle or working class. She didn’t see some of his personality failings, because he seemed to be her dream.
Like Don, she has put on the trappings of the middle class, and may be more competent than her supposed betters, but she’s come from nothing and hard work and determination is what got her where she is.
Joan doesn’t seem to have family. She is a people person at work but lonely at home. I get a bi-sexual or sexual confusion vibe from her. While Betty may have been abused by her father, Joan has probably young sexual experiences with both men and women. Big wall around Joan. There is safety in being (not loving) someone you can’t have (Roger).
Joan will take the economic security over love. She likes the idea of love….furs, flowers, etc., but seems frozen inside — like Don. Joan perhaps was hurt. Her marriage is an “arrangement” with a ring. She is not head over heels in love with this guy.
Don is thawing out, maybe from the emotional overload of losing Anna. It forces him to feel again. Maybe Joan and Don are destined to connect. They, are really kindred spirits.
If Joan could love she would be amazing. A private spanking from Joan? Sign me up.