Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, one of the first successful women in the retail advertising field in the United States, was born on September 6, 1894 and raised on a farm near Waunakee, Wisconsin. She attended Sacred Heart Academy and Convent and at age 17 taught for one year at a country school in Springfield Corners. In 1918 Fitz-Gibbon graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a major in English and philosophy. She spent the 1918-1919 school year teaching English in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
After some work in the newspaper field, Fitz-Gibbon moved to Chicago. There she joined Marshall Field's “College Squad” and learned the retail advertising business. Moving on to New York, she briefly worked for Wanamaker's and about 1923 joined the advertising staff at Macy's. During her twelve years at Macy's she created the slogan “It's Smart to be Thrifty,” which was widely heralded in advertising circles and the retail trade and which brought her national attention.
In 1936 Fitz-Gibbon resigned and returned to Wanamaker's to become their advertising director. As advertising director, Fitz-Gibbon insisted on full and specific product information. Unlike many retail advertisers of the time, her style was informal, witty, and informative, a style which brought her notice, success, and awards. She also relied heavily upon her extensive literary background and rich imagination in her ads, which were full of humor, alliterations, and puns. Her impact on New York is indicated by a cartoon in the New Yorker, which showed a matron searching her living room. “Where is the thesaurus and the French dictionary?“ she asks her husband. “I'm reading the Wanamaker's ad.”
In 1940 Fred Gimbel persuaded her to come to Gimbels, where she created another famous slogan, “Nobody but nobody but Gimbels.” and continued styling her ads “the way people speak.” During this time she wrote her autobiography, Macy's, Gimbels, and Me (1951)
In 1954 Fitz-Gibbon left Gimbels to open her own advertising agency, Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, Inc. To make her name better known to prospective accounts, she gave frequent speeches and wrote many articles and magazine columns. Among the honors she received were selection as “Woman of the Year in Business” by the women editors of the Associated Press (1955) and “Man of the Year” by the University of Wisconsin Alumni Foundation (1957) and election to the Retail Advertising Conference Hall of Fame (the second person so honored) and the Copywriters Hall of Fame (1967). In 1956 Fortune designated her as one of the nation's top businesswomen. In the area of fashion she received the Gimbels Milwaukee Fashion Award in 1960 as the Wisconsinite who had made the most distinguished contribution to that field. In 1959 she was voted one of the ten best coiffured women in the world.
Bernice Fitz-Gibbon was married to Herman Block, an attorney, who died in 1951. They had two children, Peter Block and Elizabeth Block Wing. Bernice Fitz-Gibbon died in 1982.
