After the war, so highly did the public come to regard anything Hines recommended that advertisers approached him to endorse nearly every product manufactured between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Market surveys demonstrated the sales power his recommendation would generate, and he was hounded daily by thousands of businessmen; they wanted—indeed, prayed for—his endorsement. Tempting offers came to him at every turn, many exceeded $1,000 just to say he liked a product. He turned them all down. Publishers for the last eleven years had regularly courted him, begging him to let them handle his books. They offered him generous contracts, one even offered to let him write his own contract, but Hines refused, saying that he feared “a publishing house would try to sell a million copies a year, thus glutting the market and killing future sales of new editions. So he refused all offers and kept the publishing ventures to himself.” He also refused to star on radio shows of the day; his rationale being that, once he succumbed to a show with a sponsor, he would lose his most valuable asset—his independence.486
In interviews he seemed unaffected by his nationwide recognition. He remained, at bottom, an unpretentious native of the heartland who had just stumbled into a run of good luck. He was just being himself when he spoke with a reporter after sampling the food of a particular restaurant, cackling in his down-to-earth manner, “I ordered fried chicken and filet mignon…. You see, I was just sampling. I don’t eat all the stuff, but honestly, this time I kinda stretched my belt because the stuff was mighty good. Then I filled up with coffee and apple pie, and while I think I could make a better pie myself, it was really quite satisfying.”487 Because of his folksy demeanor, his popularity continued to soar. His growing legion of fans continued to make pilgrimages to his Bowling Green home. So voluminous was this human traffic becoming that he was forced “to enlarge the parking space adjoining his home.” Since he and Clara were on the road nearly eight months of each year, few visitors actually met him. While not many who made the pilgrimage knew it, if they came on a holiday, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas, they were more likely to meet him.488
Many factors came into play after the war that contributed to the creation of the modern American tourism industry. Public roads improved. More automobiles were manufactured. Steel-belted tires replaced the inner-tube design. But the most important factor that energized it was the growing economy. When the war ended, America headed into a long stretch of domestic prosperity. Not only was the nation’s economic health strong and vigorous, but as America advanced to become the greatest economic superpower in recorded history, its economic muscular might transformed the social status of its citizens. Thousands of families were unceremoniously swept into the American middle class. Wanting to validate, perhaps even celebrate, their new status, they indulged themselves in a variety of activities, one of which was popularly dubbed as “sightseeing.” And Duncan Hines was there to take full advantage of it.489
In early 1949 Hines published Duncan Hines Vacation Guide, an annually revised, pine-green-colored guidebook for those who wanted to travel across America and see its myriad natural and man-made attractions.490 The book’s genesis originated from a suggestion by a long-forgotten person in Hines’s employ who believed it would be universally beneficial to assemble a travel guide for families who wanted to know what attractions were available across the country; such a book would be especially useful for families who wanted to escape the trappings of domestic life for a week or two and enjoy themselves. Since Hines had already told travelers where they could eat when they were hungry and where they could sleep when they were tired, it seemed only natural to tell them where to go to amuse themselves.491
The official title of his new publication was Duncan Hines Vacation Guide: Good Places to Spend an Enjoyable Vacation. In its introduction he wrote that he had “selected places accommodating twenty-five people or more” and had limited his “descriptions to places where one is likely to spend a week or more, and where more than merely sleeping accommodations are offered.” The book was intended for “those who want a comprehensive guide to places where people spend vacations.” Following his introduction, he wrote a descriptive essay on each of the forty-eight states, detailing the regional characteristics and the vacation opportunities of each.492
The Vacation Guide was modestly popular with the public; it made money but was not a great seller. A year later, when establishments were asked to purchase the Vacation Guide’s second edition, many refused, because sales were slow and the public was not enthusiastic about them. “Why buy more?” they asked. It is easy to understand why they were unpopular. When potential book buyers examined a copy, the spirit of Duncan Hines was nowhere to be found. In fact, the book looked as if it was written by someone else—certainly not by Duncan Hines. Those reaching this conclusion were correct. Aside from the introduction, the Vacation Guide was not really written by Hines at all; its contents were put together by his office staff. They sent a questionnaire to selected parks and resorts and asked them to fill it out. When each was returned, the office staff copied the information it contained, and if it met certain criteria, the place in question received a listing. Said one secretary, since “it was [mainly] information about the location, about the place, the rates and the hours, any of us could write that.” The most glaring omission from the book’s contents were Hines’s quips of humor and old-fashioned homilies. Therefore, it was not surprising to discover that the final result looked as if it had been written by a committee. Perhaps Hines was simply ahead of his time. While American families in 1949 were eager to travel about America in their brand new automobiles on newly paved roads, for some reason they did not seem to be ready for a book listing what to do with their free time when not eating or sleeping. Whatever the reason for the book’s very modest success, this was about the only time Duncan Hines misjudged what the public would lunge to buy.493
Late in 1948 Hines was on the promotion trail, traversing the nation’s highways in his six-passenger Cadillac, extolling the virtues of his Vacation Guide, which was about to be published. When he reached New York City, reporters caught up with him at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Hines, whom one of their number described as “a homey individual with thinning gray hair and glasses who looks like everybody’s grandfather,” told them “with a wisp of petulance,” that he had spent all summer working on the Vacation Guide and that the effort had spoiled his summer. “I really had wanted to go to California,” he said.494 “If memory serves me,” he continued, “there wasn’t a completely-paved highway across the country the first time I drove to California. I know that in some places in the West I drove for miles in thick roily clouds of dust that liberally coated me and the car.” On that first trip across the Western states, he said, the road was so rough that he “bumped and banged” his way across it until it almost dislodged his back teeth.495
As he held court while seated in a chair in one of the Waldorf’s meeting rooms, the conversation turned to food and then to his “eatin’ book,” Adventures in Good Eating. He began to describe the food in some of the restaurants he and Clara had recently sampled. Earlier in the day they had tested the culinary fare at the popular restaurant known as Brussels, where they dined on moules a la flamand, and lapin a la creme along with a good wine. Most high-priced restaurant meals in 1949 cost $2-$5 or more; the bill for this particular meal totaled $48, with Hines remarking that this was an extravagance for them. “We save our nickels for months for this,” he said. “‘Course we manage to live nice just the same. I won’t eat hamburger for anybody.” Moments later, he leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and answered a variety of questions from reporters. The first one concerned methods for producing quality beef. “I don’t like raw beef, see,” said Hines. “But if you want the true flavor you mustn’t cook it too long.” He explained that grass-fed beef had an inferior flavor when compared to corn-fed beef. “It’s easy to tell the difference…. The fat of grass-fed beef is yellow; on corn-fed beef it’s white.” He said
the same was true with peanut-fed hams. “Know those peanut-fed hams?…Why those sweet little piggies never get to see very many peanuts. First place, the peanut crop is too valuable, so they get mostly corn. If they ate all peanuts you couldn’t eat the pig. Its flesh would be too oily.” The subject soon turned to a more prosaic matter: the best place to dine that evening. Hines told reporters he was debating with his stomach over whether or not he should visit his favorite New York restaurant, Voisin, on the east side of the city. “Mmmm—man, does it taste good!” he said, “If I hadn’t had so much food this noon I’d be over there tonight. Come to think of it, I might go anyway.”496
Hines, by this time, was quite content with the course his life had taken. He was the publisher of four successful books. The company he had organized in Bowling Green paid all his salary and traveling expenses. He could go where he wanted, when he wanted, and was treated royally everywhere he went. By way of the nation’s media organs, he was influencing and changing the ways many restaurants and lodging facilities were being operated. His influence was everywhere to be seen. All things considered, he was a relatively happy man. What more could a human being ask for? One man found out.
15
ENTER ROY PARK
Over the years Hines had turned down hundreds of schemes promising to make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. If only he would willingly allow his name to be used to endorse this or that product, he was told, fabulous riches were his for the asking. He readily retorted to such blandishments that he was already rich—certainly wealthy enough to satisfy his needs. He had everything he could possibly want. And with those words he shooed them away with the back of his hand. Roy Park had better luck.
Roy Hampton Park was born on a large, family-owned farm outside of Dobson, North Carolina on 15 September 1910. An industrious youth, when he was twelve years old he became the correspondent for two weekly western North Carolina newspapers. Upon graduating from Dobson High School at fifteen and filled with dreams of financial success, he made preparations for a successful career in the world of commerce. A few days before his sixteenth birthday in 1926, he applied, was accepted and entered Duke University at Durham, North Carolina, with the intention of becoming a doctor. His dreams of practicing medicine, however, lasted only four days. He could not find a job in Durham that would support him during his quest for a medical degree, so he dropped the idea of becoming a physician and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he enrolled in North Carolina State College, now North Carolina State University, to pursue a degree in journalism with a minor in business administration. To finance his education, his older brother secured for him “a job as a delivery boy for an afternoon newspaper.” While enrolled, W. J. MacFarland, bureau chief of the Associated Press in Raleigh, “gave him a part-time job at $4.50 a week. The tasks he was asked to perform were menial ones. Eventually, though, he “taught himself to use a typewriter, operate a teletype machine” and soon he was writing news stories for the AP. By the summer of 1928 MacFarland put him to work as one of the Associated Press’s two full-time staff reporters in their Raleigh bureau, paying him $15-a-week. Shortly afterward he received a $3-a-week raise.
During the 1928-1929 school year, Park was not only taking a full-load of college classes, he was also working full-time for the Associated Press and free-lancing feature articles for several North Carolina Sunday newspapers. He did not stop there. He also reported news and wrote a column for the college weekly newspaper, The Technician. He attributed his success in keeping up with his demanding schedule by adhering to a strict schedule of work, meals, sleep and rest.497
Park emerged from his three years at Raleigh in 1929 with a degree in Journalism.498 That summer he began looking for work; surprisingly, he was unable to find it because, at nearly age nineteen, employers deemed him too young to hold down a mature adult job. He then discovered the editor of his college newspaper “was not only paid a salary, but reaped one-fourth of all advertising profits.” In that light, editing the campus newspaper looked like a worthy goal. Shortly afterward he embarked on a year of post-graduate work in business administration and he became the newspaper’s editor. As a result of his drive to succeed, the campus newspaper was transformed into a more professional-looking journal and, at the end of his tenure as editor, the paper had earned more money in one year than it had during the publication’s entire history. At the very depths of the Depression, when dollars were scarce, this was no small feat.499
After he was granted a Masters degree in Business Administration from North Carolina State College in 1931, Park began looking for a job that challenged his considerable abilities. With his characteristic methodicalness, he kept a close eye on the want ads in the Raleigh News & Observer and wrote ten letters each day to those he considered leading prospects. One of the potential employers that interested him were the farm cooperatives; in the early 1930s they were touted as an exciting industry with which to become involved. Two of them were headquartered in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, one each for cotton and tobacco.500
One day the North Carolina Cotton Growers Association answered one of his letters and scheduled him to be interviewed. Confident of his abilities, Park put on his best black clothes, shined his best black shoes, and strode off to a job he was certain was his for the asking. But at the interview, he was disappointed when he was told by the interviewer, the head of the organization, Uriah Benton Blalock,501 that the Association was looking for an older man, one with more experience.502 This qualification did not deter him from his objective. He was determined to be hired, one way or another. Each day, he staked out the Growers Association’s post office box (number 701) at the Raleigh post office, and each day, when Mr. Blalock arrived to pick up the association’s mail, Park politely yet firmly hounded him for a job. Nevertheless, Blalock’s answer was still “no.” Park kept asking him every day anyway. One day he discovered Blalock’s automobile had three flat tires and promptly changed them for him while wearing a white suit. Blalock was duly impressed by this act, but the answer was still “no.”503 Park then obtained a letter of introduction from the president of North Carolina State College and a family friend, Josephus Daniels; he also got letters of recommendation from several faculty members. He even wrangled a job recommendation from the Governor of North Carolina. But despite all his efforts, Blalock’s answer was still “no.” Undeterred by steady rejection, one day he confronted Blalock and offered to work for nothing. Blalock, who by this time was beginning to wear down, liked his spunk, and began talking to him at length. At one point in the conversation, Park requested a monthly salary of $250; Blalock hired him for $100 a month.504 Elated, Park could not have been happier; he had secured his job over 800 applicants and had proved something to himself: anything is obtainable if one is never daunted by obstacles.
Park’s official title was assistant to the general manager; in this capacity, he was given a number of things to do. One of his jobs was to edit and publish the cooperative’s membership newspapers. As the association’s publicity director, another of Park’s jobs was to create publicity for them. Not long after he was hired, he did just that. One day at a meeting, Park suggested to the association’s leaders that since their organization was in the business of promoting cotton, they should sponsor a “Cotton Ball.” What Park had in mind, he told them, was a grandiose Southern reception that honored the daughters of the state’s most prominent families. To draw a crowd, Park suggested the association hire a well-known dance orchestra for the occasion. The association’s members were an extremely cautious coalition and did not like the idea. “It looked like a money loser to them.” Park then offered to underwrite the cotton ball himself and pocket any profits that accrued. Since no money was to be extracted from their pockets, the association members agreed to Park’s proposal. Park then hired the Kay Kyser Orchestra to play for the event and put his publicity skills into action. Subsequently, the event was a roaring success. When the festivities were over, Roy Park was several
thousand dollars richer—much to the consternation of some of the association’s members—but they did not argue with Park afterwards. The following year Park hired the Fred Waring Orchestra for $2,100 and earned the Grower’s Association a tidy sum.
Park calculated that his regular duties for the Cotton Growers Association only took 25% of his time; because this inactivity left him restless, he became involved in more projects. He “persuaded the Cotton Growers Association to change the format of its trade journal and allow him 25% commission on all advertising.” This move resulted in the publication of The Carolina Cooperator, the format of which Park modeled after Time magazine. The Carolina Cooperator eventually amassed a subscriber base of 100,000 readers. Park then “established and operated a printing plant” for his employers, of which he owned one-third.505 In 1936 “the Carolina Cotton Growers Cooperative expanded its activities from the sale of cotton and set up a purchasing cooperative, the Farmers Cooperative Exchange, used by farmers to buy seed, fertilizers, and other farm supplies. Park remained with the two organizations as director of marketing and public relations.” But even this level of activity did not satiate Park’s restless nature.506
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