Nunny, when I first used that soap I looked up that bottle.
I had to, it was so odd and the story did not disappoint.
That bottle could have been muuuuuch much odder.
Emanuel Bronner was a Jewish, third-generation master soapmaker in Southern Germany in the early 1900s who narrowly missed the Nazi takeover by moving out of the country due to generational rifts with his father and uncles.
-He held an equivalent of a masters in chemistry. Though whether or not he actually earned a doctorate wasn't discussed in this podcast.
-He pioneered the invention of liquid soap.
-His family’s original soap company in Germany was taken over and Aryanized by the Nazis. The new management even sent a letter out to the prior consumer base to alert them about the changes.
-Emanuel Bronner lead a very spiritual life, largely inspired by Judaism, the Holocaust (he lost both of his parents in concentration camps), and the nuclear armed war. He felt “urgently called upon” to help people realize their “transcendent unity,” and felt the label of his product was the best medium on which to spread the message.
-He was intense, to say the least, even spending time in Elgin Mental Health Center outside of Chicago.
-He escaped from the mental institution and moved out west to Los Angeles, speaking often in Pershing Square. People would by his soap after his sermons, which is where he got the idea to print his ideology on the packaging.
-A man by the name of Fred Walker willingly crucified himself for Dr. Bronner’s Peace Plan on a Chicago bridge in the 1940s.
-The company was sued by Olympic swimmer, Mark Spitz (around the time that Michael Phelps bested his gold medal record), for using his name on their packaging as an example of a fine Jewish role model. They ended up cutting him a check for an undisclosed amount.
-You can use the soap for pretty much anything, including brushing your teeth if you run out of toothpaste.
-Dr. Bronner wouldn’t sell to retailers that weren’t interested in hearing about his philosophies.
Walmart, for example, was one that the company historically refused to allow to distribute its products, though the stores now carry the line.
