Madame Sylvia of Hollywood and Physical Culture, 1920-1940

Sylvia Ullback, or ???Sylvia of Hollywood,??? was a beauty practitioner and writer in the 1920s and 1930s. An immigrant to America in the 1920s, Ullback???s career and discussion of women???s bodies and beauty paralleled historical developments in physical culture and beauty. She was trained in European ideas and techniques and she applied this training in her career in the United States. She emerged as the expert on beauty and the body in the late 1920s and represented a shift from the 1920s ???reducing craze???, a period of extreme dieting techniques. Her methods and philosophies represented a new form of reducing based on healthy dieting and exercise. After departing from Hollywood where she worked with the Hollywood stars, she transformed herself into an author of popular magazine articles and books. Her articles reflected the culture of the Great Depression and contained an empowering message for women during this time. During the depression she became increasingly popular and she published several books in addition to her articles and her radio show. However by the mid-1930s, the attitude toward physical culture began to shift. The rise of Nazi Germany and fascist theories about the ???superior??? Aryan body and their nationalistic ideal of physical culture led to a decline in the popularity of physical culture in America. Consequently, Ullback began to struggle to maintain her platform and tried to shift her discussion of the body and beauty. Ultimately, she was unsuccessful and in 1939, after publishing her last book, she withdrew from the public sphere. This thesis examines the shifts that took place from 1920-1940 in ideas about the body and physical culture through Ullback???s life and career.Histor