Greatness has to start somewhere, and somewhere for Margaret Hockaday was Wichita, Kansas, on January 8, 1907. Born to I. Newton and Bird Hockaday, Margaret was influenced by literature from the beginning. After her father left the family, Margaret, her mother, and her two brothers moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where her mother went to work for a publisher. "The [Hockaday] children were surrounded with books and magazines, a literary environment that might have influenced the career choices of all three," (Neuberger-Lucchesi 1994, 186). Growing up in Oak Park, where Frank Lloyd Wright made a name for himself, sparked Hockaday's interest in architecture and design (Neuberger-Lucchesi 1994, 186).

Margaret Hockaday attended Vassar College in upstate New York, and upon graduating, went to work as a copywriter for Marshall Field in 1929. Hockaday noted "that was when everyone started either at Macy's or Field's - at $25 a week" (Johnson 1957, 50). Hockaday stayed on at Marshall Field for four years before moving to New York and joining the staff of Vogue as a fashion editor. Margaret also spent time at Harper's Bazaar and at J. Walter Thompson.

Her experience with, and interest in, fashion brought her to her next assignment with Montgomery Ward. There Hockaday worked on mail-order catalogs, where she states that she "injected fashion into mail-order ... and found that the mail-order customer was no longer a year behind Fifth Ave" (Johnson 1957, 50). It appears that Margaret had the ability to understand the needs and the mindset of the average consumer early in her career. This would prove to be one of the reasons that her own agency became such a success.

To find out about Margaret Hockaday and her founding of Hockaday Associates, click here.

To go back to the station, click here.