Hilda Clark (model)

Hilda Clark
An 1890s advertisement showing model Hilda Clark in formal 19th century attire. The ad is entitled Drink Coca-Cola 5¢.
Born	1872 Leavenworth, Kansas
Died	May 5, 1932 (aged 59–60) Miami Beach, Florida
Occupation(s)	Stage actress, model

Hilda Clark (1872 – May 5, 1932) was an American model and actress, known as the basis for the character depicted in the early-20th-century Coca-Cola advertisement Drink Coca-Cola 5¢.

Early life

Hilda Clark was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Lydia and Milton Edward Clark.

Career

Hilda Clark, from the Actresses series (N246), Type 1, issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sporting Extra Cigarettes, ca. 1890, Metropolitan Museum of Art

As a young adult Clark moved east to Boston to become a popular music hall singer and actress. However, Clark became famous as a model in 1895 when she became the first woman to be featured on a tin Coca-Cola tray. Hilda Clark remained the advertising "face" of Coca-Cola until February 1903 when she married Frederick Stanton Flower in New York, taking the name Hilda Clark Flower.

Flower was a nephew of New York Governor Roswell P. Flower. Clark had been an active socialite in Boston but retired from the stage when she married. Frederick Flower was a millionaire, involved in banking concerns and director of several railroads. Flower died in December 1930.

Death

Hilda Clark died on May 5, 1932, in Miami Beach, Florida. She was buried at Brookside Cemetery, Watertown, New York.

Bibliography

• Pendergrast, Mark. For God, Country & Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0-465-05468-4

External links

• Business Week - Hilda Clark
• Hilda Clark at Find a Grave