Anyone on a south pacific island of European origin might rightly be concerned of sunburn, the same as today if visiting the
beach and everyone is lathering on sun screen.
Maybe. The island has harsh sunlight as anyone there could attest. We now know UV light from sun exposure is harmful to the skin. Did they know it then? If so, did they care and could they do anything about it? William H. and Nancy K. Young in their book "World War II and the Postwar Years in America" (p. 687) say:
"In the 1940s, a good visible tan, the darker the better, represented robust
health. (Emphasis is in the original text.) The notion of staying out of the sun because of its long-term injurious effects remained for future generations to discover. In light of the positive attitudes tanning elicited, Miami-based pharmacist Benjamin Green in 1944 introduced a lotion designed to enhance (i.e., darken) one's tan. He called his product Coppertone, and he placed the image of an Indian chief on the label with the slogan, 'Don't be a Paleface.'
"Not until 1953 did Green's company create the iconic Coppertone Girl for its advertising....
"In addition, Green reputedly concocted a primitive sunscreen lotion around this time. U.S. troops stationed in the South Pacific suffered from excessive exposure to the tropical sun, and welcomed Red Vet Pet (for Red Veterinary Petroleum), a red, greasy salve that probably blocked some rays if applied heavily enough. But the day for true sunscreens still lay in the years ahead." (Red Vet Pet was, so far as I can tell, sold in tubes, not glass bottles.)
When set against the context of contemporaneous attitudes to sun exposure, Amelia Earhart's off-the-cuff remarks in the Omaha World-Herald for Oct. 11, 1928 are surprising, and seem ahead of their time: "How do you prevent sunburn and keep that lovely complexion?" Miss Earhart wanted to know. "I get so burned and tanned that I'm sometimes ashamed of my weather-beaten appearance."
The 1937 Abilene Reporter News article cited earlier, wherein AE is said to have accepted a skin preparation from strangers for sunburn, repeats this theme.
What sort of product would an American in 1937 be using if that American thought the sun was, rather than a means to good health, a means to a "weather-beaten" complexion. If it's a sunscreen you need, you're out of luck. The best one could do would be to buy products that relieved the symptoms after the fact. By coincidence, both Dr. Berry's Freckle Ointment and Campana Italian Balm claimed exactly that relief, as can be ascertained by reading the labels on the products from the attached photo.
Tuvaluans and i-Kiribati colonists, British overseers and Coast Guardsmen would seem unlikely candidates for these types of sensitivities, and even if they were, if Berry and Campana are the products they used to address them, we're stuck with the fact that both products have American women pictured prominently on their labels.
I would grant that we probably can't know what the artifact bottles contained, in the sense we can know Nikumaroro had Tuvaluans, and one can always imagine undocumented products as well as undocumented events that could bring them to that place and time. It's simply part of a circumstantial case that I happen to find compelling enough to research.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078 ECR