Margaret Fishback


Not to be confused with Margaret Fishback Powers, an author associated with the prose poem "Footprints".
Margaret Fishback, later Margaret Fishback Antolini, was a relatively well-published American poet and prose author from the late 1920s until the 1960s. Born in Washington, DC, she earned a degree from Goucher College before joining Macy's as a divisional advertising copywriter in 1926. During the 1930s she was reputed to be the world's highest-paid female advertising copywriter. She was published in The New Yorker, the New York Herald Tribune, and several well-known women's magazines. According to a large collection of her papers held by Duke's Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, "Fishback contributed to advertising campaigns for Arrow Shirts, Borden's, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, Clairol, DuPont, Gimbels, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Hanes Hosiery, Martex, Norsk, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Seagram's, Simmons Beautyrest, and Wrigley, among several others."
Fishback died in Camden, Maine, at the age of 85. Fishback was married to Alberto Gastone Antolini, the chief rug buyer for Macy's, from 1935 to 1956. They had one son.

Books

An extensive selection of Fishback's poetry first published in periodicals later appeared in book form. Among these collections were the following:
Fishback also wrote some books for children and collaborated with artist Hilary Knight to produce A Child's Book of Natural History, a revision and extension of A Child's Primer of Natural History by Oliver Herford. She wrote a book of etiquette, Safe Conduct: When to Behave—And Why, and a humorous guide to parenthood under the title Look Who's a Mother! A Book About Babies for Parents, Expectant and Otherwise.