Council Bluffs' Tiniest Couple

John G. Woodward wasn't the first to use little people in advertising, but may well have contributed to what became a popular trend for the next couple of decades.  Buster Brown shoes had adopted a comic strip character as their advertising image a few years earlier and hired little people to play Buster in tours around the country.  This came at the time when the trend was to introduce novelty into advertising to attract consumer attention in what was becoming the highly competitive world of marketing.  Woodward's approach was different in that the company treated the Bregants with respect.  What the company called "the lightest weight and best proportioned couple in the world" were photographed in adult poses and portrayed as sophisticated, unlike Little Oscar the Chef of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile or Sunshine Bakers promoting "the cutest midgets you ever saw." 

The Bregant's custom-made home was restored by Preserve Council Bluffs and is open for tours.  Find more information about the house: https://sites.google.com/thehistoricalsociety.org/pcb/home/bregant-house