Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 10:30 p.m. on KPBS 2 / Not available on demand. From the late 1940s until his death in 1959, "Colonel" Elliott White Springs spearheaded an innovative ad campaign that made Springmaid sheets a household word and changed the approach of the country's advertising industry. The "Colonel" began acquiring and commissioning artwork depicting attractive young women as "Springmaids," and he copiously employed sexual innuendo in his ad copy.