I was talking with my girlfriend tonight about shaving armpits and she told me that it was started by one of the razor companies back in the 1920s. They wanted to sell more razor blade and so started a big media blitz to convince women that leg and armpit hair was ugly (and it seems they succeeded).

When we got home, I looked on the net and came up with references, but no real factual stories. I did find a lot of references to early Gilette razors for women, so I would guess it was they who started the propaganda campaign.

The closest I could find was this paragraph
"The theory is that American women started shaving in the first decades of the 20th century when dress cuts started showing more leg, and sleeveless dresses showing underarms. American women became the target of a new marketing claim that they needed to be "clean" shaven. In May of 1915, "Harper's Bazaar" magazine featured a dress advertisement photo of a young woman with her arm raised and a perfectly smooth armpit with the caption, "Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair." Shortly thereafter, the shocking term "underarm" was being used and a new market for razor blades was born."
from this site Art and Culture about nakedness

Pubic Hair Removal which briefly dicusses removal of any/all hair as far back as 4000 BC

Body Hair where a young woman question why she shaves various places (scroll down past the first two paragraphs).

All the Pits which has links to a number of articles and anecdotes regarding women shaving.

I probably could have found something more concrete, but honestly I was tired of weeding thru all the sites that came up when I put "women shave armpits" in Google (is there anything you can search on that doesn't come up with tons of hits for porn sites?).

PS- and of course, as I change windows to post this, something on the search engine catches my eye, and I see, "According to Herbie McNinch, inventor and president of Quick Shave, Inc., the ritual of women shaving their legs and armpits began in 1915 because of a razor company's marketing campaign. The campaign was designed to convince women that hairy underarms are unfeminine and unhygienic. Razor blade sales doubled within two years. Advertising worked, and the tradition was begun." taken from this site, Let It Grow .