Book Review: The Rise of Advertising in the United States: A History of Innovation to 1960, by Edd Applegate

Abstract

Edd Applegate The Rise of Advertising in the United States: A History of Innovation to 1960. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012. 198 pp.The $557 billion global advertising industry has roots in the beginnings of the American colonial economy where pamphlets and signboards were the tactics of the day. Advertising educators in search of a book to provide students with an understand- ing of some of the better-known contributors to the development of advertising may want to open the pages of this book.The first chapter begins with a general description of the colonial economy and the Quaker, Puritan, and Anglican cultural influences on the first Great Awakening, and the advent of a more prosperous colonial economy. Applegate traces the beginnings of commerce from the late-seventeenth century to increased competition among mer- chants and the growth in the number of print shops that sparked the popularity of newspaper advertising by 1820. The chapter draws heavily on biographical sketches of Benjamin Harris, John Campbell, Benjamin Franklin, William Bradford, John Peter Zenger, James Parker, John Dunlap, and Francis Child, as well as the economic diffi- culties that magazine publishers faced.Working from Harvard University historian Ralph Hower's four stages of advertis- ing agency development, the book's second chapter describes the first stage of the newspaper agent and the rise of the next three stages of space-jobbing, space- wholesaling, and the establishment of the independent advertising agency. The first American newspaper agent, Volney B. Palmer, quickly learned that selling space was a lucrative business and was the first to use the term advertising agency as he sought clients for the 1,300 newspapers he claimed to represent. Palmer worked on a 25 per- cent commission from publishers and urged his clients to use advertising as a means to establish new markets.The chapter concludes with the story of N. W. Ayer and Son, which is considered the first U.S. advertising agency in 1868. Francis Wayland Ayer, the son of Nathan Wheeler Ayer, drew upon the work of his father and George P. Rowell. Applegate points out that one of Ayer's key contributions to advertising history was his belief that the advertising agent should represent the advertiser and not the advertiser and the publisher. It was Francis Ayer who encouraged market research to establish the impor- tance of it in decision making.Chapters three and four feature the contributions of Phineas Taylor Barnum and Lydia Pinkham to advertising history. P. T. Barnum began his career writing advertise- ments for the Bowry Amphitheater. Following his purchase of Scudders' American Museum, Barnum discovered that traditional newspaper advertisements were not suf- ficient to draw crowds and sell tickets. During a promotion for the Bearded Lady, Barnum hired a man to sue the museum for defrauding the public and the plaintiff claimed the Bearded Lady was, in fact, a man. The court case garnered just the pub- licity that Barnum wanted for the museum, and his business flourished. Perhaps best known for perfecting the publicity stunt, Barnum discovered that deception, not truth, in advertising turns a healthy profit.Influenced by Dr. John King's book The American Dispensatory as well as a home remedy from George Todd, in 1875 Lydia Pinkham with her son Daniel created Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound along with advertisements and a four-page pam- phlet that claimed the product cured women's ailments. Pinkham's advertising copy included the mainstays of modern advertising such as testimonials from women who had found a cure in the compound, as well as emotional appeals.Although highly successful into the early-1890s, compound sales began to decline in part due to a reduction in advertising expenditures by the Pinkham company and because publications like The Ladies' Home Journal discontinued patent medicine advertising (as well as news stories criticizing patent medicines as fraudulent). …