The rise of advertising in the United States

"Edd Applegate surveys key figures and events that transformed the American business landscape from its colonial beginnings to that Mad Men moment when advertising "went professional." Applegate traces how the explosion of newspapers in the American colonies laid the groundwork for the first advertising agents, leading to America's first class of professional marketers. This entrepreneurial class of white-collar workers thrived on innovation in their quest for more publicity, larger clients, and greater sales. Some of the leaders in what remained a novel, ever-changing form of communication included: P. T. Barnum, master of the advertising gimmick; Lydia Pinkham, queen of the patent medicine cure; John Wanamaker, progenitor of modern retail advertising; Albert Lasker, the formulator of "reason why" advertising; Stanley Resor, the consummate market researcher; Elliott White Springs, the groundbreaking purveyor of the sexual innuendo. Applegate records the achievements of these individuals and others up to 1960, when advertising underwent a remarkable change, becoming a postwar subject of study and scholarship in America's colleges and universities. Written for those interested in learning about a select group of movers and shakers in this key area of American business."--