The Ad Men and Women: A Biographical Dictionary of Advertising [Hardcover]

Edd Applegate (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0313278016 | ISBN-13: 978-0313278013 | Publication Date: April 30, 1994

This reference provides extended biographical profiles of 54 men and women who have shaped advertising from the 19th century to the present. The profiles provide basic biographical information and discuss their careers and contributions in detail. Each entry concludes with a bibliography of works by and about the subject and a list of major clients and advertising campaigns. The volume closes with a selected bibliography of works for further reading. Included are copywriters, key business people from major agencies, and people who contributed to advertising theory and psychology.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Fifty-four men and women who played major roles in American advertising from the nineteenth century to the present are profiled in this useful and entertaining work. The signed articles discuss at length each subject's career and contributions to the field. Similar in length to entries in Current Biography, each concludes with a bibliography of works by and about the subject and a list of his or her notable campaigns and/or clients. The editor, who teaches college-level journalism, conceived this work after searching for a good reference on the topic and not finding one. Applegate states that "if readers were familiar with the lives of creative personalities they would be in a position to understand more fully how (and why) creativity occurs."

Among other accomplishments, the individuals profiled here created many famous campaigns and built large and successful agencies, as their last names are sufficient to remind us: Batten, Barton, Durstine, Osborn, Benton, Bowles, Foote, Belding, Ogilvy, McCann, Thompson, Burnett, Della Femina, etc. Nine women are the subjects of articles. Through reading each individual's story, one also gets a picture of the overall history of advertising. Since advertising affects all our lives, the appeal of this book is wide. The book concludes with a bibliography, an index, and a list of the 32 contributors with their affiliations.

The Ad Men and Women will be a good addition to all but the smallest business collections.

Review

“This unique reference dictionary will be of obvious utility in business libraries, but should also be useful in institutions teaching journalism/advertising, popular culture, or American social history.”–Choice

“The brief biographies give a sense of the ingenuity, energy, and audacity that characterized these shapers of consumer America, these authors of the language of our lives.”–Studies in Popular Culture

“The book offers over 400 choice pages of the story of creative advertising in America.”–Communication Arts

“What you get from the profiles included here is a nice mixture of advertising men and women who work hard-or easy-with imagination-or without it. But we see the way that world works, and that is sufficiently evidenced in this book.... Needed on all library shelves.”–Journal of Popular Culture

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 401 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press (April 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0313278016
• ISBN-13: 978-0313278013
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,011,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edd Applegate earned his doctorate in mass communications and higher education from Oklahoma State University. He has received several fellowships and grants from various organizations, including the Donald and Geraldine Hedberg Foundation, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, the Annenberg Washington Program, the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, the Gannett Foundation, the Missouri Commission on Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. He has received scholarships from the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. He has attended insightful seminars at the Direct Marketing Institute for Professors, the Annenberg Washington Program, the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, the American Press Institute, and the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, among others. In addition to writing books, he has contributed approximately 75 entries and chapters to encyclopedias and other books. He has contributed more than 30 articles to refereed and non-refereed journals. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in advertsing and mass communications at several universities. His most recent book, which was published in 2011, concerns journalism in the United States.