Personalities and Products: A Historical Perspective on Advertising in America (Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications) [Hardcover]

Edd C. Applegate (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0313303649 | ISBN-13: 978-0313303647 | Publication Date: January 30, 1998

Profiling such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, P. T. Barnum, John Wanamaker, and Harley Procter, this book examines the contributions that several prominent individuals have made to advertising in America. The work opens with a discussion of Colonial advertising and the printers, such as Benjamin Franklin, who created it. It then goes on to consider early advertising agents such as Francis Wayland Ayer and the contributions of the great promoter P. T. Barnum.

Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and the advertising of patent medicines is also covered, as is John Wanamaker's impact on retail advertising. The book then examines the advertising style of Albert Lasker, owner of Lord and Thomas advertising agency, as well as Harley Procter's advertising of Ivory soap and Procter & Gamble's first 100 years. Elliot White Springs's use of sex in advertising and the Springs Cotton Mills advertising campaign of the 1940s and 1950s concludes the volume.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is a quick read and is clearly not intended to be a comprehensive history of advertising. Yet in its brevity it provides enough background material to make many of the people gain dimensional significance. In doing so, it presents important people interestingly in a way that is unassuming, straightforward, and occasionally charming....[F]or those interested in gaining a better sense of some of advertising's legendary characters and the times and challenges they faced, the book should be quite satisfying. Readers will find this book provides texture to the stories of some of the more famous and infamous people who have affected advertising in America....And it is certainly a worthy read for any professor of mass communications or marketing interested in the fascinating roots of today's advertising world."-Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

About the Author

EDD APPLEGATE is Professor in the School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (January 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0313303649
• ISBN-13: 978-0313303647
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,918,926 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.