Advertising on Trial

Consumer Activism and Corporate Public Relations in the 1930s

Inger L. Stole

Publication Year: 2006

It hasn't occurred to even the harshest critics of advertising since the 1930s to regulate advertising as extensively as its earliest opponents almost succeeded in doing. Met with fierce political opposition from organized consumer movements when it emerged, modern advertising was viewed as propaganda that undermined the ability of consumers to live in a healthy civic environment. _x000B_In Advertising on Trial, Inger L. Stole examines how these consumer activists sought to limit the influence of corporate powers by rallying popular support to moderate and transform advertising. She weaves their story together through the extensive use of primary sources, including archival research done with consumer and trade group records, as well as trade journals and a thorough engagement with the existing literature. Stole's account of this contentious struggle also demonstrates how public relations developed as a way to justify laissez-faire corporate advertising in light of a growing consumer rights movement, and how the failure to rein in advertising was significant not just for that period but for ours as well. _x000B_

Published by: University of Illinois Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

From its inception in the mid-nineteenth century, national advertising has evolved into a massive enterprise. In 2003, U.S. advertisers spent an estimated $236 billion, and today some scholars conclude that each day the average American is exposed to several thousand advertisements. ...

1. The Rise of a Corporate Culture: Early Consumer Response

pdf icon Download PDF (428.4 KB)
pp. 1-20

The end of the Civil War heralded a new industrial era in the United States. By the mid-nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution, already a century in the making, was gaining strength and momentum. Some technological innovations spurred more efficient factory production whereas others, such as the railroad, steamboat, and telegraph, ...

2. Advertising Challenged: The Creation of Consumers' Research Inc. and the Rise of the 1930s Consumer Movement

pdf icon Download PDF (659.4 KB)
pp. 21-48

After the first wave of consumer activism in the early twentieth century, organized consumer activity tapered off by the end of World War I. No longer pushing for major federal regulation, consumer organizations largely concerned themselves with retail prices and sanitary issues. The National Consumers’ League (NCL) remained active. ...

3. The Drive for Federal Advertising Regulation, 1933-35

pdf icon Download PDF (703.8 KB)
pp. 49-79

Until the 1930s the few existing advertising regulations were passed and enforced at the state and local levels. In 1906 when the Federal Food and Drugs Act was passed, advertising played only a minor role in food and drug sales. Thus, it did not occur to Congress to outlaw false and misleading advertising along with misbranded foods and drugs.¹ ...

4. A Consumer Movement Divided: The Birth of Consumers Union of the United States Inc.

pdf icon Download PDF (579.8 KB)
pp. 80-105

By the mid-1930s even the most optimistic consumer activist had come to realize that consumer protection in the form of strict federal regulation was not forthcoming. Given that its key objectives had served as a model for the original Tugwell bill, Consumers’ Research Inc. (CR) was greatly disappointed by the battle’s outcome. ...

5. Defining the Consumer Agenda: The Business Community Joins the Fray

pdf icon Download PDF (646.3 KB)
pp. 106-137

The very nature of advertising in an economy dominated by oligopolistic markets suggests that advertising would find itself in a perpetual PR war to establish its legitimacy and undermine its foes. Indeed, by 1939 the industry’s various trade organizations had established permanent PR programs ...

6. Legislative Closure: The Wheeler-Lea Amendment

pdf icon Download PDF (427.3 KB)
pp. 138-158

If popular antagonism to advertising in the second half of the 1930s seemingly grew, and certainly did not diminish, the status of legislation for federal advertising regulation did not reflect this sentiment. The advertising industry had largely eliminated the threat of advertising’s aggressive regulation by 1935, ...

7. Red-Baiting the Consumer Movement

pdf icon Download PDF (557.3 KB)
pp. 159-184

Although advertising’s federal regulation was essentially established in 1938, in subsequent years the advertising industry redoubled its public relations efforts to improve consumers’ perceptions. By the late 1930s business groups and trade organizations had established permanent PR programs, and several pegged them as requiring high priority. ...

Epilogue

pdf icon Download PDF (365.4 KB)
pp. 185-198

Although the advertising industry’s strategy to control its practices was crowned with success, its PR program was far from foolproof. The start of World War II in early fall 1939 further complicated its plans for garnering public support. Even before the United States became actively involved in the war a large portion of all raw materials ...

Appendix A: Key Players

pdf icon Download PDF (296.6 KB)
pp. 199-204

Appendix B: Legislative Developments, 1933-38

pdf icon Download PDF (243.1 KB)
pp. 205-208

Notes

pdf icon Download PDF (907.4 KB)
pp. 209-278

Index

pdf icon Download PDF (552.3 KB)
pp. 279-290

E-ISBN-13: 9780252092589
Print-ISBN-13: 9780252030598

Page Count: 312
Publication Year: 2006

Series Title: The History of Communication

Advertising on Trial

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page