Advertising on Trial: Consumer Activism and Corporate Public Relations in the 1930s

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

1 The Rise of a Corporate Culture: Early Consumer Response 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, allowed for easier transportation and communication that, in turn, facilitated changes with large social, cultural, and economic ramifications. As the number of factories increased, immigrants and native-born Americans flocked to industrial centers in search of work.U.S.cities grew in direct proportion.Between 1880 and 1890, for example, Chicago’s population doubled. Other cities experienced tremendous growth as well. Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland were among the cities to witness a population increase of more than 60 percent, and Minneapolis–St. Paul saw its population triple.1 Technological innovations, combined with the massive influx of immigrant workers to America’s burgeoning industrial centers, contributed to a record production of goods in the years immediately following the American Civil War. Increasingly sophisticated machinery enabled large factories to mass-produce items that only a few years earlier had required labor-intensive processes at home. The result was a torrent of well-made, lower-priced goods flowing into shops, stores, and, eventually, the homes of people. By the turn of the century men and women alike came to rely on mass production to fill their product needs, and Americans began to think of themselves as consumers. Commercialization had so infiltrated U.S. life that corporate influence had grown quite significant.  . advertising on trial This power,however,was not absolute or ironclad,and by the early twentieth century a sizable group within the middle-class population attempted to lessen corporations’ might. Commonly referred to as the Progressive movement , these reformers did not want to do away with big business altogether but rather sought to pass laws and regulations that would make it more accountable to the citizenry.As people adjusted to their new role as consumers ,one large legislative battle during the first decade of the twentieth century raged over the extent to which the public was entitled to information about the food and drugs they bought and consumed. If corporate power assumed many faces during this time, its most visible one was advertising. After the Civil War national advertising crystallized into its modern form, and within a few decades national advertising media, advertising agencies, and advertising trade groups emerged. In a relatively few years, as advertising veered from mere price and product information to an emphasis on image-based, emotional, even deceptive appeals, it became both an influential and a controversial business practice. To the public a less visible development within the corporate political economy was public relations. In addition to becoming a vital weapon for business in the marketplace of ideas, public relations would become an essential component of the advertising industry’s campaigns to protect itself from public criticism throughout the twentieth century. The Rise of National Advertising and a Modern Consumer Culture The starting point for understanding advertising is asking why it exists. Advertising must be understood, first and foremost, as a business expense. But this is far from sufficient; the United States has had a private-enterprise economy throughout its history, but national advertising emerged as a dominant institution only in the twentieth century.Advertising was in use before, of course, but most ads were akin to what today is called classified advertising, that is, dry factual reports informing costumers about products and their availability. A merchant might place a notice in the local paper informing customers about a new shipment of lace, calico, or French milled soaps, for example. Following the Civil War advertising began its climb to prominence. By around 1890 the market situation had changed from one in which many local manufacturers produced a variety of consumer products for local consumption to one dominated by a few large companies.It did not take long, however, before these large producers were faced with a problem. Limited outlets hampered the distribution of their goods, and this, in turn, the rise of a corporate culture ·  threatened capital investment in machinery, labor, and products. Manufacturers realized that they needed to seek national markets—in effect to cast a wider net. They turned to national advertising.2 This explanation is good as far as it goes, but...