Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T01:59:23.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“An Honorable Place”: The Quest for Professional Advertising Education, 1900–1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Quentin J. Schultze
Quentin J. Schultze
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Journalism, Drake University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw various advertisers embark on a concerted effort to create professional instruction at American universities. They had two objectives. They thought that such instruction might help individual firms determine precisely how advertising worked in the marketplace — and thereby create a science of advertising — and they hoped that university education would transform their business into a full-fledged profession. Yet these efforts brought mixed results. As such instruction came into being, advertisers found that they had little influence over the education they had sought to promote, and they found that such training had chosen to follow one of two divergent paths, neither of which the industry thought wholly acceptable. Even more to their dismay, advertisers found that this education did not in fact convert their business into a profession.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 16 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hopkins, Claude C., My Life in Advertising (New York, 1927), 7.Google Scholar

2 Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

3 For two good discussions of professionalization within the university, see Bledstein, Burton J., The Culture of Professionalism (New York, 1976)Google Scholar and Furner, Mary O., Advocacy and Objectivity (Lexington, 1975).Google Scholar Some of the consequences of the merging of science and business are cogently analyzed in Noble, David F., America By Design (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

4 Gale was, like Scott, a rebel personality in the psychological community. For his own reflections on the state of psychology during the turn-of-the-century period, see Roth, Russell, “One Man's Story,” Ski-U-Mah (University of Minnesota student magazine), October 1940, 10.Google Scholar The information in the next few paragraphs about Scott's life is taken from Jacobson, J. Z., Scott of Northwestern (Chicago, 1951).Google Scholar

5 “Advertising As a University Subject,” Printers' Ink (cited hereafter as PI), 79 (June 20, 1912), 19.

6 “For and Against Psychology in Advertising,” PI, 97 (December 28, 1916), 25.

7 PI (August 26, 1903), 35.

8 “Empiricism or Psychology?,” Mahin's Magazine, 2 (October 1903), 521.

9 “The Psychology of Selling,” The Business World, 25 (November 1905), 609.

10 Ibid. For additional insight into the merging of business and social science, see Pope, Daniel Andrew, “The Development of National Advertising, 1865–1920” (Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1973)Google Scholar; Baritz, Loren, The Servants of Power (New York, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Curti, Merle, “The Changing Concept of ‘Human Nature’ in the Literature of American Advertising,” Business History Review, 41 (Winter 1967), 335–357CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ewen, Stuart, Captains of Consciousness (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; McMahon, Michal A., “An American Courtship: Psychologists and Advertising Theory in the Progressive Era,” American Studies, 13 (Fall 1972), 5–18Google Scholar; Schultze, Quentin J., “Advertising, Science and Professionalism 1885–1917” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois, 1978)Google Scholar; and Kuna, David P., “The Concept of Suggestion in the Early History of Advertising Psychology,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 12 (1976), 347–3533.0.CO;2-M>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, “Early Advertising Applications of the Gale-Cattell Order-of-Merit Method,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 15 (1979), 38–46, and “The Psychology of Advertising, 1896–1916 (Ph.D. Thesis, University of New Hampshire, 1976).

11 Jacobson, Scott of Northwestern, 69–73. The influence of the earliest books on the development of advertising and marketing is discussed in Coolsen, Frank G., “Pioneers in the Development of Advertising,” Journal of Marketing, 12 (July 1947), 80–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Bruce, H. Addington, “Psychology and Business,” The Outlook, September 1911, 32.Google Scholar

13 “Teachers of Advertising Organize,” Judicious Advertising, 13 (July 1915), 89Google Scholar. Also see Coolsen, Frank Gordon, “The Development of Systematic Instruction in the Principles of Advertising” (M.A. Thesis, University of Illinois, 1942), 38–42.Google Scholar

14 Craig, J. H., “A Plea for Advertising Endowment,” Advertising and Selling, 19 (February 1910), 1222.Google Scholar Also see “Can Advertising Be Scientized?,” Agricultural Advertising, 23 (June 1911), 46–48Google Scholar.

15 Scott, Walter Dill, The Theory of Advertising (Boston, 1903), 33.Google Scholar

16 Turtle, William P. Jr, “Advertising as a Profession,” Profitable Advertising, 15 (December 1905), 863.Google Scholar

17 Whitney, George H., “Advertising Courses in Universities and Colleges,” PI, 73 (December 8, 1910), 5.Google Scholar

18 “Advertising As It's Taught,” Part I, Profitable Advertising, 14 (March 1905), 1101.

19 “Advertising As It's Taught,” Part II, Profitable Advertising, 14 (April 1905), 1249.

20 “The National Federation of Advertising Clubs,” Agricultural Advertising, 15 (October 1906), 366.

21 Reiner, L. W., “Mystery—Advertising's False God,” Judicious Advertising and Advertising Experience, 9 (August 1911), 45.Google Scholar

22 “Can Advertising Be Scientized?,” Agricultural Advertising, 23 (June 1911), 46.

23 “Why Is An Advertising Club?,” Judicious Advertising and Advertising Expertence, 11 (January 1913), 43–44.

24 Louis, George L., “Standardizing Advertising,” Judicious Advertising and Advertising Experience, 8 (September 1910), 101–103.Google Scholar Also see McKee, Homer, “Advertising Efficiency and Standardization of Sales,” Agricultural Advertising, 25 (October 1913), 48–55.Google Scholar

25 Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America (n.p., 1912), 336–37.

26 “A Plan to License Advertising Men,” PI, 77 (October 5, 1911), 64.

27 Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America, 129.

28 “The Ad Clubs' Educational Program Outline,” PI, 73 (November 10, 1910), 54.

29 For a provocative review of recent advertising textbooks, see Norris, Vincent P., “Advertising History—According to the Textbooks,” Journal of Advertising, 9 (1980), 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 “A Further Brief for Advertising Institute,” PI, 73 (October 20, 1910), 61.

31 “An Institute for Advertising Research,” Advertising and Selling, 20 (June 1910), 67–72.

32 Weller, C. H., “Advertising, a Science or an Art?,” Judicious Advertising and Advertising Experience, 12 (July 1914), 107–109.Google Scholar

33 See “Opinions on Kennedy's Institute Plan,” PI, 71 (June 9, 1910), 51–52 and “Difficulties Facing Proposed Advertising Institute,” PI, 73 (October 20, 1910), 65.

34 Pratt, Lewellyn E., “Educational Work of the A.A.C.W. Grows”, PI, 91 (June 24, 1915), 101.Google Scholar

35 Ibid. Also see “Associated Ad Clubs Publish Two More Books,” PI, 90 (February 4, 1915), 58, Cherington, Paul T., “How the Colleges are Teaching Advertising and Selling,” PI, 80 (July 18, 1912), 54–64Google Scholar, and “Get That Cherington Book Out,” PI, 85 (November 20, 1913), 102.

36 The seeds for the case-studies approach were evident in Cherington's book, which was “mainly a compilation of the experiences and ideas of others.” See the review in the Journal of Political Economy, 21 (December 1913), 966–967.

37 Coolsen, “The Development of Systematic Instruction in the Principles of Advertising,” 59–60. Also see Billy I. Ross, Advertising Education: Programs in Four-Year American Colleges and Universities (n.p., 1965), 16 and Cherington, “How the Colleges are Teaching Advertising and Selling,” 56–64.

38 Such psychologists included Albert Poffenberger at Columbia, Edward K. Strong at Stanford, Harry Hollingworth at New York University, and Daniel Starch at Harvard.

39 For statistics on the early years, when business and journalism courses developed simultaneously, see Ross, Advertising Education.

40 Powell, John B., “A University Course in Advertising,” Judicious Advertising, 12 (May 1914), 76.Google Scholar

41 Powell, John B., “Principles of Advertising as Taught at the University of Missouri,” Judicious Advertising, 14 (February 1916), 67–69.Google Scholar

42 Powell, John B., “What a Young Man Should Know Who Goes into Advertising,” PI, 94 (January 13, 1916), 45–52.Google Scholar

43 Powell, John B., “How Advertising is Being Taught,” PI, 85 (November 6, 1913), 57.Google Scholar

44 For an idea of the extent to which Powell sought to integrate liberal arts and advertising, see his “Principles of Advertising as Taught at the University of Missouri.”

45 Powell, “How Advertising is Being Taught,” 73.

46 Hall, S.Roland, “What Advertisers Expect From Teachers of Advertising,” PI, 95 (June 29, 1916), 94.Google Scholar

47 Cherington, “How the Colleges are Teaching Advertising and Selling.” Cherington undoubtedly knew about the work at Missouri, since Powell's articles were published in the same trade journals that published Cherington's articles.

48 Powell, John B., “Advertising as It Is Being Taught in Schools and Colleges,” PI, 90 (January 28, 1915), 38.Google Scholar

49 Wadsworth, Gerald B., “The Education of the Advertising Man,” Advertising and Selling, 21 (March 1912), 128.Google Scholar

50 “Teachers of Advertising Organize,” Judicious Advertising, 13 (July 1915), 89–90Google Scholar.

51 Hotchkiss, George B., “The Place of Advertising in a University Curriculum,” Advertising and Selling, 25 (July 1925), 58.Google Scholar

52 “Club Work for the Coming Year,” Advertising and Selling, 21 (May 1912), 36Google Scholar.

53 “Working to Make the Teaching of Advertising More Practical,” PI, 98 (January 18, 1917), 57–60.