Advertising on trial : consumer activism and corporate public relations in the 1930s
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Advertising on trial : consumer activism and corporate public relations in the 1930s
（The history of communication）
University of Illinois Press, c2006
- : paper
- : cloth
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Note
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In the 1930s, the United States almost regulated advertising to a degree that seems unthinkable today. Activists viewed modern advertising as propaganda that undermined the ability of consumers to live in a healthy civic environment. Organized consumer movements fought the emerging ad business and its practices with fierce political opposition. Inger L. Stole examines how consumer activists sought to limit corporate influence by rallying popular support to moderate and change advertising. Stole weaves the story through the extensive use of primary sources, including archival research done with consumer and trade group records, as well as trade journals and engagement with the existing literature. Her account of the struggle also demonstrates how public relations developed in order 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 civic life in the 1930s but for our era as well.
Table of Contents
Preface vii 1. The Rise of a Corporate Culture: Early Consumer Response 1
2. Advertising Challenged: The Creation of Consumer's Research Inc. and the Rise of the 1930s Consumer Movement 21
3. The Drive for Federal Advertising Regulation, 1933-35 49
4. A Consumer Movement Divided: The Birth of Consumers Union of the United States Inc. 80
5. Defining the Consumer Agenda: The Business Community Joins the Fray 106
6. Legislative Closure: The Wheeler-Lea Amendment 138
7. Red-Baiting the Consumer Movement 159 Epilogue 185
Appendix A: Key Players 199
Appendix B: Legislative Developments, 1933-38 205
Notes 209
by "Nielsen BookData"