The Rise of American
Advertising
The first advertising specialists in America, eager to distance themselves from patent-medicine vendors and confidence men, strove to write prose that was simple and factual. That ap- proach proved short-lived, as admen, beginning at the turn of the century, started to develop more indirect, "psychological" techniques, using strategies that have since been vastly ex- tended to promote politicians as well as to sell cars, perfume, and low-calorie beer....