The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century

by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank

  Bullis, too, helped anchor the uprooted young man. The seasoned advertising veteran lived a few blocks north of the Touchlins, and on many occasions during Lasker’s early months in Chicago, the three men gathered at the end of the day on the front stoop of Touchlin’s house, talking shop, watching the passersby, and waiting for cooling breezes on warm summer evenings.22

  No doubt they also talked about the evolution of advertising and the firm they worked for. The industry was still young, and it was evolving quickly. Advertising had once been the exclusive province of circuses and patent-medicine vendors, a tarnished legacy that contributed to its unsavory reputation. Gradually, though, a number of factors converged to make advertising a necessity—and therefore increasingly acceptable.

  One factor was the flood of complicated and specialized manufactured goods that began pouring out of America’s factories toward the end of the nineteenth century. The tonnage of raw steel produced in the United States increased from 4.4 million short tons in 1891 to 11.2 million in 1900; much of that steel went into a profusion of goods that needed new avenues of distribution.23 Previously, regional markets were enough to sustain a shovel maker or even a carriage maker; now, though, producers of more expensive products needed broader markets to survive.24

  Another factor was the development of a national transportation network—principally the railroads, which in the 1870s expanded their total trackage by an astounding 41,453 miles. The railroads’ total ton-miles nearly doubled in the decade in which Albert Lasker reported for work: from 76,207 in 1890 to 141,597 in 1900.25 Intracoastal shipping—port to port on the seacoasts and on the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and other inland waterways—also prospered. (Great Lakes dry-bulk tonnage alone increased from 35,298 in 1900 to 80,015 in 1910.26) Other kinds of networks grew up alongside the transportation infrastructure: the census found 54,000 phones in the United States in 1880, 234,000 in 1890, and 1.4 million in 1900.27

  Lagging notably far behind was the nation’s road system, which consisted of only 154,000 miles of surfaced roads in 1904. Cars, trucks, and other self-propelled vehicles weren’t yet a factor in commerce. By 1900, Chicago had issued only 189 permits for cars (90 electric-powered, 55 gasoline-powered, and 44 steam-powered). In a city of nearly 2 million people, ten women held driver’s licenses.28

  An army of intermediaries also arose to help distribute the flood of new manufactured goods: department stores, mail-order houses, and the like. Chicago was the epicenter of that activity—home not only to Marshall Field, but also to national catalog giants Montgomery Ward & Co. ($8.7 million in sales in 1900) and Sears, Roebuck and Co. ($10 million in sales in 1900). In 1900, Montgomery Ward built an impressive new headquarters at the intersection of Michigan and Madison, and by 1904, the company was mailing out more than 3 million copies of its six-hundred-page, four-pound catalog annually.

  The final factor contributing to the rise of advertising—and, of course, made possible by that advertising—was the emergence of national magazines and newspapers. The circulation of daily newspapers in the United States jumped from 254,000 in 1860 to 2.2 million in 1900.29 The circulation of the Saturday Evening Post—which began life as a newspaper and evolved in the late 1800s into one of the nation’s leading magazines—grew from 90,000 in 1855 to 1 million in 1908, and 2 million by 1913. The Ladies’ Home Journal, launched in 1883, attracted 25,000 subscribers in its first year; by 1893, it boasted 700,000 subscribers. The page of Journal advertising that commanded $200 in 1883 sold for $4,000 ten years later.30

  As advertising became a necessity, a new trade arose to meet that need. The nation’s first two agencies were both founded in 1842: one by a Philadelphian named Volney B. Palmer, and the other by a New Yorker named John Hooper. Both considered themselves “newspaper agents,” rather than advertising agents, meaning that they worked for newspapers rather than the companies who advertised in them. The next seminal figure in the industry was an entrepreneur named George P. Rowell, who produced the first comprehensive directory of newspapers in the United States and cemented his reputation late in life by producing a charming volume of reflections on the early years of the industry.31

  Rowell also earned a footnote in advertising history by turning down a job applicant named J. Walter Thompson, who—by assembling a stable of several dozen prestigious magazines under exclusive contract to him—built the biggest agency in New York. Other agencies in New York, including Charles Austin Bates’s firm, Calkins & Holden, and the George Batten Newspaper Advertising Agency, competed for both local and national accounts. But by the end of the nineteenth century, the nation’s leading advertising agency was indisputably the Philadelphia-based N. W. Ayer & Son. (In a deft marketing ploy, Francis Wayland Ayer, the agency’s founder, named it for his father, thereby implying both continuity and a salutary family influence.32) Its total billings increased from $132,000 in 1877 to $1.4 million in 1900.33 And again, this success reflected a huge and rising tide: In the second half of the nineteenth century, the total volume of advertising in the United States increased from $50 million to $500 million, and advertising expenditures grew from .7 percent to 3.2 percent of the gross national product.34

  It was no coincidence that Daniel Lord and Ambrose Thomas both hailed from Maine; indeed, a number of other major advertising figures of the day did as well. Mail-order advertising had taken root there, largely owing to the outsized influence of a publisher in Augusta named E. C. Allen, whose magazines combined popular fiction and mail-order ads and were among the most widely circulated in the country in the 1880s.35 Mail-order advertising reached a frenzied pitch toward the end of the century—about the same time that Lasker arrived at Lord & Thomas—driven largely by the roaring success of the patent medicine companies.36

  As Lasker was soon to discover, Lord & Thomas—and indeed, most advertising firms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—served mainly as intermediaries between advertisers and publishers, and were little more than brokers of magazine and newspaper space, sometimes taking responsibility for the appearance and production of the ad. Early promotions for Lord & Thomas emphasized these limited roles. A Lord & Thomas display ad in the agency’s 1892–1893 “Pocket Directory” of U.S. newspapers boasted of the agency’s skill at producing ads with “proper display, typographically.”37 An 1895 advertisement for the firm stressed a sensible division of labor between agency and client: “If you employ us to prepare and place your advertising you will find it more profitable than taking up your own time with the details.”38 In his book The Mirror Makers, Stephen Fox tells the story of the time that Daniel Lord ventured to tell an advertiser how to improve his ad. “Young man,” that client told Lord, “you may know a lot about advertising, but you know very little about the furniture business.”39

  Originally, the more successful advertising firms had spheres of influence within which they dominated their trade. J. Walter Thompson, for example, controlled space in the nation’s leading women’s magazines. Ayer controlled agricultural publications. Lord & Thomas’s original niche was religious publications. These boundaries were somewhat permeable, of course; but an advertiser who believed that a product would sell well to a religious audience was likely in the 1880s to hire Lord & Thomas to broker the advertisement.

  Gradually, advertising became a competitive free-for-all, with agencies focusing less on selling space and more on winning clients. When the Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company introduced its breakthrough cleaning device, for example, representatives from Thompson, Ayer, and Lord & Thomas traveled en masse to Bissell’s headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, as a group, they would meet with the appropriate executive—perhaps Melville Bissell himself—who would dictate the specifications for the ads he planned to place in the coming year. (He might even have the “cuts,” or text and rudimentary artwork for the ads, on the table in front of him.) The agencies would then bid for the Bissell account. Whenever possible, they would steer ads toward the publications they controll
ed, on which they would receive the highest commission: 15 percent of the cost of the ad.

  Even in this rough-and-tumble competitive environment, however, the winning advertising firm did little more than broker space in publications. Like its competitors, Lord & Thomas rarely wrote the copy for the ads it placed. “As a matter of fact,” Lasker recalled, “the agencies at that time were painfully shy in accepting responsibility for creative work.”40

  Agencies such as the National Advertising Company and Ayer began providing copy to their customers in the late 1880s, and Ayer hired its first full-time copywriter in 1892. But copywriting at these and other leading agencies remained a distinctly secondary activity—well behind rustling up business.41

  Lord & Thomas, certainly, remained “shy.” When Lasker started working there, the agency’s creative staff consisted of a graphic artist and a half-time writer who worked mornings for Lord & Thomas and afternoons for Montgomery Ward. Lasker was not much impressed by the writer. “We did Hannah & Hogg whiskey,” he said, “and he got his pay mostly in sampling the whiskey.”42

  Much later in his life, Lasker liked to say that he became an advertiser because of a staggering gambling debt incurred early in his three-month probationary period at Lord & Thomas. He claimed that he was deep in debt to dangerous characters and had to borrow money from Ambrose Thomas to pay them off, effectively rendering him an indentured servant until he paid Thomas back.

  This account of his fall from grace fudged a key detail. Lasker did indeed incur a large gambling debt—about nine months after he arrived at Lord & Thomas—and that misstep helped bind him to the firm. In the previous half-year, however, his departure for New York was delayed several times by spectacular successes in a trade that he found increasingly intriguing.

  Lasker was only a few weeks into his apprenticeship when his first stroke of good fortune occurred. Lord & Thomas had received an order from Rubens & Marble, a local manufacturer of knit underwear for infants, for twenty-four lines of space in one of the magazines within the agency’s sphere of influence. The clothing manufacturers included a check with their order. Under normal circumstances, the matter would have ended there. But Elmer Bullis—perhaps responding to Lasker’s ambition and charm, or perhaps looking to give his young colleague some experience in the art of selling—suggested that Lasker go and talk to the head of Rubens & Marble to explore whether the company could be convinced to increase its advertising budget. This appeared to be a most unpromising gambit, but Lasker was grateful for the opportunity—and remained so for the rest of his life. Decades later, he would say that Bullis, “was the fellow who was interested in him, and watched for a chance and when a prospect came up . . . gave him his chance.”43

  And so Lasker headed over to the corner of Adams and Clark Streets. Rubens & Marble had been founded in 1890 by a Mr. Rubens, a German immigrant who had come up with a new design for a baby shirt that could be folded two different ways and buttoned in the back. At this first meeting, Rubens, a thin, graying gentleman with a thick German accent—Lasker likened him to a wasp44—posed a series of probing questions about the advertising business. Not satisfied with Lasker’s answers, he complained aloud, “They think because this is a baby business, they have to send children over here!”45

  But Lasker, himself not too far removed from Germans and Germany, repeated his entire pitch to Rubens—in German.46 The crusty old clothesmaker was won over by the boyish salesman. Over dinner with Lasker that night, he increased his advertising budget to $800. This unexpected success “electrified” the office (Lasker’s term) when he walked in with the order.

  Another piece of luck soon came Lasker’s way. A very junior representative from Collier’s Weekly arrived one day at the office, looked around, and then walked over and introduced himself to Lasker. Lasker inferred that the young man was inexperienced, didn’t want to expose his ignorance to the office graybeards, and preferred to deal with someone who looked even younger than he did. The young publisher’s rep had been approached by a company interested in advertising liquor in Chicago, and needed someone to manage the account. With no effort, Lasker had landed another account.

  It was these early successes that convinced Lasker to delay his move to New York. “I was quite a hero by this accident,” Lasker later recalled, “and I was having fun.”

  Ambrose Thomas took note of Lasker’s unexpected talents. He began inviting him into his office for chats, and liked what he heard. When the three-month probationary period ended, Thomas asked Lasker to stay, and Lasker—influenced by the substantial raise that Thomas put on the table—readily agreed. Lasker was becoming quite attached to Thomas. This affection was mutual, even though Thomas was often taken aback by his young colleague’s unconventional views and methods. When Morris Lasker came to visit his son in Chicago, some eighteen months after Albert began working at Lord & Thomas, Thomas told Morris that his son was “either a genius, or crazy.”47

  Thomas, therefore, was responsive when one of his associates, Charlie Stoddard, suggested that Lasker be given another opportunity. A Cincinnati-based manufacturer of liqueurs and cordials, Rheinstrom Brothers, was planning to spend a major sum—a princely $10,000!—on advertising. The high-powered New York agent Charles Austin Bates was meeting with the Rheinstroms in two days. Barring a miracle, Bates surely would get the business. Another Lord & Thomas representative had already met with the Rheinstroms but had failed to impress them. Why not send Lasker down there, Stoddard suggested, and see if he has better luck? The train trip would be free—a standing deal between Lord & Thomas and the railroads—and the potential reward was enormous. Finally, Stoddard pointed out, the fact that both Lasker and the Rheinstroms were Jewish might help.

  Lasker found the idea of capitalizing on his Jewish heritage offensive. But there was another consideration: his younger brother Harry was traveling through Cincinnati at that time, on a layover between Virginia Military Institute and Galveston. The Rheinstrom pitch presented a free way to meet up with Harry, so Lasker hopped on the first sleeper to Cincinnati.

  The Lasker brothers met for a very early breakfast the next morning. Albert was anxious about the task that lay ahead of him: “I remember, really, literally and figuratively shaking so my whole body was perspiration, my hands were clammy, every nerve of my body as if I had St. Vitus Dance—it couldn’t have been tougher. It was hard for me to talk, because I then realized that I let them fool themselves that there was any chance, and here was I, a kid [who] didn’t know anything about advertising. I felt I was going to disgrace myself.”48

  He made his way by streetcar to the Rheinstrom company headquarters on the Cincinnati riverfront. It was an imposing three-story brick building with big double doors. As Lasker entered, he noticed a man with a reddish mustache standing at the bookkeeper’s counter, opening and sorting the mail. Lasker knew that he must be the firm’s owner, and approached him.

  When Rheinstrom barked out a gruff, “What do you want?” Lasker could only hand him a card mutely. Rheinstrom’s response was immediate and fierce. “I wouldn’t expect a young boy like you to have any sense and consideration, but your firm ought to. You have had a man here, I have told them I am not interested, and here you come on a Monday morning before I have opened my mail and you want to talk to me about advertising? Get out.”49

  Lasker fled to his hotel. There he talked the matter over with Harry, and formulated another plan: “I said, ‘The fellow is a German, Harry . . . and he will go home and eat a good lunch, and I am going to take a chance that at two o’clock, he is going to leave to go back to his office after his nap. I am going to look at his home number.’”

  A little before 2 p.m., Lasker phoned Rheinstrom and blurted out his revised pitch: “Don’t hang up the telephone; you may be affecting the course of your whole life. I am the young man who came to see you from Lord & Thomas, I am not asking for an order, but I will lose my [place]—at least let me talk to you for a few minutes. Treat me as you want to treat you
r young son, or your young nephew.”

  Rheinstrom told Lasker to come back down to the office, no doubt intending to grant only a perfunctory interview to the nervous young man from Chicago. But what Rheinstrom didn’t know was that, on his way back to the distillery, Lasker suddenly discovered that his fear had left him. He decided that he could represent Lord & Thomas as well as anybody, because at least as far as he could tell, nobody in his office really knew anything much about the business they were in: “So little was known about the principles of advertising [that] I had as good a right to talk about them as anyone.”50 Several hours later, Rheinstrom was sold.

  Fireworks burst within him, Lasker wrote later. He had looked failure squarely in the eye and realized that he very much wanted to succeed at this new venture. He had to admit it: he was having fun, and the sums that he was now bringing into the office were beyond anything he might have imagined. “I was on the way to building up a clientele of $25,000 a year,” he later recalled, “and that was enormous. That was respectability.”

  Soon after agreeing to hire Lord & Thomas, Rheinstrom took Lasker into a back room to meet his brother Ike. Ike looked Lasker over, and asked if he was by any chance related to a Morris Lasker of Galveston, Texas. Rheinstrom Brothers was one of Morris’s clients, and this connection, had it been revealed earlier, might have been every bit as persuasive as Lasker’s four-hour pitch. But that kind of success “would have been bitter in my mouth,” he later admitted.

  Lasker had now firmly established himself as an advertising salesman at Lord & Thomas. But he never got over the fright he felt when meeting new clients. Long after he had earned a reputation as a pioneer and giant in the advertising field, he would shake with fear before that first meeting.

  This was more than stage fright. Throughout his life, Lasker lived with a fear of getting called out as a humbug—of being discovered as unqualified for the task in front of him. Contemplating a job with the Shipping Board in the early 1920s, for example, Lasker confessed to “a feeling of deep inadequacies, a feeling that I was going to be very unhappy because I was untrained and inadequate, a feeling that I was a four-flusher attempting to do something that I knew I wasn’t competent to do.”51