The Image (43 page)

Some clues to the shift in popular attitudes to advertising are found in the contrast between the humor in
Ballyhoo
, a vulgar magazine of the ’30’s which spoofed advertising by travestying its extravagant claims, and
Mad
, an advertising-oriented magazine of the ’50’s and ’60’s aimed at a comparable audience, which reaches out to spoof reality itself.
Mad’s
post-election issue in November, 1961, printed a congratulatory cover (identical except for the picture) at both ends of the
magazine: one saying “We were with you all the way, Dick!” the other substituting “Jack” for “Dick.”

Perhaps the best serious approach to the development of modern advertising is through one or another of the excellent company histories. Especially rich and readable is Boris Emmet and John E. Jeuck,
Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company
(1950). Works like this, done with depth and objectivity, admirably free of moralizing, tell us precisely which techniques succeeded or failed in selling particular products. A readable peripheral source on the place of advertising in American social history is Mark Sullivan,
Our Times: the United States, 1900–1925
(6 vols., 1926–1936), delightful for its witty and discriminating choice of detail. We have a few histories of advertising agencies, like Ralph M. Hower,
The History of an Advertising Agency
(Rev. ed., 1949). An indispensable aid for anyone seriously interested in these subjects is Henrietta M. Larson,
Guide to Business History
(1948).

Information on the rise of radio and television and their relation to advertising and other topics can be found in Leo Bogart,
The Age of Television: A study of viewing habits and the impact of television on American life
(2d ed., 1958) and in Sydney W. Head,
Broadcasting in America
(1956), which in a valuable and astonishing Appendix prints in parallel columns an item-by-item comparison of the three trade association codes of ethics for radio, television, and films. See also Joseph T. Klapper,
The Effects of Mass Communication: An Analysis of Research
 … (1960), a guide to the literature. For a specialized study see Everett C. Parker and others,
The Television-Radio Audience and Religion
(1955), a study supervised by Yale University Divinity School. Stimson Bullitt gives some brilliant suggestions on the significance of the new media for American political life in
To Be a Politician
(1959), especially Chapter 5.

Biographies remain among the most authentic and entertaining sources of information on all these topics. One of the best is P. T. Barnum’s autobiography,
Struggles and Triumphs
(1854) republished in numerous editions, for example under the title
Barnum’s Own Story: The Autobiography of
P.
T. Barnum, Combined & Condensed from the various Editions published during his lifetime
(ed. Waldo R. Browne, 1927). Almost all the other major figures in the history of American advertising lack adequate biographies. John Gunther’s
Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker
(1960) is a disappointing, thin, and pious account of one of the most interesting figures in modern American social history. For the major figures we must still
look to the magnificent
Dictionary of American Biography
(edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, 20 vols. and 2 supplements; 1928–1958) which, with its second supplement, includes prominent persons who died before Jan. 1, 1941; and the later and current volumes of
Who’s Who in America
.

The history of public relations and the profession of the public relations counsel is especially elusive because many assignments remain confidential. Some individuals and companies have been as reluctant to confess their techniques of public relations as movie stars are to reveal their cosmetic and plastic surgery secrets. But for reasons I have suggested in this book, we are becoming sophisticated—or at least increasingly curious—about all these matters. For reading on this topic see the suggestions above, under
Chapter 1
.

On the history of public opinion polling, much of the knowledgeable writing has been defensive. See, for example, George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae,
The Pulse of Democracy: The Public-Opinion Poll and How It Works
(1940). On the other side see Lindsay Rogers,
The Pollsters
(1949). The roots of interest in opinion polling, and the implications of polling were prophetically suggested in some of the writings of John Dewey, especially
The Public and its Problems
(1927), and in the early works of Walter Lippmann,
Public Opinion
(1922),
The Phantom Public
(1925), later explored in his
The Good Society
(1937). Mildred Parten,
Surveys, Polls, and Samples
(1950), though out of date, still introduces the layman to many practical and technical problems of polling. Later developments are described by Leopold J. Shapiro, “The Opinion Poll” (1956), an unpublished doctoral dissertation in the Department of Sociology of the University of Chicago, which treats the poll as a sociological phenomenon, and explores (with examples) the way people actually initiate, plan, and conduct opinion polls. It suggests some of the consequences, for example, of the intelligence, naiveté, or personal concerns of interviewers. On some of the reflexive problems of the polls, see Eric F. Goldman, “Poll on the Polls,”
Public Opinion Quarterly
, VIII (Winter, 1944–1945), 461–467, and numerous other valuable articles in that professional journal of opinion polling.

Much of the well-earned appeal of Samuel Lubell’s perceptive election reporting and predicting (
The Future of American Politics
(1952; Anchor paperback 1956);
The Revolt of the Moderates
(1956)) comes from the fact that in an era of statistical polling he deals not with images and norms of opinion, but with the motives, worries, and concerns (and in the very words) of
actual individual voters.

One intriguing subject which I have been unable to pursue is the recent history of psychology, and especially the shifting focus of psychologists who are concerned with testing “intelligence” and “personality.” I suspect that a study of this shift might reveal still wider implications of the preoccupation with images which I describe in this volume. “What the first war did for the development of techniques for assessing intellectual functioning,” Dr. Gardner Lindzey remarks, “was almost exactly duplicated by World War II in the area of motivation.” (Ed. Gardner Lindzey,
Assessment of Human Motives
(1958;1960), p. 5) The elaboration of “projective techniques” and similar testing devices expresses less interest in the person’s capacity to handle the brute facts of life than in how he fits himself into an image. “The shift in focus for psychologists from the cognitive to the conative or motivational,” Dr. Lindzey goes on, “is nicely reflected in the fact that during the past decade and a half the Rorschach Test [using the interpretation of ink blots] and unconscious motivation have become as widely known and discussed by the general public as were the intelligence test and IQ some twenty-five years earlier.” What is often thus simply described as an increasing interest in “human motivation” may, from another point of view, also reveal an increasing interest in images, with some consequences suggested in my
Chapters 5
and
6
. Hints of these changing interests among psychologists, political scientists, and public administrators can be found in the massive
Studies in Social Psychology in World War II:
Vol. I, Samuel A. Stouffer and others,
The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life
(1949); Vol. II, Samuel A. Stouffer and others,
The American Soldier: Combat and its Aftermath
(1949); and Carl I. Hovland and others,
Experiments in Mass Communication
(1949). Special topics of interest in this connection can be followed in Hermann Rorschach,
Psycho-diagnostics
(Berne, 1942); Silvan Tomkins,
The Thematic Apperception Test
(1947); Claire H. Schiller (ed.),
Instinctive Behavior: The Development of a Modern Concept
(1957). The historical development of some of these notions can be followed in Jay Wharton Fay,
American Psychology Before William James
(1939); J. C. Flugel,
A Hundred Years of Psychology
(2d ed., 1951); and A. A. Roback,
History of American Psychology
(1952). The subject of language is also obviously related to these developments; a history of logical positivism might offer helpful hints. Some of the subtlest way-opening questions were asked by Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose works can
be conveniently approached through his
Language, Thought, and Reality
(ed. John B. Carol, 1956).

Some original suggestions on the place of crime in American life (and American news) are found in Daniel Bell,
The End of Ideology
(1960), especially Chapter 7, “Crime as an American Way of Life,” and Chapter 8, “The Myth of Crime Waves.” We still need more histories of American attitudes to sports and sports news.

A detailed history of American image-making efforts abroad would be of great value to the future historian of American life and morals. So far, some of the most perceptive studies have been by foreigners—for example, by the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini,
Americans Are Alone in the World
(1953). William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick,
The Ugly American
(1958), seems to me more significant as an illustration than as a critique of what is the matter with our relations to other peoples. The authors criticize us for not doing better what we are already (but in my opinion should not be) trying to do, instead of asking whether we might not better be trying to do something else.

In the research for this book I have had the valuable aid of Harold D. Woodman, who superlatively combines the historian’s respect for fact with an eye for the large significance of detail. Without his selfless assistance this book could hardly have been written. I am also indebted to numerous friends, colleagues, and students at the University of Chicago; especially to Albert U. Romasco, who encouraged me to undertake this volume and who read and criticized the entire manuscript, and to Roger Shugg, who gave freely of his superb editorial judgment. One of the pleasures of writing this book was the opportunity to renew an old friendship with Simon Michael Bessie of Atheneum Publishers, who has patiently and ruthlessly reviewed the manuscript in all its stages. I also want to thank my other friends at Atheneum, especially Hiram Haydn and Marc Friedlaender, who have found time to read and criticize the book in detail. The manuscript has been prepared, copied, and recopied by Mrs. Ed Stack of Homewood, Illinois, to whose intelligence, efficiency, concern for detail, and devotion to the enterprise I owe more than I can say. Much of this book grows out of my research in various areas of American history over the past several years. Some of the ideas were first presented in “Democracy and Culture in America,” a paper at the conference on “Popular / Mass Culture: American Perspectives,” at the Ohio State University, October 28, 1960; “The American Image,” a talk to the Citizens’ Board of the University of Chicago, November 30, 1960; and “Varieties of Historical Experience,” a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City, December 29, 1960. A number of the notions and examples in this book were developed at the family dinner table and in discussions with my sons, Paul, Jonathan, and David. My principal editor, for this as for all my earlier books, has been my wife, Ruth F. Boorstin, who remains for me both final court of appeal and chief counsel.