The adman in the parlor : magazines and the gendering of consumer culture, 1880s to 1910s /
Adman in the parlour Adman in the parlour : Magazines and the gendering of consumer culture, 1880s to 1910s
Ellen Gruber Garvey.
- viii, 230 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-220) and index.
Introduction -- Readers Read Advertising into Their Lives: The Trade Card Scrapbook -- Training the Reader's Attention: Advertising Contests -- "The Commercial Spirit Has Entered In": Speech, Fiction, and Advertising -- Reframing the Bicycle: Magazines and Scorching Women -- Rewriting Mrs. Consumer: Class, Gender, and Consumption -- "Men Who Advertise": Ad Readers and Ad Writers -- Conclusion: Technology and Fiction -- Notes -- Index. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
How did advertising come to seem ordinary and even natural to turn-of-the-century magazine readers? The Adman in the Parlor explores readers' interactions with advertising during a period when not only consumption but advertising itself became established as a pleasure. Garvey's analysis interweaves such diverse texts and artifacts as advertising scrapbooks, chromolithographed trade cards and paper dolls, contest rules, and the advertising trade press. She argues that the readers' own participation in advertising, not top-down dictation by advertisers, made advertising a central part of American culture. As magazines became dependent on advertising rather than sales for their revenues, women's magazines led the way in turning readers into consumers through an interplay of fiction and advertising. General magazines, too, saw little conflict between editorial interests and advertising. Instead, advertising and fiction came to act on one another in complex, unexpected ways. Magazine stories illustrated the multiple desires and social meanings embodied in the purchase of a product. Advertising formed the national vocabulary. At once invisible, familiar, and intrusive, advertising both shaped fiction of the period and was shaped by it. The Adman in the Parlor unearths the lively conversations among writers and advertisers about the new prevalence of advertising for mass-produced, nationally distributed products.
0195108221 9780195108224 0195092961 9780195092967
95009467
Short stories--Publishing--History--United States--19th century. Periodicals--Publishing--Economic aspects--United States. Popular literature--History and criticism--United States American fiction--History and criticism--20th century Short stories, American--History and criticism Literature and society--History--United States--19th century. Advertising, Magazine--History--United States Books and reading--History--United States--20th century. Women consumers--Attitudes--United States