43. The direct quotations are from My Life in Advertising, 82.
44. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 101–102.
45. Ibid., 105.
46. Ibid., 105–106.
47. Another family that came into the business at the founding was the Stuarts, who ultimately led the company for three generations. After Robert D. Stuart Jr. retired in 1983, the succeeding management sold the company to PepsiCo.
48. See J. George Frederick, “Selling Quaker Oats, Pettijohn’s, Apitezo, Quaker Rice, etc.,” Judicious Advertising, September 1906. This account implies strongly that Quaker was a small Lord & Thomas account that the agency hoped might grow.
49. Except where noted, this story comes from Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 146–153.
50. According to Lasker and Sparkes, Hammered Brass, Quaker was already embarrassed that a dime would purchase 22 ounces of oats, but only 8 ounces of puffed rice. Lord & Thomas pointed out that this made the puffed product a luxury item, and that raising the price only recognized that reality. Copywriter Bob Crane, however, remembers that Quaker was eager to raise the price, and that “if we maintained the volume that they had at ten cents, after raising the price three cents a package, they would give us their entire business.”
51. Lord & Thomas, Quaker Oats client account notes.
52. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 148. Hopkins’s ads referred to Anderson as a “famous dietician”—which soon enough became true.
53. Ibid., 148.
54. The oats campaign, Hopkins later admitted, was far less successful, because his strategy of creating new oatmeal-eaters proved too expensive.
55. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 149.
56. Ibid., 150.
57. Safe Advertising, written by (but not attributed to) Claude C. Hopkins, and published in 1909 by Lord & Thomas, 33.
58. Hopkins (on page 135) may have gotten Johnson’s first name wrong; the head of the company in this period was Caleb Johnson.
59. From the Palmolive client account notes.
60. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 137.
61. Ibid., 138.
62. Lord & Thomas, Palmolive client account notes.
63. Where discrepancies arise, we have corrected Hopkins’s numbers to conform to those in the client account.
64. Palmolive client account notes.
65. Sparkes interview with David Noyes.
66. From “Our History,” on the Colgate-Palmolive Web site, http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/Corp/History/1806.cvsp.
67. Hugh Allen, The House of Goodyear: Fifty Years of Men and Industry (Cleveland, OH: Corday & Gross, 1943), 340–341. Much of this story comes from Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 126–133. The House of Goodyear, however, contains some specifics that contradict or complement Hopkins’s rather loose account; we have favored Allen where those discrepancies arise.
68. Sparkes interview with Robert Crane.
69. “Corporate History by Year,” at the Goodyear corporate Web site, www.goodyear.com/corporate/yhistory.html.
70. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 128.
71. Allen, The House of Goodyear, 341. The Goodyear client account notes give very different growth numbers, and don’t correlate them with specific years. Car production figures are from the U. S. Census (www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/012439.html).
72. “Corporate History by Year.”
73. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, 130.
74. Sparkes interview, 262.
75. “We arranged to absorb the business of the George B. Van Cleve Agency,” Lasker later wrote, “[and] Van Cleve and some of his men came with us.” Quoted in Lasker and Sparkes, Hammered Brass.
76. Sparkes, 280.
77. Ibid., 281.
78. Sparkes interview with Mark O’Dea. Seiberling didn’t like being contradicted, and the fact that Seiberling and Hopkins were very similar in appearance may have further complicated their relationship.
79. Sparkes, 282.
80. Ibid., 231.
81. Ibid., 261.
82. Mark Leland O’Dea, “An Ad Man Remembers,” eulogy following Hopkins’s death, 1932.
83. Sparkes, 256.
84. Ibid., 121.
85. Lasker, The Lasker Story, 44.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. In 1934, Lasker said that he “vividly remembered” his first encounter with the growers, at a meeting that included a representative of the Southern Pacific Railway. That meeting didn’t occur until 1907, as explained in subsequent pages. Either Lasker wasn’t at the ill-fated 1904 meeting, or his memory failed him after three decades—or he chose in 1934 not to make reference to the false start in 1904.
2. Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 162.
3. Much of this historical background is derived from two books: Rahno Mabel MacCurdy, The History of the California Fruit Growers Exchange (Los Angeles: CFGE, 1925; and Heritage of Gold: The First 100 Years of Sunkist Growers, Inc., 1893–1993 (Van Nuys, CA: Sunkist Growers, Inc., 1993). Heritage of Gold was based, in part, on the previous book.
4. From Claude C. Hopkins, Real Salesmanship in Print, first published by Lord & Thomas in 1911, 81. The publication was updated periodically; in this account, we draw on the revised printer’s galleys.
5. Don Francisco, “The Cooperative Advertising of Farm Products,” address delivered at the 57th Annual Convention of the CFGE, Sacramento, CA, December 10, 1924.
6. Albert D. Lasker, “The Relationship of the Freedom of Advertising to a Free Press,” address delivered at the Boston Conference on Retail Distribution, September 25, 1934.
7. In Brandon’s obituary in the Fargo (North Dakota) Forum, he is described as an “expert in fruit marketing” (Fargo Forum, November 29, 1937). His career with Lord & Thomas apparently spanned the two decades between 1904 and 1924.
8. The ad is reproduced in full (and in full color) in Heritage of Gold, 43. The cartoon is reproduced in The History of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, 60.
9. The California girl, incidentally, has long blond hair; the Iowa girl appears to have short brown hair under her winter hat.
10. Heritage of Gold, 44.
11. The History of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, 62.
12. It was not until 1952 that the CFGE officially changed its name to “Sunkist Growers, Inc.”
13. The History of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, 63.
14. Hopkins, Real Salesmanship in Print, 84.
15. Heritage of Gold, 45.
16. Hopkins, Real Salesmanship in Print, 88.
17. Ibid.; and Heritage of Gold, 46
18. Sparkes interview with Don Francisco, October 6, 1937.
19. Hopkins, Real Salesmanship in Print, 90.
20. Ibid.
21. Heritage of Gold, 48.
22. Starr, Inventing the Dream, 162.
23. Heritage of Gold, 50.
24. John Gunther, Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 160.
25. Sparkes interview with Don Francisco, October 6, 1937.
26. Ibid.
27. The ad is reproduced in full in Heritage of Gold, 50.
28. Extractor sales figures are from the Francisco interview; consumption figures are from Heritage of Gold, 55.
29. Lord & Thomas art director Charles Everett Johnson deserved the credit for the new, more sophisticated look, according to Don Francisco.
30. Francisco, “The Cooperative Advertising of Farm Products,” 27.
31. Ibid., 23.
32. The unsuccessful exception was the olive industry, which suffered from an unworkable exchange that combined growers and packers, which Francisco likened to “trying to drive a horse and a cow together.” A spate of olive-related poisonings in Detroit in 1921 also crippled the industry.
33. Francisco, “The Cooperative Advertising of Fa
rm Products,” 44.
34. The History of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, 70.
35. Don Francisco, “The Marketing of Commodities,” in Associated Advertising, August 1920, 11, quoted in Daniel Starch, Principles of Advertising:A Systematic Syllabus of the Fundamental Principles of Advertising (Madison, WI: The University Cooperative Co., 1910), 105.
36. “Annual Report of the Federal Trade Commission for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1920,” www.ftc.gov/os/annualreports/.
37. The best source on the California Associated Raisin Company (CARC) is Victoria Saker Woeste, The Farmer’s Benevolent Trust: Law and Agricultural Cooperation in Industrial America, 1865–1945 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
38. Sparkes interview with Don Francisco, October 11, 1937.
39. Reproduced in Woeste, The Farmer’s Benevolent Trust, 122.
40. Ibid., 128.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. “Trial of Leo M. Frank on Charge of Murder Begins,” Atlanta Constitution, July, 29, 1913, 2.
2. “Girl Is Assaulted and Then Murdered in Heart of Town,” Atlanta Constitution, April 28, 1913, 1–2. Much of our account is taken from Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968); and Steve Oney’s And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (New York: Pantheon, 2003).
3. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 3; Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 20–21.
4. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 11, 27, 35, 37, and 60.
5. “Trial of Leo M. Frank on Charge of Murder Begins,” 2–3; Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 3; Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 48.
6. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 22, 32, 35, and 37.
7. Sparkes, 42.
8. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 13.
9. Ibid., 4.
10. “Frank and Lee,” Atlanta Constitution, May 2, 1913, 1.
11. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 74, 75, and 97.
12. “Conley Says He Helped Frank,” Atlanta Constitution, May 30, 1913, 2; “Mary Phagan’s Murder Was Work of a Negro, Declares Frank,” Atlanta Constitution, May 31, 1913, 1–2.
13. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 88.
14. “Frank Convicted, Asserts Innocence,” Atlanta Constitution, August 26, 1913, 1.
15. “Frank Sentenced on Murder Charge to Hang Oct. 10,” Atlanta Constitution, August, 27, 1913, 1.
16. “Troops on Alert for Mob,” New York Times, May 2, 1913, 5; “Politics Enmeshes a Murder Mystery,” New York Times, May 24, 1913, 6; “Indicted for Girl’s Murder,” New York Times, May 25, 1913, 4; “Says Employer Slew Girl,” New York Times, August 5, 1913, 2; “Frank Sentenced to Die,” New York Times, August 27, 1913, 3; “Says Frank Is Innocent,” New York Times, October 20, 1913, 1; “Frank Seeks New Trial,” New York Times, December 17, 1913, 6.
17. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 95–98.
18. Sparkes, 286.
19. David Marx to Louis Marshall, August 30, 1913, in Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 346.
20. Ibid., 346 and 348.
21. Sparkes, 284.
22. The quotes in this section are from Sparkes, 43.
23. Sparkes, 286–287. John Gunther also credits Lasker’s sister Etta, who had friends in Atlanta, with getting her brother involved in the case (John Gunther, Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960], 88).
24. Interview, Francie Lasker Brody, March 22, 2004.
25. Sparkes, 31.
26. Sparkes, 287.
27. From pamphlet entitled Morris Lasker, Pioneer, 1840–1916, New York Public Library, 1940 *PWZ (Lasker, M).
28. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 367.
29. Sparkes, 43–45.
30. “Split Court Denies New Trial to Frank,” New York Times, February 18, 1914, 3.
31. Sparkes, 290.
32. Sparkes interview with Mark Sullivan, November 30, 1937.
33. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 374–375.
34. New York Times, February 19, 1914, 1.
35. “Frank Alibi Upheld by New Witnesses,” New York Times, March 6, 1914, 2.
36. Sparkes, 290.
37. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 94.
38. Sparkes, 49.
39. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 95.
40. Albert D. Lasker to Herbert Haas, April 20, 1914, Leo Frank Collection, American Jewish Archives.
41. Albert Lasker to Louis Wiley, April 22, 1914, Leo Frank Collection.
42. Herbert Haas to Albert Lasker, April 30, 1914, Leo Frank Collection.
43. New York Times, March 19, 1914, 1; March 22, 1914, 3; March 25, 1914, 5; and April 27, 1914, 9.
44. Eugene Levy, “‘Is the Jew a White Man?’: Press Reaction to the Leo Frank Case,” 1913–1915, Phylon 35, no. 2 (1974): 212–222.
45. Albert Lasker to Herbert Haas, April 20, 1914, Leo Frank Collection.
46. “Burns Attacked by Mob,” New York Times, May 2, 1914, 1.
47. Quoted in Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 393.
48. Ibid., 421–423.
49. For a summary of Connolly’s career, see Dennis Swibold, “The Education of a Muckraker,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, 53 (Summer 2003), 2–19, visitmt.com/history/Montana_the_Magazine_of_Western_History/summer2003/swibold.htm.
50. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 444–445.
51. “Justice to Frank Doubted by Holmes,” New York Times, November 27, 1914, 1.
52. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 451.
53. “Finds Mob Frenzy Convicted Frank,” New York Times, December 14, 1914, 4.
54. Albert Lasker to Jacob Billikopf, December 28, 1914, in Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 456.
55. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 460.
56. Ibid., 451.
57. Ibid., 467.
58. Gunther, Taken at the Flood, 88.
59. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 472, 476, and 477.
60. Sparkes, 49.
61. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 502–503.
62. Ibid., 1.
63. “Soldiers Now Guard Him,” New York Times, June 22, 1915, 1 and 6.
64. Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise, 535.
65. Ibid., 557.
66. “Leo Frank’s Throat Cut by Convict; Famous Prisoner Near Death,” New York Times, July 18, 1915, 1; “The Hideous Mob Spirit,” New York Times, July 25, 1915, 14.
67. “Warden Is Overpowered,” New York Times, August 17, 1915, 1 and 4.
68. “Took Frank’s Life in ‘Resentment,’” New York Times, August 18, 1915, 3
69. “Grim Tragedy in Woods,” New York Times, August 19, 1915, 3.
70. Steve Oney, “Murder Trials and Media Sensationalism: The Press Frenzy of a Century Ago Echoes in the Coverage of Trials Today,” Nieman Reports (Spring 2004): 63–67, www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/04-1NRSpring/63-67V58N1.pdf.
71. Gunther, Taken at the Flood, 90. Gunther dates this letter as December 26, 1915, but this would be over four months after the lynching of Frank, and therefore Lasker would not be spending time on the case. Most likely the letter should be dated December 26, 1914.
72. Albert Lasker letter to Morris Lasker, January 5, 1915.
73. Sparkes, 288.
74. Sparkes, 45–46.
75. Sparkes, 288.
76. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 162.
77. Albert Lasker letter to (brother) Edward Lasker, October 17, 1922, Box 28, Shipping Board records.
CHAPTER NINE
1. Sparkes interview with W. G. Irwin, 6.
2. Sparkes, 290.
3. Sparkes, 291.
4. Lasker told this story twice to Sparkes (291–292; 432–433). This version combines those two stories.
5. Sparkes, 432.
6. Sparkes, 291.
7. Cortland Van Camp’s hardware business was a substantial local enterprise. According to surviving financial records, Van Camp Hardware & Iron Co. in 1912 had a capitalization of $1.6 mil
lion.
8. Sparkes, 291.
9. In fact, Frank Van Camp continued to ask Lasker for financial favors. After selling out in 1914, he moved to San Pedro, California, where he founded the Van Camp Sea Food Company. In July of that year, he asked Lasker for help in getting through a cash crunch. “When I had my last talk with you,” he wrote, “I remember your saying you would do me a favor if I gave you the opportunity and you were in position to do so. Well, here is the opportunity, and I hope you have a fat bank account.” (From a July 21, 1914, letter, a copy of which is in the Irwin papers.) Van Camp and his son, Gilbert, made a notable success of their tuna enterprise, inventing the purse seine method of tuna-fishing that helped transform tuna into an affordable food. In the 1950s, the company adopted the “Chicken of the Sea” brand name.
10. Sparkes, 433.
11. For more on Irwin and Cummins, see Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and David B. Sicilia, The Engine That Could: Seventy-Five Years of Values-Driven Change at Cummins Engine Company (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
12. Letter from Merchants National Bank, October 10, 1912, to W. G. Irwin.
13. W. G. Irwin letter to G. W. Mann, March 4, 1914.
14. From W. M. Wilkes’s May 1914 “Salesmen’s Bulletin.”
15. W. G. Irwin letter to Frank Van Camp, January 6, 1916.
16. Albert Lasker letter to W. G. Irwin, July 16, 1917.
17. Albert Lasker letter to W. G. Irwin, July 25, 1917.
18. W. G. Irwin letter to Albert Lasker, October 13, 1917.
19. Albert Lasker letter to W. G. Irwin, October 17, 1917.
20. Albert Lasker letter to W. M. Wilkes, July 8, 1914.
21. See, for example, the write-up of Freda Ehmann in “California Olive Oil News” at www.oliveoilsource.com/olivenews4-8.htm (accessed September 19, 2005). Lord & Thomas recommended a three-year moratorium on advertising, which the olive industry accepted.
22. W. G. Irwin to Albert Lasker, November 13, 1917.
23. Albert Lasker letter to W. G. Irwin, December 20, 1916.
24. W. G. Irwin letter to Albert Lasker, December 12, 1917.
25. “TEB” letter to W. G. Irwin, April 6, 1918.
26. Albert Lasker letter to W. G. Irwin, July 16, 1917.
27. W. M. Wilkes letter to Albert Lasker, September 22, 1917.
The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century Page 50