Advertising at War challenges the notion that advertising disappeared
as a political issue in the United States in 1938 with the passage of
the Wheeler-Lea Amendment to the Federal Trade Commission Act, the
result of more than a decade of campaigning to regulate the advertising
industry. Inger L. Stole suggests that the war experience, even more
than the legislative battles of the 1930s, defined the role of
advertising in U.S. postwar political economy and the nation's cultural
firmament. She argues that Washington and Madison Avenue were soon
working in tandem with the creation of the Advertising Council in 1942,
a joint effort established by the Office of War Information, the
Association of National Advertisers, and the American Association of
Advertising Agencies.
Using archival sources, newspapers accounts, and trade publications,
Stole demonstrates that the war elevated and magnified the seeming
contradictions of advertising and allowed critics of these practices one
final opportunity to corral and regulate the institution of advertising.
Exploring how New Dealers and consumer advocates such as the Consumers
Union battled the advertising industry, Advertising at War traces the
debate over two basic policy questions: whether advertising should
continue to be a tax-deductible business expense during the war, and
whether the government should require effective standards and labeling
for consumer products, which would render most advertising irrelevant.
Ultimately the postwar climate of political intolerance and reverence
for free enterprise quashed critical investigations into the advertising
industry. While advertising could be criticized or lampooned, the
institution itself became inviolable.
