Fables Of Abundance : A Cultural History Of Advertising In America

__Fables of Abundance__ ranges from the traveling peddlers of early modern Europe to the twentieth-century American corporation, exploring the ways that advertising collaborated with other cultural institutions to produce the dominant aspirations and anxieties in the modern United States. American Advertisements Have Become Perhaps The Most Pervasive Social Icons In The Modern World. This Book Traces Their Rise Against A Richly Varied Backdrop. Its Range Encompasses Literature, Religion, And The Visual Arts, As Well As Economics, Public Policy, And The History Of Medicine. Its Cast Of Characters Includes A Host Of Remarkable Figures In Or Around Advertising, From P.t. Barnum And Theodore Dreiser To John B. Watson And Joseph Cornell. The Book Explores The Ways That Advertising Collaborated With Other Cultural Institutions To Produce What Have Become The Dominant Aspirations, Anxieties, And Even Notions Of Personal Identity In The Twentieth-century United States. Moving From The Carnivals And Market Fairs Of Renaissance Europe To The Traveling Peddlers Of Nineteenth-century America, Jackson Lears Shows How Early Advertisers Encouraged A New Kind Of Magical Thinking, Detached From Religious Traditions And Geared To An Emerging Market Society. While Patent Medicine Advertising's Promise Of Magical Self-transformation And Exotic Sensuality Posed Challenges To Moral Standards, Advertisers Themselves Eventually Sought To Contain The Subversive Potential Of This Promise Even As They Continued To Conjure It Up. Pt.1. The Reconfiguration Of Wealth: From Fecund Earth To Efficient Factory -- Pt. 2. The Containment Of Carnival: Advertising And American Social Values From The Patent Medicine Era To The Consolidation Of Corporate Power -- Pt. 3. Art, Truth And Humbug: The Search For Form And Meaning In A Commodity Civilization. Jackson Lears. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [415]-476) And Index. American advertisements have become perhaps the most pervasive social icons in the modern world. This book traces their rise against a richly varied backdrop. Its range encompasses literature, religion, and the visual arts, as well as economics, public policy, and the history of medicine. Its cast of characters includes a host of remarkable figures in or around advertising, from P. T. Barnum and Theodore Dreiser to John B. Watson and Joseph Cornell. The book explores the ways that advertising collaborated with other cultural institutions to produce what have become the dominant aspirations, anxieties, and even notions of personal identity in the twentieth-century United States. Moving from the carnivals and market fairs of Renaissance Europe to the traveling peddlers of nineteenth-century America, Jackson Lears shows how early advertisers encouraged a new kind of magical thinking, detached from religious traditions and geared to an emerging market society. While patent medicine advertising's promise of magical self-transformation and exotic sensuality posed challenges to moral standards, advertisers themselves eventually sought to contain the subversive potential of this promise even as they continued to conjure it up. Copyright 5 Contents 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 18 Part I The Reconfiguration of Wealth 32 1 The Lyric of Plenty 34 2 The Modernization of Magic 57 3 The Stabilization of Sorcery 92 4 The Disembodiment of Abundance 119 Part II The Containment of Carnival 152 5 The Merger of Intimacy and Publicity 154 6 The Perfectionist Project 179 7 The New Basis of Civilization 213 8 Trauma, Denial, Recovery 252 Part III Art, Truth and Humbug 276 9 The Problem of Commercial Art in a Protestant Culture 278 10 The Courtship of Avant-Garde and Kitsch 316 11 The Pursuit of the Real 362 12 The Things Themselves 396 Notes 432 Index 494 Fables of Abundance ranges from the traveling peddlers of early modern Europe to the twentieth-century American corporation, exploring the ways that advertising collaborated with other cultural institutions to produce the dominant aspirations and anxieties in the modern United States.-publisher description