Daniel Boorstin chided

"The Responsibilities of American Advertising," by Otis Pease, xvi 232 pp. Yale University Press, 1958. $5.00.

Daniel Boorstin chided his fellow historians for over-investigating minor works of American literature to the neglect of major educational institutions. The same imbalance of investment in scholarly energies applies a fortiori to "mass institutions" more recent in origin than education. For in spite of their admitted influence on the quality of American life, we know next to nothing about the emergence of mass production and distribution, and the related information-entertainment complex of mass communication.

But if the groundbreaking is long overdue, it is reassuring to see Mr. Pease turn so clean a first furrow in his study of the advertisers' stumbling, hesitant steps towards self-discipline in the public interest between the World Wars. His brilliant bibliographical essay not only charts a jungle of new data for the intellectual historian but it also persuasively presents a schedule of important research.

He wisely limits himself to national advertising in major print media. The advertising industry first had to elaborate the ethics of consumption, a doctrine subversive of the old Puritan ethos of tight-fisted diligence. As the tempo of competition increased, businessmen sought to restrain the advertising excesses of their least responsible colleagues; this instinct for survival, rather than concern for the public interest, brought what little measure of effective policing there was.

Attempted regulation by the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission had ambiguous results at best: it was too easy for copywriters to move from easily disputable verbal copy to less precise (and more effective) pictorial ads. Mr. Pease clearly presents the complex tensions between advertisers, agencies, publishers and trade associations on the one hand and government, professionals (e.g., doctors and dentists) and the consumer movement on the other. And he shows the industry's growing dependence on the social sciences for better "weapons of persuasion."

In short, substantively the book is full of important details to be assimilated quickly into the mainstream of social and intellectual history; methodologically, it provides an excellent model for doctoral candidates in search of significant ways to investigate significant institutions.

Patrick D. Hazard, University of Pennsylvania