Abstract

"Laboring for “Truth”: American Advertising and Self-Regulation in the Progressive Years"

Jennifer Black, Misericordia University (jblack2@misericordia.edu)

In 1915, George French, an American advertising professional, complained that “There is a lurking sense in the minds of many people that advertising is not altogether ethical.” French’s comments prefaced a plea for more honesty in advertising, one that argued virtuous and ethical business dealings would result in larger profit margins. Pointing to a few bad eggs that stained the reputation of the entire industry, French stressed that reform must come from within.
French’s comments were written at the height of the Truth in Advertising (TIA) movement, a self-regulatory impulse within the advertising industry that morphed out of Progressive concerns in the 1890s, and which was ultimately subsumed by the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau by 1920. Rumors of adulterated foodstuffs, hidden poisons in patent medicines, and spoiled meats sent to servicemen overseas had prompted federal regulation of food and drug labels in 1906, but advertising professionals warned that self-regulation was preferred to federal oversight. The TIA movement thus sought to instill an industry-wide code of ethics among advertising professionals, in order to curb false advertising at the source. As this paper demonstrates, the TIA movement evolved out of older, middle-class dictates towards honesty and transparency that had thrived in business ethics from the antebellum years forward, and which shaped both credit reporting and trademark regulation following the Civil War. But self-regulation could only take the industry so far. Despite successful efforts to enroll agency representatives into state “Vigilance Committees” across the US, exaggerated advertising claims continued to permeate the American media through the 1920s, culminating in the FTC’s investigation of Fleischmann’s “Yeast for Health” campaign in 1931. By this time, federal regulation and consumer protection agencies (such as the BBB) had come to replace the TIA movement, exposing the limitations of prescriptions for corporate virtue in a capitalistic society.