In American history, we (Americans at least) have probably all seen the famed 1937 Margeret Bourke-White photo of grim looking Kentucky Flood victims standing in front of the “Highest Standard of Living - No way like the American way” billboard with a happy, prosperous family in a (then) late-model automobile - Example - actually there must have been several of those billboards, as there’s a another picture of the same billboard image in a rural-looking location in California.
Even in 1937 such advertising wouldn’t have been that cheap, so what group or organization was sponsoring this “American way” campaign back then, and to what purpose? Of course the image is now memorable, but in a rather ironic sense so perhaps the message didn’t translate too well after 75 years…
Government agencies have long history of advertising to get messages out to the public. In the 30’s coming out of the depression there was a lot of pride in American growth and achievement, and also concern about the rise of Bolshevism as a competing political paradigm to capitalism. It’s a not stretch to imagine a Federal authorities using billboards to get the message out about what a great place America was.
Never seen one before. Is that odd?
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
I’ll look for a cite, but NAM pretty much took over the optimism campaign started by the National Recovery Act after the NRA was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Here you go:
American photography and the American dreamBy James Guimond
I should clarify: NAM was a vocal opponent of the NRA which guaranteed various labor rights that NAM opposed. A propaganda battle via posters ensued in which the NRA’s message was basically “Yes, we (workers) can fix the economy” and NAM’s message was “We (industry) already fixed it” Pro- New Dealers found it easy to discredit that claim by juxtaposing NAM advertising with the worst depredations of the Depession.
I don’t recall ever seeing it either.
I have never seen it either.
Off topic but what is the picture under “Our Founder” supposed to be in the first link?
Kids! Get off my email!
When I was growing up, the Depression was as near to me in time as Reagan is to today’s America.
My wife said to me yesterday that she found doing archaeology on WWII sites weird. Then we figured out that that war was far away from today as 1900 was to us in high school. 1900 may feel closer today to us than it did then. Your perspective on life changes radically as you age but you can’t understand that ahead of time.
I always though that was an advertisement for something.
Exapno, I know exactly what you mean. the first Star Wars and Christopher Reeve Superman movies are older now than the Wizard of Oz was when I was a kid. The Gulf War is to my kids what the Cuban Missile Crisis was to me.
:eek: :eek: :eek:
Thanks for the info.
So the message was indeed propaganda (well, i guess that was obvious), and sort of ironic considering the economic conditions still around in 1937 (when the US economy sort of regressed some, apparently due to a change in economic policies by FDR). People of the time were certainly not adverse to vandalism or counter-propaganda, I wonder if these billboards were vandalised to any great extent?
I was born in 1937 and I had never seen that photo (or the billboard) before. To me it looks exactly like the “fact” that America has the best medical care in the world. Which it might if you can afford it.
The ad campagn came with a booklet. I wish I could find scans of more than the cover.
FWIW, the NAM still spends millions of dollars a year on advertising, most of which targets the EPA, OSHA, and organized labor.