Book Review: The Man Who Sold America: Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz

Defining the legacy of Albert D. Lasker, the paradoxical pioneer who paved the way for 20th century advertising and molded modern consumer response, was a challenging task, admits the authors of The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century. For one thing, Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz found in their evidence and research that Lasker was prone to overstate, elaborate, and fabricate his life’s events, generating “so much electricity — and static – around himself that the reality of his life tended to be hidden from its observers.” And moreover, “Lasker tried consciously to obscure his own role in almost all that he did – to remain the man behind the curtain,” while others took the spotlight.

The Oz-like enigma, who extended his role into politics, professional sports, and other institutional and cultural mainstays, also contributed to confusion in his colleagues, such as the terminated executive who at the same time he grumbled that Lasker is the only man he’d like to murder, also mumbled, “There isn’t a finer man living.” Or the former associate, leaving under duress, declaring “I’d like to kick him in the back,” then following up in unashamedly glowing terms: “I have never met a man as colorful and virile and as personable as Mr. Albert Lasker. Never.”

In any case, the wherewithal’s in the details culled from a recently discovered trove of Lasker's papers — and perhaps the head-scratching complexities are just the qualifications the job calls for. “Orator and entrepreneur, statesman and pioneer, depressive and overachiever:” Cruikshank and Schultz contend, “These conflicting legacies would advance Albert Lasker’s career, shape his emotions, and dictate his dreams.”
Indeed, as Lasker faced the tasks at hand, his biographers here are up to the challenge – as they amply demonstrate in their seamless and subtly undertaken exploration and elucidation — of reconciling the moodiness of the "super-salesman of the generation" (according to Will Hays, political puppet-master and cultural gadabout and gadfly) with the sweetness and light of the effectual, successful, and stuck-in-your-head advertisements, commercials, and marketing campaigns developed for such household names as Kleenex, Pepsodent, and Sunkist. Quaker Oats Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat cereals were "foods shot from guns,” Palmolive soap could give you "beauty appeal," and, when the rubber meets the road, it’s Goodyear "all-weather" tires all the way.

Article Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Gordon Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, freelance writer, and book reviewer for San Diego Union Tribune Books (R.I.P.). For many years he worked in and managed bookstores and record stores, and most recently was purchasing manager for San Diego Technical Books. …

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