ebook img

Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing PDF

409 Pages·2018·99.995 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing

How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing J O E D O B R O W PIONEERS OF PROMOTION • To the four doctors who ignited my love for history: the late Marc Ross, Ph.D., during high school; the late John L. Thomas, Ph.D., during college; Howard R. Lamar, Ph.D., during and after graduate school; and Alan Dobrow, M.D., every day of my life • PIONEERS OF PROMOTION • How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing • Joe Dobrow University of Oklahoma Press : Norman Also by Joe Dobrow Natural Prophets: From Health Foods to Whole Foods—How the Pioneers of the Industry Changed the Way We Eat and Reshaped American Business (Emmaus, Penn., 2014) Buffalo Bill Center of the West sponsorship of The William F. Cody Series on the History and Culture of the American West is generously funded by the Geraldine W. & Robert J. Dellenback Foundation, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Name: Dobrow, Joe, author. Title: Pioneers of promotion : how press agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition created modern marketing / Joe Dobrow. Description: First Edition. | University of Oklahoma Press : Norman, OK [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017055309 | ISBN 978-0-8061-6010-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Marketing—United States—History—19th century. | Advertising— United States—History—19th century. | Burke, John M., –1917. | Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810–1891. | Handy, Moses P. (Moses Purnell), 1847–1898. Classification: LCC HF5415.1 .D593 2018 | DDC 381.0973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055309 Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing is Volume 5 in The William F. Cody Series on the History and Culture of the American West. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc. ∞ Copyright © 2018 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior written permission of the University of Oklahoma Press. To request permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069, or e-mail [email protected]. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Series Editors’ Preface ix Author’s Note xi 1. Burying a Legend 3 2. The Big Tent of P. T. Barnum and Tody Hamilton 11 3. Boom or Boost: Promoting the West 47 4. The Hero Cody and the Mythmaker Burke 66 5. The NewsMaker, Moses P. Handy 96 6. Birth and Growth of the Wild West 139 7. Evolution of a Marketing Virtuoso 172 8. The Battle for the World’s Fair 198 9. The Department of Publicity and Promotion 216 10. 1893 252 11. Denouement 283 12. Legacies 329 Epilogue 341 Notes 343 Bibliography 373 Acknowledgments 381 Index 383 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES 1. Barnum & Bailey ad for Jumbo, 1882 123 2. Fanny Palmer’s Across the Continent, 1869 124 3. Ad for 20 Mule Team Borax, ca. 1907 125 4. Portrait of young Cody in Wild West poster 126 5. George Catlin’s Wi-Jun-Jon, The Pigeon’s Egg Head, 1837 127 6. Wild West poster depicting high drama, 1886 128 7. Wild West poster featuring American Indian, 1893 129 8. Bird’s-eye view of World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 130 9. Press passes for Exposition 131 10. Wild West courier, 1895 132 11. Barnum & Bailey poster, 1906 133 12. From Desert Sands to Prairie Wilds press kit forerunner, 1911 134 13. From Desert Sands interior spread 135 14. Legends of the Old West card set, 1910 136 15. Wild West program, 1895 137 16. Wild West program with Burke as “Cowboy,” 1895 138 FIGURES Mid-nineteenth-century advertisements 17 Panorama of Humbug No. 1, 1850 31 Tody Hamilton 37 P. T. Barnum’s courier publication 49 Burlington & Missouri River Railroad circular, 1872 54 William Gilpin article, 1865 57 William F. Cody hunting buffalo 73 Ned Buntline drama on Buffalo Bill 75 Buffalo Bill Combination headliners 86 Moses, Isaac, and Fred Handy, ca. 1867 105 Moses Handy’s “Piccadilly weepers,” ca. 1870s 119 vii viii illustrations Sarah Matthews Handy, 1893 121 John M. Burke 145 Early Wild West ads 150 Military heroes’ endorsements of the Wild West 153 Bill-posting team, 1909 155 Burke at Earl’s Court construction site, 1887 165 Burke, Cody, and performers with Deadwood Stagecoach 168 Wild West Publicity Office, Paris, 1905 177 Native performers in front of Mount Vesuvius, 1890 179 Cody and performers in Venice, 1890 184 Burke with Indians at Pine Ridge, 1891 191 Handy at rolltop desk 225 Handy, R. E. A. Dorr, Nancy Huston Banks, and Richard Murphy, 1891 229 Jackson Park before construction of Columbian Exposition, 1891 234 Mines and Mining Exposition graphic, 1893 235 Dedication of the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1892 249 Wild West arena and Ferris Wheel, World’s Columbian Exposition 259 Administration Building on opening day, May 1, 1893 262 Court of Honor with Statue of the Republic, May 1, 1893 263 Newspaper headlines for Exposition opening 264 Wild West letterhead, 1893 276 Exposition grounds after fire, 1894 285 Wild West advertising railroad car, 1896 297 Wild West scrapbook, 1894 301 Still from The Indian Wars Refought, 1914 304 Burke, Cody, Jule Keen, and driver in Gardner-Serpollet car, 1903 312 Burke holding newspaper in Rome, 1906 322 SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE Many are familiar with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the Columbian Exposition, and the Barnum and Bailey Circus, yet the names of promoters John Burke, Moses Handy, and Tody Hamilton remain relatively obscure. Readers may even wonder why an internationally renowned Wild West show, a world’s fair, and a circus needed any advertising whatsoever. Joe Dobrow’s Pioneers of Promotion not only examines the efforts of Burke, Handy, and Hamilton to shape modern marketing techniques; it also asks us to consider how the nascent techniques of mass advertising secured the historical memory embedded in these specific forms of entertainment. Before John M. Burke, most “promotion” consisted of simple advertisements that briefly described the event or the product (with the notable exception of the famed showman P. T. Barnum). But Burke was visionary and innovative; without the taint of Barnum’s humbuggery, he introduced modes of promotion that have now become part of the stock in trade of modern marketing—the celebrity endorsement, the press kit, the press junket, the op-ed, mobile billboards, and licensing deals— all techniques that students such as Handy and Hamilton adopted in their own marketing strategies. The combined legacy of Burke, Handy, and Hamilton, three pioneers of promotion, remains notable in today’s consumption-driven economy. Focusing on three individuals who worked in the realm of entertainment, Dobrow reveals an overlooked dimension of the history of marketing and demonstrates the influence of the entertainment industry on modern promotion practices. Pioneers of Promotion brings to the forefront three critical figures often relegated to the background of the successful businesses they helped create. Burke, Handy, and Hamilton, usually footnotes in studies of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the Columbian Exposition, and the Barnum and Bailey Circus, demonstrate how emerging technologies enabled new forms of public relations that shaped how culture gets sold and fostered many marketing techniques still in use today. The William F. Cody Series on the History and Culture of the American West is pleased ix

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.