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

409 Pages·2018·99.995 MB·English

by  Joe Dobrow

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
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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
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