Università di Torino
Master in American Studies - Second semester 2012-2013
Advertising and U.S. Society in the American Century
Prof. Ferdinando Fasce (Department of History, University of Genoa) The module is a concise, thorough, introduction to the history of advertising, a key aspect of U.S.
society in the twentieth century and beyond. Inscribing meanings into the goods and trying to turn
people into consumers, advertising lies at the intersection of the economic and the cultural realms.
Accordingly, the module looks at it as a multifarious and constituent practice, involving
practitioners, advertisers, consumers, institutions, and the public at large. The module underscores
the thicket of individual and collective tensions and aspirations (of a class, race, and gender nature),
that animated consumer society and provided the backdrop for advertising practices.
Specific questions to be addressed through course readings and discussions include
 Who (what kind of artisans, professionals, and firms) and under which conditions produced
advertising in the course of the American Century?
 What role did advertising play in two such major events as the world wars?
 How did it contribute to the definition of U.S culture and society in the “golden age” of the
post-WWII era?
 How did it fare in the last three decades of the century, facing such challenges as the oil
shocks, the advent of postfordism and globalization?
 How did it deal with ever-changing issues of class, race, and gender?
 How did it reflect and act upon the increasingly hegemonic role played by the U.S. on the
world scene?
Students will be required to keep up with assigned course readings, attend all classes, and
participate in group discussions.
Students will be graded on the following course components:
*
short paper (4-5 pages) (1/2) * class attendance and participation
(1/2) The short paper is due on the fourth meeting. Grading of said examination will be made public the
last meeting.
Class Schedule Week/day
Topics/Lectures
Readings and Assignments 1
Introduction to the course:
The Early Campaigns
2
War Is the Health of Advertising.
Sivulka, chap. 2; Walker Laird, chap. 8
1
U.S. Advertising from WWI to WWII Sivulka, chaps. 3-4-5; Marchand 1985,
chap. 1
3
The American Century.
Domestically and Abroad
Sivulka, chap. 6; De Grazia, chap. 5; De
Iulio-Vinti
4
From Austerity to Globalization
Paper due.
Sivulka, chaps. 7-8-9
5
The End of Advertising?
Final discussion.
Sivulka, chap. 10.
Students must purchase:
Juliann SIVULKA, Soap, Sex, and Cigarette. A Cultural History of American Advertising, Soap,
Sex, and Cigarettes, (Boston: Wadsworth, 2011).
Juliann SIVULKA, Soap, Sex, and Cigarette. A Cultural History of American Advertising,
Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, (Boston: Wadsworth, 2011).
All other course readings will be circulated in pdf format.
Course Bibliography
Roland MARCHAND, Advertising the American Dream. Making Way for Modernity 1920-1940,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Pamela WALKER LAIRD P. Advertising Progress. American Business and the Rise of Consumer
Marketing, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Victoria DE GRAZIA, Irresistible Empire. America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005).
Simona DE IULIO - Carlo VINTI, “The Americanization of Italian advertising during the 1950s
and the 1960s: Mediations, conflicts, and appropriations,” Journal of Historical Research in
Marketing, 2009, Vol. 1 Iss: 2, pp.270 - 294
Juliann SIVULKA, Soap, Sex, and Cigarette. A Cultural History of American Advertising, Soap,
Sex, and Cigarettes, (Boston: Wadsworth, 2011).
2