“Albert Lasker was the father of modern advertising and – yes – of Madison Avenue. The revolution in promoting and selling which Lasker started in the early 1900s has swept across, and beyond,the Western world. Lasker himself, having taken more money out of the advertising business than anyone else ever has or will, moved on to other concerns: politics, medical research, art, philanthropy.”
Here’s an early 1920s piece when Albert Lasker — and his superstar copywriter, Claude Hopkins — was still at the helm of Lord & Thomas. Alas, he would not allow the name to continue after stepping down and so was born Foote, Cone and Belding.
Salvaging the Shipwreck
Albert D. Lasker ought to make a success of his newest job since he has specialized the handling of business concerns that were headed for the rocks.
ABERT D. LASKER, new Chairman of the Shipping Board, has taken charge of what he himself styles the most colossal commercial wreck the world ever knew. His job is to salvage this derelict of the war. One runs back but to 1880 for the beginning of Albert Lasker. He has put much behind him and come to a high post at the age of 41.
In 188o, in the town of Freiberg, Germany, up by the Swiss border where people go for their health, Albert Lasker was born. No, he was not a German by birth, but an American. His mother was in poor health and had gone over for treatment. She was American born and her husband was an American citizen though he had originally come from Germany. So the boy, in his citizenship, is not disbarred from the presidency, though this is a post which has never come to one of his race, which is that of Baruch and Brandeis and Disraeli. [Read more…] about Ad Legend Albert Lasker and “Salvaging the Shipwreck”