Market Research and the American Consumer Unconscious, 1933-1976 by Joseph Malherek BA I

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Émigré Scientists of the Quotidian: Market Research and the American Consumer Unconscious, 1933-1976

by Joseph Malherek

B.A. in Political Science and Cultural Studies, May 2002, University of Minnesota M.A. in American Studies, May 2009, George Washington University

A Dissertation submitted to

The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

August 31, 2015

Dissertation directed by

Joseph Kip Kosek Associate Professor of American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Joseph Malherek has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of May 22, 2015. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Émigré Scientists of the Quotidian: Market Research and the American Consumer Unconscious, 1933-1976

Joseph Malherek

Dissertation Research Committee:

Joseph Kip Kosek, Associate Professor of American Studies, Dissertation Director

Chad Heap, Associate Professor of American Studies, Committee Member

Elisabeth Anker, Associate Professor of American Studies, Committee Member

iii Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my advisor, Joseph Kip Kosek, as well as the members of my dissertation committee, Chad Heap and Elisabeth Anker, for their guidance, support, patience, and wisdom over the years it has taken to complete this project. I would also like to thank the faculty readers of my dissertation, Dara Orenstein and Andrew

Zimmerman, who offered helpful comments and made the dissertation defense a lively and productive meeting.

The dissertation could not have been completed without research and writing fellowships from the following organizations: the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes

(the scholarship foundation of the German government), which supported me with a Leo

Baeck Fellowship; the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies; and the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, which supported me with a Henry Belin du Pont Dissertation Fellowship. I also received research grants from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming,

Columbia University Libraries, the Hagley Museum and Library, and the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History at Duke University. I am also grateful for several years of summer research funding from the Columbian College of Arts and

Sciences at George Washington University.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Josie Torres Barth, for her constant encouragement and stimulating ideas.

iv Abstract of Dissertation

“Émigré Scientists of the Quotidian: Market Research and the American Consumer Unconscious, 1933-1976”

This dissertation is a transnational intellectual and cultural history that examines the role played by a cohort of Central European market researchers and designers in the creation of modern American consumer culture. Each of four principal figures I consider

—Paul Lazarsfeld, Ernest Dichter, Walter Landor, and Victor Gruen—was a German- speaking Jew who fled the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and established a very successful career in the United States. Although they all contributed their specialized knowledge and skills to the marketing strategies of American, consumer-oriented businesses, they worked in different fields: Lazarsfeld was a sociologist who practiced his technique, developed his methodologies, and supported his academic institutes by doing market research; Dichter was a psychologist who offered a kind of Freudian psychoanalysis as a consulting service for businesses and advertising agencies; Landor was an industrial designer and graphic artist who created attractive packages for consumer products; and

Gruen was an architect who first imagined the suburban shopping center as a pedestrian space with malls and courts that fostered community as much as it facilitated commerce.

Lazarsfeld, Dichter, and Gruen were from Vienna, which, in the course of their lifetimes, transformed from a liberalized imperial capital, to a hotbed of social democracy, to an outpost of fascism. Landor, meanwhile, was from Munich, the other city in which Adolf

Hitler developed a virulent anti-Semitism that would have such profound consequences in the lives of these Jewish professionals, and for the world.

While the work of Lazarsfeld and Dichter influenced the strategies of marketers,

Gruen and Landor labored to produce the objects and physical environments that were

v the material manifestation of postwar consumerism. Their contributions to the material culture of American consumer capitalism grew out of the leftist ideology of Austro-

Marxism, the radical experiment in social democracy that characterized interwar Vienna, transnational trends in empirical sociology, the popularization of Freudian psychoanalysis, the modernist aesthetic ethos of the German Bauhaus movement, and the ideal of cosmopolitan internationalism that motivated many German-speaking Jewish intellectuals in the capitals of Central Europe. This dissertation explores the surprising ways in which a cohort of émigrés integrated these Continental ideas and aesthetic sensibilities into the day-to-day operation of the burgeoning consumer economy of postwar America. Relative to existing scholarship, which is vexed by the problem of consumer agency and segregated into several historical genres, this thesis uses documents of the work of market researchers and designers to explain the complexity of consumers’ behaviors and motivations, and it synthesizes the methods of intellectual, business, and cultural history in the style of the new history of capitalism. My research shows that, from a business perspective, consumers’ choices and behaviors were never taken for granted; instead, consumers were intensely studied and even feared for their whims and unpredictability.

vi Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iv

Abstract of Dissertation v

Introduction 1

Part I: The Viennese Origins of Motivational Research Chapter 1: Émigré Scientists of the Quotidian: The Interwar Years 30

Chapter 2: Psychological Probes and Social Engineering through Market 114 Research

Part II: Marketing and Mass Culture in the Postwar Years Chapter 3: The Origins of the Postwar Mass Culture and Mass Society Debates 200 in Commercial Market Research Chapter 4: The Segmentation of the Mass Market 253

Part III: Architecture and Design, from Central Europe to the American Suburbs Chapter 5: Packaging Personality: Walter Landor and Consumer Product 329 Design in Postwar America Chapter 6: An Austro-Marxist in American Suburbia: Shopping Mall Architect 372 Victor Gruen and the Ideology of Planning Conclusion 475

Bibliography: Primary Sources 481

Bibliography: Secondary Sources 488

vii Introduction

Gruen was an architect who first imagined the suburban shopping center as a pedestrian space with malls and courts that fostered community as much as it facilitated commerce.

Hitler developed a virulent anti-Semitism that would have such profound consequences in the lives of these Jewish professionals, and for the world.

The historical context that shaped the ideals of these entrepreneurial émigrés— defined by world wars, radical experiments in social democracy, a socially-conscious modern architecture, anti-Semitism, and the rise of Nazism that forced their emigration—

1 was both the catalyst and intellectual foundation for their contributions to postwar consumer capitalism in the United States. I argue that, through their work, these exiled social scientists and designers served as vehicles for the incorporation of the Continental ideas of psychoanalysis, Bauhaus modernism, Austro-Marxism, and social democracy into to the practical strategies of American businesses operating under the banner of “free enterprise.” The immigration of these Jewish intellectual-professionals in the interwar period thus helped to create the commercial conditions for postwar, Keynesian initiatives to nurture a national, mass market; and the emergence of psychoanalysis as a technique of market research made possible division of that market into segments that transcended traditional demographic categories. The individual subjects of this dissertation were part of a much greater “intellectual migration” that included prominent émigrés in a variety of fields, but because the figures under consideration worked in the areas of marketing and design, their contributions to the consumer culture intimately affected the daily, lived experience of millions of Americans. Their socialist politics and aesthetic philosophies can be traced to the humblest products, sold in the commonest places, and consumed by the most ordinary citizens.

As immigrants, these entrepreneurial intellectuals were well positioned as analysts of the American consumer psyche, and as Jewish émigrés who fled the Nazis, they were keenly aware of the power and potential danger of political propaganda. Their intervention in marketing, consumer behavior, and the retail environment operated at the nexus of capitalist economics and American culture. Moreover, each of the émigré figures I consider was immersed in a social, intellectual, and professional milieu that was fundamental to his work. I examine both the Central European context that produced

2 these entrepreneurs—with an emphasis on the experiment in social democracy in interwar Vienna—as well as the exiled immigrant communities that nourished their professional development in the U.S., including the “Frankfurt School” scholars of Max

Horkheimer’s Institut für Sozialforschung. Insofar as the project concerns the political economy of consumer culture, it is a history of capitalism, and because the transnational transfer of ideas is so central to this story, the field of intellectual history also animates this project. The biographical integration of these émigré figures synthesizes several modes of scholarly inquiry that have been segregated as histories of immigration, business, and consumption.

What unites these four men, beyond their personal and professional relationships, is their Jewish identity and their forced emigration resulting from the rise of Nazism.

Lazarsfeld and Gruen were each socialized in Vienna’s Social Democratic party, which was at that time the only viable political option for Jews. The internationalism that was a basic part of Social Democratic ideology aligned with the desire of many Jews to transcend nationalist ideologies that excluded them. From their youth, each of these figures was also drawn to a kind of cosmopolitanism—either through the international idealism of socialism, for Gruen and Lazarsfeld; or by the transnational formal principles of modernism and the commonality of the consumer experience, for Dichter and Landor.

They each believed that democracy was not limited to the strictly political sphere of government and elections, and that there existed the possibility of democratic expression in the context of consumer capitalism—even if they accepted the limits of what this kind of democracy could achieve. Dichter celebrated the economic value of the pleasure-

3 seeking consumer, free to pursue her1 desires, though he frankly acknowledged that overwhelming choice in the consumer sphere could produce a real misery. Landor believed that good design could elevate the taste of the masses, and yet he recognized and exploited the potentially seductive qualities of product packaging. Lazarsfeld appreciated the ability of consumers and citizens to process mass-media messages in the social sphere, but he understood that manipulation in interpersonal relations could be just as insidious. Gruen believed in the social value of common spaces, but he came to see that a fragmented consumerism often precluded the creation of true community. None of them saw an essential contradiction between the human values of social democracy and the market values of capitalism, and they each proved that elements of social democracy could be successfully integrated into consumer capitalism. But the balance was always tenuous, and each of these entrepreneurial intellectuals would eventually witness the power of commercialism to stifle the social sphere.

The timing of the émigrés’ arrival in the United States was fortuitous, spanning the period of New Deal experiments in social democracy, to a wartime economy of government controls, to a postwar era marked by the consecration of mass consumption

—or “aggregate demand”—as the central element in the American economy, crucial to staving off depression. The application, by both business and government, of social science and market research to the economic problem of consumption had increased as the Great Depression slogged on. Business managers came to recognize industrial design as an important method of consumer motivation; it became a veritable technology of

“consumer engineering.”2 The power of labor unions had grown with Congress’s passage

1 Marketers typically imagined the consumer as a woman, and often more specifically as a housewife. 2 Roy Sheldon and Egmont Arens, Consumer Engineering: A New Technique for Prosperity (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1932), 12-13.

4 of the Wagner Act in 1935, and it peaked around the end of the war when labor could claim to participate in “tripartite” negotiations on equal footing with business and government. But a wave of disruptive strikes after the war contributed to an anti-labor mood and an industry backlash that culminated in a large Republican victory in the 1946

Congressional elections and the subsequent passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which significantly reduced labor’s bargaining strength. The 1950 “Treaty of Detroit” between Walter Reuther’s United Auto Workers and General Motors signaled labor’s narrower emphasis on wages over its New Deal-era efforts to foster broader social solidarity and economic planning.3

Business interests, organized in national groups like the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, learned to accommodate themselves to certain aspects of the new Keynesian approach to economic thinking— tolerating some budget deficits and acknowledging the importance of workers’ purchasing power—but they also sought out intellectual allies in defense of “free enterprise.” Their intense distrust of the federal government’s experts was counterbalanced when they found other experts who agreed with them. The Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and his protégé Friedrich Hayek served this purpose, articulating an attractive, popular defense of capitalism by employing the language of liberty.4 What business, labor, and government could agree on in the postwar era was the centrality of mass consumption in sustaining economic growth. The result was a mix of

3 Nelson Lichtenstein, “From Corporatism to Collective Bargaining: Organized Labor and the Eclipse of Social Democracy in the Postwar Era,” in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, eds. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 122-52. 4 Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 26-40; Robert M. Collins, The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 33-51, 119-41.

5 government policies and business-labor agreements that established what historian

Lizabeth Cohen has called the “Consumers’ Republic,” which promised “the socially progressive end of economic equality without requiring politically progressive means of redistributing existing wealth.”5 The new postwar economic situation coincided with the rising geopolitical tensions of the Cold War, which only amplified the urgency of proving the viability of the American free-market system vis-à-vis Soviet-style communism. In this context, the special talents of the émigrés were embraced by business clients eager to better understand the mysterious composition, unconscious motivations, and particular fancies of their consumer markets.

Historiography: Consumption and Capitalism in America

This project challenges a historiographical paradigm that has struggled to articulate the dynamic relationship between business and consumers, and has not fully appreciated the transnational dimension in the development of American consumer culture. Scholarly discourse on the history of consumption in the twentieth century has been generally divided along the binary of industry manipulation versus consumer agency, while the notion of a managed, rationalized consumer sphere has been opposed to the idea of consumption as uninhibited indulgence. Roland Marchand and Jackson Lears, for example, have emphasized the “therapeutic” and “managerial” roles played by advertising in rationalizing consumption and easing consumers’ transition into the modern world.6 Lizabeth Cohen and Lawrence Glickman, in contrast, have emphasized

5 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003), 127. 6 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); T. J. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

6 the political agency that has been exercised through consumerism.7

These are important works that have contributed much to the history of advertising and consumer culture, but there are theoretical and methodological problems inherent to both of these approaches. The historian of advertising Stefan Schwarzkopf has pointed out the shortcomings of semiotic analyses of advertisements, which seek to critique the “inauthentic meta-language” of ads but ultimately bolster the industry’s own myths about itself as a cultural force of persuasion and image-making.8 Such an approach, Schwarzkopf argues, not only diminishes the agency of consumers as interpreters of advertisements, but also naively accepts ads as being representative of social and cultural norms. Instead, Schwarzkopf suggests, advertisements have more to do with what advertisers thought about market groups, as mediated by and negotiated through a “complex economic network” that also includes clients, competitors, and regulators.9 Historians of consumer culture David Blanke and David Steigerwald,

7 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic and Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1891-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Lawrence B. Glickman, Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) and A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). 8 One source of this conceptual confusion is the oft-referenced but rarely grappled-with book by Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976). The opposite side of this debate is often represented by Michael Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society (New York: Basic Books, 1984), which takes a more skeptical view of the power of advertising. Referring to this debate, the historian of consumer culture Gary Cross refers to these two books as “classic works.” (Gary Cross, “Research on the History of Consumption in the United States: An Overview” in Decoding Modern Consumer Societies, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 41.) But the substance of these texts is largely immaterial to their role as placeholders for a purified position in this debate. 9 Stefan Schwarzkopf, “The Subsiding Sizzle of Advertising History: Methodological and Theoretical Challenges in the Post Advertising Age,” Journal of Historical Research in Marketing 3 (2011): 528-48. Pamela Laird has recently argued a similar point on the importance of analyzing not only producers and consumers but also all of the “intermediaries,” including advertising agents, who carry information and goods between the market’s end points. “If we ask, then,” Laird writes, “what evidence any given advertisement offers us about its audience’s values, expectations, or reactions, the answer is nothing.” Pamela Laird, “The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization” in Decoding Modern Consumer Societies, eds. Berghoff and Spiekermann, 41. In fairness, Marchand does qualify his method of interpretation by noting that “the illustrations in American advertising portrayed the ideals and aspirations of the system more accurately than its reality.” Marchand,

7 meanwhile, have noted that the “theory of consumer agency” can work to “clarify” some aspects of this “mass culture theory,” but it often suffers from a serious conceptual flaw:

At its most simplistic, agency assumes an absolute correlation between individual choice and market reaction. In other words, it restates classical economic theory at its most simplistic and reaffirms the absolutism of the marketplace. Economic Man, the agent of traditional laissez faire economics, simply becomes Consumer Person. The activities change from production or selling to consumption, but these hypothetical creatures still are invested with clairvoyant rationality, and their self-interested instincts are presumed to be molding the most propitious outcomes. It is, in this regard, free-market cultural theory.10

These critiques are, of course, directed at synthetic caricatures of decades of scholarship, but even some of the most important works on the subject suffer from this interpretive dilemma.

A more trenchant analytical approach, perhaps, lies in a newly-defined mode of scholarship that has been referred to broadly as the history of capitalism. Jeffrey

Sklansky has called this emerging style a “reunion of intellectual and social history,” and

Sven Beckert calls it a synthesis of business, economic, and labor history that integrates political economy and culture while considering businesspeople not as atomized individuals but as embedded social actors.11 Even the best scholarship on the history of consumption has struggled to transcend the methodological differences that divide economic and cultural modes of history. In what follows, I will briefly consider that scholarship with attention to its important contributions and analytical limitations.

While cultural histories have have deepened our understanding of commercial

Advertising, xviii. 10 David Blanke and David Steigerwald, “Choice as the American Ideal: The Scholars’ Conundrum” in A Destiny of Choice? New Directions in Consumer History, eds. David Blanke and David Steigerwald (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013), 10-11. 11 Jeffrey Sklansky, “The Elusive Sovereign: New Intellectual and Social Histories of Capitalism,” Modern Intellectual History 9 (2012): 233-48; Sven Beckert, “History of American Capitalism” in American History Now, eds. Eric Foner and Lisa McGirr (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 314-35.

8 semiotics, they have tended to inflate the importance of print advertising—which provides a ready and convenient archive—relative to other kinds of advertising and other elements of a consumer marketing program, such as design. Perhaps the two most important works on the history of advertising in the U.S. are Roland Marchand’s

Advertising the American Dream and Jackson Lears’s Fables of Abundance. Marchand, focusing on the two decades between 1920 and 1940, argues that advertising in the twentieth century served a “therapeutic” function by acculturating Americans to modern life and its technological advancements and bureaucratic organization. Advertising— through the repetition of tropes, parables, social tableaux, and visual clichés—presented a new world of commodities as both the physical stuff that constituted modernity itself and a salve for the hardships it produced. It aligned itself with civilizing influences, and it purported to raise intellectual and cultural standards. Advertising men, as “missionaries of modernity,” carried out the paradoxical project of stabilizing an efficient, rationalized system of mass production by nurturing values like wastefulness and self-indulgence that ran counter to the values of the Protestant work ethic that had motivated nineteenth- century Americans. But Marchand’s focus on the grand narratives of the advertisements themselves leaves the overall impression that they were efficacious in their mission to bring a more or less compliant public into the modern world of goods. He frankly admits that advertisers’ “measures of feedback” were too rudimentary to accurately judge the effectiveness of their approach, and so they typically fell back on their own experience as the basis for their creative decision-making.12

Lears, too, sees the history of advertising as a largely modernizing force that

12 See, for example, Marchand, Advertising, 233.

9 progressively contained the carnival elements of nineteenth-century consumer culture and superseded it with a “managerial” rationality. The First World War finally gave advertisers an opportunity to shed their “Barnumesque” inheritance and gain respectability by using their techniques of persuasion for the national cause of

“democratic social engineering.” By the 1930s, advertising was encouraging individuals to adjust to collective norms and—following the Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, a major influence on Ernest Dichter—overcome their “inferiority” complexes. The rise of

Keynesian economic policies in the the postwar years affirmed the centrality of purchasing power to economic prosperity, but it did not signal the triumph of hedonism.

According to Lears, consumption became part of a new order of scientific efficiency: that old Protestant value of thrift did not disappear but instead took on a managerial aspect,

“one more consistent with spending and borrowing than scrimping and saving.”13 Both

Lears and Marchand have used large archives of print advertisements as documents of

Americans’ transition into modernity, but their focus on the semiotics of advertising provides a limited framework for analyzing a total marketing regime and its reception by consumers.

These cultural histories of advertising and consumption, though based more closely in the primary resources of business, were in the tradition of the classic studies in the history of consumer culture by scholars like David Riesman, Daniel J. Boorstin, and

13 T.J. Jackson Lears, “The Modernization of Thrift” in Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present, eds. Joshua J. Yates and James Davison Hunter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 236. Lears’s Fables of Abundance stood in stark contrast to another major book on the history of consumer culture also published in 1994, William Leach’s Land of Desire. Where Lears and Marchand saw a progressively rationalized regime of advertising, Leach saw an increasingly indulgent materialism and a regrettable wastefulness resulting from the rapid obsolescence of fashion. Leach emphasizes the capacity of merchandisers to create desire among the masses without investigating the precise mechanics of this process. William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).

10 Warren Susman. Riesman’s Lonely Crowd, first published in 1950, was inspired by the work of the émigré scholars of the Frankfurt School like Leo Lowenthal and Erich

Fromm.14 Riesman, drawing on a range of cultural texts, describes three character typologies, or “directions,” that have been dominant in various epochs of American history. Susman articulates a cultural conflict between two different “moral orders”: an older “Puritan-republican” or “producer-capitalist” culture that was increasingly at odds with a “culture of abundance” that arose with the urbanization, mass consumption, and the new media of communication that appeared in the twentieth century.15 Boorstin, meanwhile, develops the theme of “consumption communities” that were studied through the new science of market research, which sought to answer advertisers’ questions about who, exactly, they were reaching through the publications in which they bought space and, later, through the radio programs on which they bought time. This latter problem was particularly tricky, and market researchers like Lazarsfeld and Arthur C. Nielsen developed techniques for measuring radio audiences and understanding their likes, dislikes, and psychological motivations.16 Riesman, Susman, and Boorstin have contributed a lasting vocabulary for analyzing the history of consumer culture, but their macro approach invites a closer examination of the precise mechanisms of marketing

14 David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denny, The Lonely Crowd: The Study of the Changing American Character (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1950). I reference Riesman’s famous book here as a secondary text, but its central role in the mass culture debates of the 1950s— which I discuss in Chapter 3—make it a primary text. 15 Warren Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984). 16 Boorstin considers the full range of experience that constitutes American consumer culture, including the ready-to-wear clothing that appeared in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the large urban department stores (“Palaces of Consumption”) that emerged in the postbellum period, and the chain stores that arose in the twentieth century. His “consumption communities” were often organized around nationally-advertised, branded goods increasingly sold in self-service retail markets such as Piggly Wiggly, Walgreen’s, and A&P; or through the catalogues distributed by Sears and Montgomery Ward. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Random House, 1973).

11 practices.

These cultural histories were joined in the late 1990s by a series of books that looked more closely at the business aspects of advertising and consumer marketing.17

Pamela Laird, covering the period between roughly 1860 and 1920, examines the professionalization of advertising, which brought a shift from producer-oriented advertising to more sophisticated consumer-oriented advertising techniques.18 Historians

Stephen Fox, Thomas Frank, and Robert E. Weems have carried this analysis of the business of advertising into the twentieth century. Fox focuses on the method and craft of the advertising trade and its stars, from Albert Lasker, one of the most prominent early advertising professionals, through mid-century adman Rosser Reeves’s “Unique Selling

Proposition,” to the “Creative Revolution” in advertising in the 1960s, when “image”

17 These texts built on major works in the history of marketing by Richard Tedlow and Susan Strasser. Strasser examines the formation of the American mass market in the decades around 1900, emphasizing that the branding and marketing of consumer products was as essential to their success as the technical means to produce and distribute them. Tedlow, meanwhile, provided historians with a basic periodization of the history of consumer marketing: the period of market “fragmentation,” existing prior to the 1880s, which was characterized by small producers selling to mostly local markets with no branding or national advertising; the period of market “unification” that emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century, in which technological advances in transportation and communications facilitated the creation of a truly national market; and, finally, the period of market “segmentation,” which occurred at different times in different industries, but which was defined by the practice of dividing the market for a single category of goods on the basis of specific consumer preferences of characteristics. Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989); Richard S. Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 18 Whereas nineteenth-century advertising had emphasized the production process by associating companies with their their founders, the new consumer-oriented advertising concealed the production process as it flattered the tastes and interests of the buying public. This new advertising arose during the Progressive Era as the public became increasingly aware of industrial pollution, threats to public health, and business’s conflicts with labor. The extensive copy that characterized many of the professionally-produced advertisements through the 1950s was, according to Laird, a way for advertisers to provide consumers with a ready-made vocabulary to talk about new and complicated products and technologies. This lengthy text was no quaint vestige of a more literal era; it was, rather, a veneer of rationality that justified consumers’ motivations which were, in most cases, unconscious and emotional. Pamela Walker Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Pamela Laird, “The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization” in Decoding Modern Consumer Societies, eds. Hartmut and Spiekermann, 89-105.

12 advertising eclipsed “reason why” advertising.19 Thomas Frank homes in on this period of “hip consumerism,” when American businesses and advertising creatives enthusiastically embraced the styles and hollowly parroted the values of the youth counterculture. This rejection of mass society also coincided with the increasing segmentation of consumer markets in the late 1950s and early 1960s.20 Weems, finally, looks at they ways in which businesses courted one of those consumer markets, African

Americans, throughout the twentieth century.21 These business histories have analyzed the cultural consequences of the fierce competition for consumer markets, but they lack the consumer perspective provided by market research studies.

Understanding the composition of consumer markets, and the motivations of different kinds of consumers, became increasingly important for business with the evolution of the mass market in the twentieth century. Monographs by Regina Lee

Blaszczyk, on the design and marketing of glass and ceramic housewares, and by Louis

Hyman, on the history of consumer credit, have investigated the material and financial conditions that were established by businesses interested in the development of the consumer culture.22 The business historian Walter A. Friedman, like Lears and Laird,

19 Stephen Fox, The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997). 20 In its rejection of established tastes (but not consumption, per se), the youth revolt of the Sixties against the perceived conformity of the 1950s was fortuitous for consumer marketers: it gave them an idiom that encouraged fleeting fashions and rapid obsolescence—Frank calls this a “cultural perpetual motion machine”—which ultimately translated into sales. Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 21 Weems argues that advertising strategies changed markedly during the course of the the 1960s. At the beginning the decade, advertisers appealed to the ideals of racial desegregation and integration, but by 1970 the rhetoric of racial pride took hold and a distinct “soul” market was created. White-owned companies and advertising agencies that had dismissed the black consumer market for most of the twentieth century began to incorporate “ethnic” marketing divisions that specifically targeted African Americans and other minority groups. Robert E. Weems, Jr., Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998). 22 Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Louis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of

13 takes a broader view of the development of marketing and the professionalization of salesmanship from the mid-nineteenth century through the Second World War.23

Friedman traces the introduction of psychology into the world of consumer marketing by figures like Walter Dill Scott, a disciple of the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt.

Scott laid the groundwork in the early 1900s for later émigré market researchers like

Lazarsfeld and Dichter by arguing that “suggestion,” as opposed to rational argument, was a more effective way to influence potential customers. One of Scott’s students was

Henry C. Link, who became the director of the Psychological Corporation, a marketing consulting firm that developed a widely-used survey of consumer opinions (the “Link

Audit”) and was one of the first employers of Lazarsfeld in the U.S.

While these scholars have considered the business side of the consumer society, historians like Lizabeth Cohen, Meg Jacobs, and Lawrence B. Glickman have considered consumers as political agents.24 Cohen’s interest in the politics of consumerism is most

America In Red Ink (Princeton University Press, 2011). 23 Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004). 24 In A Living Wage, Glickman traces the history of wage labor from the antebellum period, when it had a negative association relative to independent production, to the postbellum period, when it acquired a more positive association as a growing wage-earning class called for a “living wage” and proudly adopted a new consumerist identity. Lawrence B. Glickman, A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). In Buying Power, a history of consumer activism from the Boston Tea Party, through the abolitionist movement, and to the consumer movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Glickman makes the case that consumption or non-consumption (in the form of boycotts) was not restricted to the realm of private decisions, but had an inherently political dimension. Lawrence Glickman, Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). Jacobs considers purchasing power—achieved by high wages and relatively low prices—as the key goal of twentieth-century consumer activism. This form of consumer activism reached its apex during the New Deal and with the wartime Office of Price Administration (OPA), which regulated prices and rationed goods. The postwar demise of the OPA and the passage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947—at the hands of powerful business interests—signaled, for Jacobs, the decline of “economic citizenship,” weakly replaced by Ralph Nader’s 1960s consumer movement, which was narrowly focused on safety and health issues. Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton University Press, 2007). Cohen, in Making a New Deal, argues that the growth of chain stores, theaters, and radio stations effaced many ethnic subcultures with a homogenous mass culture that stifled local cultural expressions but, simultaneously, connected these distinct groups to a progressive national political identity. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1891-1939 (Cambridge University Press,

14 completely developed in A Consumers’ Republic, which considers the different iterations that the category of consumer took on in twentieth-century America.25 Her main distinction is between citizen consumers, who used the identity as a venue for progressive political action—often to advance the interests of women and African Americans—and purchaser consumers, favored by business interests, who performed their civic duty more passively as general contributors to the aggregate demand consecrated by the postwar

Keynesian consensus. With the important exception of civil rights boycotters—who sought equal access to the “public accommodations” that were central to Consumers’

Republic—purchaser consumers were ascendant in the postwar years, while citizen consumers rose to prominence in each of three waves of political action: in the

Progressive Era, during the New Deal reforms of the 1930s and 1940s, and in the “third wave” consumer movement of the 1960s, led by figures like Ralph Nader. In a chapter on the explosion of regional shopping centers in the 1950s, Cohen notes Victor Gruen’s modern, idealistic vision for shopping centers as a surrogate downtowns and community spaces for the scattered, sprawling suburbs, but she observes that these centers primarily served the purchaser consumers of the white middle class while barring political expressions and effectively filtering out poor, urban, and often African-American consumers. Cohen also points out the role of market researchers like Paul Lazarsfeld and

Ernest Dichter in producing the knowledge that shifted marketers’ strategies from the mass approach to more refined appeals directed at particular demographic and

“psychographic” segments of the market—which coincided with the rise of “identity” politics and subcultural group affinities in the 1960s and 1970s, but also contributed to a

1990). 25 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003).

15 more “fragmented” America.26 Cohen’s account of American grassroots consumer politics is a crucial scholarly contribution, but her method—based in labor and social movement history—does not consider the political idealism of figures like Gruen and

Lazarsfeld, which had ironic application in the consumer sphere.

These works on the political agency of consumers are complemented by the work of Wendy L. Wall, Sarah Igo, and Elaine Tyler May on the consensus ideology of the

Cold War years, which functioned to flatten difference, suppress dissent, and promote an anticommunist, pro-capitalist agenda.27 Conformity was of course a principal target of contemporary social critics—such as David Riesman, mentioned above—and a large secondary literature covers the mass culture debates that characterized so much intellectual discourse in the period.28 The historian Daniel Horowitz has built a virtual

26 Cohen, Consumers’ Republic, 331. 27 Wall shows how business groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Advertising Council sought to stifle conflicts among ethnic groups and between business and organized labor, propagandizing for what they called “free enterprise,” a phrase invented by economic conservatives in the 1930s to replace private enterprise. Wendy L. Wall, Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). May applies the idea of containment—borrowed from the Cold War policy of the U.S. vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, first articulated by the diplomat George Kennan—as a central metaphor for the organization of middle-class, suburban life and the resurgent cult of domesticity which predominated in the postwar years. The suburbs, decentralized partly as a defensive strategy (which is why Gruen’s shopping centers were touted as much-needed points of organization), contained the single-family home, itself a “self-contained” universe of clearly-defined gender roles that provided protection from a chaotic world. If May’s metaphor is too neat, it is compensated by the niceness of her characterization of the period. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988). Igo, finally, focuses on the polls, surveys, and sociological studies of famous mid-century researchers like Robert and Helen Lynd, George Gallup and Elmo Roper, and Alfred Kinsey. She makes the case that surveyors served their own interests in defining the “average” and “normal” by flattening out differences and excluding minority groups like immigrants and African Americans. An important exception, Igo notes, was in the practice of market research, where commercial clients “demanded much finer gradations of the population than did the subscribers to public opinion polls.” Sarah E. Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 147. 28 See, for example: Roland Marchand, “Visions of Classlessness, Quests for Dominion: American Popular Culture, 1945-1960,” in Reshaping America: Society and Institutions, 1945-1960, eds. Robert H. Bremmer and Gary W. Reichard (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982); Neil Jumonville, Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Michael Wrezin, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight Macdonald (New York: Basic Books, 1994). Several of these works—such as those by Andrew Ross and Paul Gorman—are highly polemical, launched in the thick of the culture wars of the late 1980s and

16 cottage industry writing about these twentieth-century social critics of the American consumer culture.29 Working mainly in the vein of intellectual history, Horowitz takes a comparative, biographical approach to his subjects. He is particularly interested in public intellectuals he calls “moralists,” who often come from an American, Protestant tradition that honors “producer” values. His subjects have included the journalist Vance Packard

—chief critic of Ernest Dichter with his book The Hidden Persuaders30—and the sociologist Robert Lynd, who was Paul Lazarsfeld’s friend and sponsor, and who grew disappointed when the Viennese Lazarsfeld’s social-democratic political commitment waned after his emigration to the U.S.

Another group of intellectual historians has been more deliberate in its treatment of the dominant themes of twentieth-century politics, economics, and society, interweaving histories of social science, mass communications, and culture to consider the limits and potential of democracy. Brett Gary and Benjamin L. Alpers, for example,

early 1990s, against the “elitist” critics of mass culture like Dwight Macdonald and Clement Greenberg. Andrew Ross, No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 1989); Paul R. Gorman, Left Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the 20th Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). More measured recent works include Robert Vanderlan’s Intellectuals Incorporated, which looks at media mogul Henry Luce’s mass-circulation publications—Time, Life, and Fortune—and the many prominent social critics who got their start as Luce’s writers, including Daniel Bell, Dwight Macdonald, and William H. Whyte. Fortune was provided an unlikely venue for Bell’s labor column, and Whyte began writing the kind of social analysis and business culture criticism that would later be published as The Organization Man. Robert Vanderlan, Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas Inside Henry Luce’s Media Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010); William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956). 29 Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875- 1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2004); Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Horowitz has written about figures including Lewis Mumford, David Potter, John Kenneth Galbraith, David Riesman, Betty Friedan, Michael Harrington, Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, Daniel Bell, and Christopher Lasch—each, in some way, a critic of American materialism and consumer excess. While Horowitz, the intellectual historian, dutifully compares and contrasts the thought and biographies of these interesting figures, he never develops a coherent argument or narrative about their role in American society—other than the fact that they were all social critics. 30 Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, 1957).

17 have considered the role of media in the interwar global crisis of democracy and social researchers’ attempts understand the ways in which propaganda and the technologies of mass communications could be used for and against democracy.31 Gary provides particular insight into the motivations of John Marshall, the Rockefeller Foundation officer who sponsored Lazarsfeld’s radio research project, and who founded the

Communications Group, which included Lazarsfeld, to study the effects of mass media on public opinion. (Lazarsfeld would become best known in the field of communication studies for the “limited effects” paradigm of mass media.) Alpers takes a broader cultural view of the specter of totalitarianism and dictatorship, while a more recent work by Fred

Turner considers how social scientists like Margaret Mead and émigré Bauhaus designers like László Moholy-Nagy created environments (what Turner calls “surrounds”) intended to promote democratic modes of thinking.32 Angus Burgin, meanwhile, has investigated the intellectual origins of neoliberalism and conservative economics in the careers of the

Austrian émigré economist Friedrich Hayek and his protégé at the University of Chicago,

Milton Friedman.33

Finally, this project engages a very large body of scholarship on the history of

émigré intellectuals and social scientists, including The Intellectual Migration, the classic anthology by Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Lazarsfeld’s son-in-law), and the extensive literature on Max Horkheimer’s Institute of Social Research.34 Martin Jay is

31 Brett Gary, The Nervous Liberals: Propaganda Anxieties from World War I to the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Benjamin L. Alpers, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 32 Fred Turner, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). 33 Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012). 34 This literature includes, but is not limited to: Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1969); H. Stuart

18 the preeminent historian of the scholars who belonged to the Frankfurt School of critical theory, but his considerable oeuvre has more recently been supplemented by the works of scholars like Thomas Wheatland, who has investigated the material conditions (their financing) and social connections (with Lazarsfeld, among others) that made their

American work possible. The specifically transnational history of émigré intellectuals and social science has been examined by scholars like Anthony Heilbut and Christian

Fleck, while Eli Zaretsky and Lawrence J. Friedman have considered the cultural impact of Freud, Freudianism, and psychoanalysis in America, imported by prominent figures like Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm. This scholarship has mainly been in the mode of intellectual, social, and cultural history, and it has left largely unexamined the ways in which some émigré intellectuals led double lives in the vulgar world of business.

A New Approach

This dissertation lies at the intersection of several different modes of historical inquiry: intellectual, business, cultural, economic, transnational, and social scientific.

The figures I have chosen to study—émigré social scientists and designers—permit me to integrate these diverse methods and moods of scholarship. Each of these figures—Paul

Hughes, The Sea Change: The Migration of Social Thought, 1930-1965 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Christian Fleck, A Transatlantic History of the Social Sciences: Robber Barons, the Third Reich and the Invention of Empirical Social Research, trans. Hella Beister (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011); Lawrence J. Friedman, The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, from the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983); Martin Jay, Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985) and The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1973); David Jenemann, Adorno in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); David Kettler, and Gerhard Lauer, eds., Exile, Science, and Bildung: The Contested Legacies of German Emigre Intellectuals (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Thomas Wheatland, The Frankfurt School in Exile (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009); Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

19 Lazarsfeld, Ernest Dichter, Walter Landor, and Victor Gruen—transcended the confines of his professional practice to become a public intellectual who could articulate his craft and support it with a coherent theory. I call them a cohort not because of their close personal relationships with one another,35 but because they shared the experience of being influential, entrepreneurial Jewish émigrés who contributed something unique to the postwar consumer culture in the U.S. The particularity of their education and experience in Central Europe made their talents special in the American context. They were equipped with an outsider’s view of the culture and the people, and they were acutely aware of what made that people proud and what made it peculiar.

Building upon the monographs and synthetic histories described above, this dissertation seeks to add material substance and new knowledge to the major intellectual dilemmas of consumer history. The “agency” problem in consumer history has been partly addressed by Lizabeth Cohen: consumers, in different iterations, could be political agents or passive participants, depending on the historical moment and the particular consciousness of the consumer. My research shows that, from a business perspective, consumers’ choices and behaviors were never taken for granted; instead, consumers were intensely studied and even feared for their whims and unpredictability. Corporate executives and advertising agents embraced consultants like Lazarsfeld and Dichter as gurus who could tell them what consumers wanted and what they were thinking.

Business leaders’ intense interest in the new psychological science of market research exposed their latent anxiety over the mysterious behavior and fickle behavior of consumers.

35 Indeed, only Lazarsfeld and Dichter had a close personal connection. However, Dichter and Landor worked together professionally on several occasions, and Lazarsfeld and Gruen came from the same social milieu and were acquaintances in Vienna.

20 I will also show the ways in which European ideas in politics and design—such as social democracy and formal modernism—were incorporated into the American context through the work of these émigrés, sometimes maintaining their integrity and sometimes transforming beyond recognition. For Dichter, psychoanalysis was often less a rigorous method (indeed, his technique was eclectic, and, in the view of Lazarsfeld, shoddy) than it was a common idiom through which he could sell his services and impress his clients.

For Lazarsfeld, the dedication to empiricism and interest in social classes that animated the Austro-Marxists of Vienna became a method of market research that helped competitive U.S. corporations resolve the mysteries of their consumer base. For Landor, the aesthetic principles of the German Bauhaus and Werkbund movements became fundamental to the design of consumer product packages and corporate identities, and the idea of Gestalt informed his understanding of consumer psychology. For Gruen, finally, the belief in municipal social engineering that was the creed of the Social Democrats, who governed Vienna from 1919 to 1934, became the inspiration for his plans for the suburban shopping center and the revitalization of American downtowns—even if these idealistic goals ultimately fell short. In sum, this dissertation is an intellectual history that examines a cohort of émigrés who served as vehicles for the transnational translation and practical application of progressive social ideas in the context of postwar consumer capitalism in the U.S.

Sources and Method

The primary sources that are the raw substance for this project include materials that are commonly consulted in business history but which have been neglected by

21 cultural historians. In addition to my work in the archival collections of Lazarsfeld,

Dichter, Gruen, and Landor, the project has evolved from my study of hundreds of market research reports produced by Dichter’s consulting firm, the Institute for Motivational

Research, and Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research, an institute associated with Columbia University but financed largely through government and foundation grants and through market research contracts. The reports, which were the proprietary records of contracted market studies, purported to reveal consumers’ unconscious desires to interested clients. As historical documents, they show the degree to which the experience of consumption pervaded every aspect of American life.

Consumer market studies document the practical interests of businessmen who delved into the complexity of American culture and social divisions. The studies also expose the prejudices and anxieties that prevailed in certain populations, and which were unconsciously expressed in consumers’ behavior. They concern a wide range of consumer goods, services, and media, including automobiles, cigarettes, life insurance companies, magazines, airlines, and cake mixes. Many of the reports address the issues of race relations and segregation that businessmen would not discuss publicly, but which deeply affected the way they ran their businesses. The concept of brand “personality” and corporate image are important to my argument concerning the “segmentation” of consumer market groups in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and for that reason many of the reports I consider deal with this topic.

Overview

The narrative of this dissertation is structured around the lives and work of these

22 four Jewish émigrés, each of whom began his American career in New York in the 1930s.

Three of them came of age during the heyday of Austro-Marxism in “Red Vienna,” a city famous for its far-reaching program of “municipal socialism” that affected virtually every sphere of life in that city from 1919 to 1934. My first chapter introduces Paul Lazarsfeld, a Viennese sociologist who developed his quantitative methods through the practice of market research. Lazarsfeld had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he studied psychology under Charlotte and Karl Bühler at the University of Vienna, but institutionalized anti-

Semitism denied him a tenured teaching position. Instead, he founded a research institute that was associated with, but not part of, the university: the Österreichische

Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle. The institute, which would become the model for Lazarsfeld’s American research institutes, was funded partly through market research studies done for various Central European businesses. Lazarsfeld was the first among this group to emigrate to the U.S. in 1933. Creeping fascism in Austria compelled

Lazarsfeld to stay in New York, where he quickly established himself as an innovative market researcher, social scientist, and media analyst. Through a Rockefeller-funded radio research project in the 1930s and a research institute at Columbia University in the

1940s, Lazarsfeld provided jobs and connections for his fellow intellectuals in exile, including members of Max Horkheimer’s Institute of Social Research.

I argue that Lazarsfeld’s politics were inherent to the form of his research method, and that he creatively applied socialism’s moral concern with social stratification to capitalism’s economic problem of producing and maintaining markets. In this way, a particular expression of social-democratic politics available to Jews in interwar Vienna provided the basis for a new science of class divisions that had a practical application in

23 the burgeoning consumer market of postwar America. While the political commitment that had animated Lazarsfeld’s early life and career in Austria had diminished upon his arrival in the U.S.—much to the disappointment of his mentor and chief sponsor Robert

Lynd—the Austro-Marxist emphasis on empirical social science and the Social-

Democratic interest in the makeup of social classes proved to be analytical attributes that were well-suited to a career in market research. Lazarsfeld’s novel style of research was eagerly embraced by marketers in the context of a deflated American capitalism that was struggling to motivate consumers and understand their behaviors. He intervened to make a science around the psychological question of why people buy.

My second, third, and fourth chapters follow Lazarsfeld’s career and work, which

I juxtapose to that of the psychologist Ernest Dichter, his former student at the University of Vienna and a fellow émigré. Unlike Lazarsfeld, Dichter was not involved in socialist politics, and he remained bitter about being arrested in 1936 while working as a market researcher at Lazarsfeld’s Forschungsstelle, which had become an underground socialist mailing center since the proto-fascist Engelbert Dollfuss banned the Social Democratic

Party in 1934. After Hitler’s 1938 Anschluss of Austria, Dichter emigrated to the U.S., where he found work at a market research firm that employed several other Austrian

émigrés from Lazarsfeld’s cohort of social scientists. Lazarsfeld also helped Dichter to secure employment as a market researcher at CBS. But despite their common origins studying under Karl and Charlotte Bühler at the University of Vienna, Lazarsfeld and

Dichter were starkly different in their respective politics, methodologies, and personalities. They were both empiricists, but while Lazarsfeld was an academic who practiced quantitative sociology (indeed, his Ph.D. was in mathematics), Dichter was a

24 private consultant who used a somewhat slippery psychoanalytic method he called

“depth” interviewing or “probing” which purported to reveal subjects’ unconscious motivations and desires.

Dichter founded his own firm in 1946, the Institute for Motivational Research, which would become one of the most prominent market research consulting firms in the

1950s. Chapters two and four analyze the careers of Dichter and Lazarsfeld from the

1930s through the 1970s, using the thousands of market research reports produced by

Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research and Dichter’s Institute as my primary sources. Dichter’s penchant for self-promotion often took precedence over the rigor of his method, yet the reports on his research studies—produced for a wide array of corporate clients—reveal much about American culture and the fears, prejudices, and neuroses of ordinary Americans of various races and classes. For marketers, these reports highlighted the particularity of the various segments of the American public and thus aided in their transition from mass-marketing to the more “segmented” marketing strategies that came to prevail by the 1960s. These market segments were often defined on the basis of psychological as well as demographic characteristics, and Dichter’s research service helped marketers to create the appropriate “personalities” and images for their products which aligned with those psychological types.

Serving as something of an intermezzo between chapters two and four, chapter three considers the roles played by Dichter and Lazarsfeld in American popular culture.

Dichter and Lazarsfeld contributed indirectly to American consumer culture through their consulting services, but they themselves were also key figures in the debate over mass culture that flared in intellectual circles and in the popular media during the 1950s.

25 Dichter became the subject of popular ire in 1957 as the main villain in journalist Vance

Packard’s best-selling book, The Hidden Persuaders, which presented the psychological

“probing” then in vogue on Madison Avenue as a sinister campaign of mass manipulation. (Dichter was also an unnamed target in Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The

Feminine Mystique in a chapter on marketing to housewives.) In the Cold War context of tenuous democracy and fears over totalitarian mind control, the threat was palpable:

Dichter’s use of psychoanalysis to serve commercial ends appeared to threaten the sovereignty of the individual-as-consumer. Lazarsfeld’s research centers, meanwhile, served as incubators for some of the most influential figures in the mass culture debate, including Theodor Adorno, C. Wright Mills, and Leo Lowenthal. Lowenthal’s work, for example, influenced David Riesman’s argument and analytical method in The Lonely

Crowd, and C. Wright Mills’s White Collar was largely based on research he had done while working at Lazarsfeld’s Bureau.

Dichter and Lazarsfeld—both Viennese market researchers, but of starkly different styles and political commitments—provided research services to marketers who used the mass media to reach their targeted consumer audiences, creating the culture of mass consumption that became increasingly divided into discrete segments. With their methods of psychology and social science imported from Vienna, they provided the intellectual foundations for the media and marketing strategies of major American corporations in the postwar years. In chapters five and six, I juxtapose my consideration of these two émigré social researchers with a look at the work of two other émigré entrepreneurs, the designers Walter Landor and Victor Gruen. If Dichter and Lazarsfeld analyzed the social constitution of postwar American consumers, Landor and Gruen

26 produced the physical landscapes that they inhabited. They both designed retail shops and established their own firms in the 1940s, but Landor became famous for his brilliant package designs and branding programs, while Gruen, the architect, invented the most important site of postwar consumption: the suburban shopping center.

Landor, the subject of chapter five, was born into an integrated, bourgeois Jewish family in Munich. He was influenced by the German Werkbund and Bauhaus schools of design and architecture, and he was trained as an industrial designer in England at a time when the field itself was still a novelty. Landor epitomized the cosmopolitan ideal, leaving Germany for London just before Hitler rose to power, and anglicizing his surname from Landauer to Landor. (Gruen also changed his name from Grünbaum upon becoming a U.S. citizen.) Horrified by the prospect of war in Europe, Landor seized an opportunity to emigrate to the U.S. in 1939 to design exhibits for the World’s Fair in New

York—where Gruen also launched his American career. A letter of introduction from his mentor allowed him to meet many of the giants in American industrial design, and by

1941 he had established his own firm in San Francisco, where he would remain for the rest of his career. Landor distinguished himself and his firm not only by his modern aesthetic sensibility, but also by his determination to test his designs through “scientific” consumer research, including an in-house supermarket laboratory that administered tests with real human subjects. Like Dichter, with whom he worked on several occasions,

Landor believed in a Gestalt approach to image-making that emphasized the total concept and its unconscious effects over its various constituent parts. Also like Dichter, Landor had no qualms about using all available means of seduction to reach the consumer on an unconscious, emotional level rather than on the plane of rationality.

27 While Landor specialized in producing seductive images of branded products, the subject of chapter six, architect and urban planner Victor Gruen, designed the retail environments in which consumers encountered those products: shops, supermarkets, department stores, and, most famously, suburban shopping centers, or malls, as they came to be known—a synecdoche of their most prominent feature. Born in Vienna in 1903,

Gruen grew up in the same middle-class, Jewish, Social-Democratic milieu as Lazarsfeld.

The large-scale building efforts of the Social Democrats—particularly the thousands of apartments that the municipal government constructed for workers in large housing blocks (the Wiener Höfe)—proved to Gruen the ability of urban planning projects and great public works to make substantial improvements to modern society. His commitment to an ideal of social democracy was a principal motivation for his work.

The 1938 Anschluss forced Gruen’s emigration to New York. He soon established his own architectural firm in Los Angeles, which first specialized in designing storefronts and interiors for a chain of women’s clothiers and department stores. Gruen initially envisioned the concept for the regional shopping center in 1943: it was characterized by its automobile-free, pedestrian-only malls and courtyards, which produced a starkly different shopping environment relative to the scattered commercial strips that then dominated the suburbs. He conceived the “mall” as a cooperative of commercial enterprises that would bring surrogate downtowns to sprawling, unorganized postwar suburbs, providing a community center where there had been none. Gruen became very successful designing shopping centers in the 1950s and 1960s, but he was, at the same time, an urban planner. His plan for a pedestrian-only downtown for Fort Worth, Texas— though never implemented—became a model for urban renewal projects around the

28 world.

While the work of Lazarsfeld and Dichter influenced the strategies of marketers,

Gruen and Landor labored to produce the objects and physical environments that were the material manifestation of postwar consumerism. Their contributions to the material culture of American consumer capitalism grew out of the leftist ideology of Austro-

29 Chapter 1: Émigré Scientists of the Quotidian: The Interwar Years

“You know as an old Viennese socialist I really felt completely at home with the

New Deal—with the Roosevelt administration,” recalled the émigré Paul F. Lazarsfeld.

The social scientist and market researcher was referring to one of his early assignments as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow in the Depression-era United States.1 “I think of myself sometimes as a frustrated politician,” he remembered, “and because I cannot run a party club in America I have always run research institutes.”2 Lazarsfeld’s political rearing as an Austro-Marxist demanded a keen interest in the struggle of labor and the problem of unemployment; it was an experience that was fundamental to his critical analysis of social stratification. The moral priorities of the Viennese Social Democrats, founded in the particular philosophy of Austro-Marxism, thus motivated Lazarsfeld to develop new research methodologies which, later, had a direct application in the commercial, capitalistic world of market research in the United States, his adopted home.

Lazarsfeld was the central figure of a cohort of Central European émigré social researchers who creatively applied social-democratic and psychoanalytic insights to help

American business interests to understand their consumer markets. These exiled intellectuals became leaders in market research, media analysis, and mass culture criticism in the interwar period in the U.S. One of the most difficult areas of business

1 Quoted in David Morrison, “The Transference of Experience and the Impact of Ideas: Paul Lazarsfeld and Mass Communications Research,” Communications 10 (Spring 1988): 192. Other émigrés of a socialist bent who arrived in the U.S. in the 1930s, such as the Frankfurt School scholar Franz Neumann, also expressed admiration for the “Roosevelt experiment.” H. Stuart Hughes, The Sea Change: The Migration of Social Thought, 1930-1965 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 103. 2 Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” The American Sociologist 17 (1982): 151. Some corporate leaders touted democratic potential in market research as a form of “economic education” that was an alternative to the statism of the New Deal. See Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 233.

30 planning was the management of consumer markets, which were often composed of little-known groups of individuals who acted on the basis of inscrutable motivations. The study of consumer markets—as an applied form of social research, more broadly— provided a venue for socialists and liberal capitalists alike to practice their methods in a manageable forum. They were part of a Depression-era trend toward the greater organization of capitalist industry, both in the management of corporations and in the unionization of labor. The corporation was more than an instrument of profit and industry: it was a form of social organization that had the potential to bear a public responsibility.3

Both Lazarsfeld and his fellow Viennese émigré Ernest Dichter—a psychologist who lacked Lazarsfeld’s commitment to socialism—channeled their interest in human motivations and decision-making into institutional programs of market research that had felicitous applicability in the American context. The so-called “Frankfurt School” of critical theorists, including Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Leo Lowenthal, meanwhile, developed a radical critique of mass media and mass culture while involved a project organized around the applied science of market research. Lazarsfeld, a committed

Social Democrat from his youth, consciously applied socialism’s urgent concern with

3 Howard Brick, Transcending Capitalism: Visions of a New Society in Modern American Thought (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 54-85. Peter Drucker, a fellow Viennese who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1930s, also saw the corporation as a specifically social institution. With a series of books in the 1930s and 1940s—The End of Economic Man, The Future of Industrial Man, and Concept of the Corporation—Drucker became one of the most prominent business management theorists of the twentieth century. Drucker rejected the mechanical economism of both bourgeois capitalism and the Marxist variant of socialism, which, he believed, neglected the role of industrial corporations as social institutions. He also rejected Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theories of industrial efficiency, which ultimately dehumanized workers. Drucker’s corporate management solutions were not so narrowly focused on increasing efficiency; instead, Drucker understood the corporation as a fundamental social institution—a microcosm of society—that had human obligations to its workers as well as profit obligations to its shareholders. See Nils Gilman, “The Prophet of Post-Fordism: Peter Drucker and the Legitimation of the Corporation” in American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006),109- 31.

31 social stratification to contemporary marketing problems, and he built institutions that employed Dichter, Adorno, and Lowenthal as they developed their own alternative methodologies. While Lazarsfeld, a mathematician by training, used market research as venue to develop his quantitative methods, many researchers at his institutes practiced qualitative inquiry, and many of the Frankfurt scholars fiercely clashed with Lazarsfeld and resisted the positivistic tendencies of empirical social science. But Lazarsfeld was the paradigmatic social researcher in this cohort of émigrés, providing an institutional home for the development of Continental critiques of capitalism that were, paradoxically, integrated with the practical science of market research. This “intellectual migration,” as

Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn aptly described it, thus also had a material component: the economic ideas of these émigrés, both critical and analytical, produced important knowledge of market segments and consumer subjects that had commercial applications.4

David Morrison, who has studied and written widely about Lazarsfeld, observes that “one would look in vain in Lazarsfeld’s work for the type of political intervention through scholarship that is the associated mark of academics who are Marxist.” Morrison submits that Lazarsfeld’s work may seem to “float” on a “residue of socialist sentiment,” but, he says, that background is nevertheless incongruous with his close ties to corporate

4 Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1969). The German-speaking intelligentsia of Central Europe in the interwar years included scholars from Germany, Austria, and Hungary, many of whom migrated to Britain and the U.S. when Nazism took hold in the 1930s. Émigré sociologists and philosophers contributed to what historian H. Stuart Hughes called the “transatlantic synthesis,” the merging of sociological traditions whereby Germans introduced theory into an American context in which empirical research was primary. As a quantitative theorist and tenacious empirical researcher, Lazarsfeld arrived already possessing many of the qualities that characterized the American approach to sociology. H. Stuart Hughes, The Sea Change: The Migration of Social Thought, 1930-1965 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 3-31.

32 America.5 Lazarsfeld’s defense that his “trivial” market studies were useful in the development of concepts is dismissed by Morrison as a rationalization or “convenient gloss.”6 Other historians have also noted the dissipation of Lazarsfeld’s socialist politics in the American scene.7 Scholars engaged in intra-disciplinary debates, such as Peter

Simonson and Gabriel Weimann, have sought to reassess Lazarsfeld’s reputation in media studies as the father of the “dominant paradigm” of “limited media effects.”8 They do so by drawing out some elements of critical theory, or at least expressions of sympathy toward that mode of inquiry, in Lazarsfeld’s work and in his professional relationships.

But it is the contention of this chapter that the most salient element of Lazarsfeld’s

Continental, socialist background did not present itself as an overt expression; it was, rather, a latent element in Lazarsfeld’s formal mode of interpretation that permitted his extraordinary comprehension of social stratification.

There is no doubt that an activist socialist or progressive politics did largely disappear from Lazarsfeld’s work in the U.S. This conspicuous absence alienated his more committed friends and colleagues, particularly the sociologist Robert Lynd, who had done much to advance Lazarsfeld’s career, and whom Lazarsfeld credited with bringing him to the mainstream of American sociology.9 However, what remained of

5 David E. Morrison, The Search for a Method: Focus Groups and the Development of Mass Communication Research (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998), 40. 6 Morrison, Search, 97. 7 See, for example, Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 143; and David L. Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” Biographical Memoirs (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1987), 255. 8 Peter Simonson and Gabriel Weimann, “Critical Research at Columbia: Lazarsfeld’s and Merton’s ‘Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action’” in Elihu Katz, et al., eds., Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are There Any? Should There Be? How About These? (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 14. 9 See chapter 4 in Mark C. Smith, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate Over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918-1941 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994); Robert K. Merton, “Working with Lazarsfeld: Notes and Contexts” in in Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976): La sociologie de Vienne à New York, eds. Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1998), 187.

33 Lazarsfeld’s socialism was evident not in an overt politics, but rather in his method of analyzing social stratification. When employed in the context of market research,

Lazarsfeld’s methods helped companies to understand market segments and the motivations of consumers belonging to different social strata. This was key socialist concern that Lazarsfeld applied—absent its implications for class conflict and social reform—in the commercial world as a method of analyzing market segments. In what follows, I will argue that the trajectory of Lazarsfeld’s early career—in contrast to his colleague Adorno, a severe critic of capitalism—reveals the ways in which Continental political and intellectual movements in socialism, psychology, and critical theory proved to have commercial applications in burgeoning consumer culture of the U.S. I present this less as a narrative of “selling out” and more as a case study in the fluidity of economic systems—capitalism and socialism—which challenges their absolute ideological bifurcation.

Austro-Marxism and Social Democracy in Interwar Vienna

Lazarsfeld’s socialist background was fundamental to the development of his method of social research, and it was the impetus for his career, including the commercial applications of his work. For European students growing up in the first decades of the twentieth century, Lazarsfeld recalled, the main intellectual influences were psychoanalysis, Marxism, and social theory based on empirical material.10 His Austrian friends remembered him as a politically active Marxist who, according to one, “promised

10 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Morris Rosenberg, “General Introduction” in The Language of Social Research: Reader in the Methodology of Social Research, eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Morris Rosenberg (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free press, 1955), 1-12.

34 to become one of the great intellectual figures of Austrian social democracy.”11 Hans

Zeisel—Lazarsfeld’s longtime friend, colleague in social research, and a fellow émigré— in recalling their years together in Vienna, emphasized that he and Lazarsfeld had diverse personal influences, including the psychologist Alfred Adler and their psychology teachers at the University of Vienna, the husband-and-wife team of Karl and Charlotte

Bühler. But the most immediately influential force in their lives was the Austrian Social

Democratic Party, a movement that was both “messianic and enormously practical.”12

The two-decade period between the wars was a “great socialist adventure” in Vienna,

Zeisel recalled, during which members of the movement had no doubt that the Marxist theory of class struggle was correct, and that the betterment of the condition of the poor was their mission.13 “At the core of Paul’s endeavors,” wrote Zeisel, alluding to the commitments of a historical materialist, “was the enormous desire to understand human motivation...and how social structures, both present and past, grow, change, and disappear.”14 Another friend and colleague, the American sociologist David Riesman, who cited the Lazarsfeld cohort’s work as a major influence on his famous mid-century sociological study, The Lonely Crowd and its accompanying Faces in the Crowd, agreed:

“[H]e had a lifelong nostalgia for socialism, Vienna style, disguised in what seemed the

11 Anton Pelinka, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld as a pioneer of social sciences in Austria” in Paul Lazarsfeld (1901- 1976): La sociologie de Vienne à New York, eds. Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer, (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1998), 24. 12 Hans Zeisel, “The Vienna Years,” in Robert K. Merton, et al., eds., Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld (New York: The Free Press, 1979), 10. Among the many social programs started by the Socialists’ municipal government was a pedagogical institute to instruct teachers in new motivational methods. Alfred Adler and the Bühlers, along with Anna Freud, served as lecturers at the institute. Helmut Gruber, Red Vienna: Experiment in Working-Class Culture, 1919-1934 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 76. 13 Hans Zeisel, “The Austromarxists in ‘Red’ Vienna: Reflections and Recollections” in The Austrian Socialist Experiment: Social Democracy and Austromarxism, 1918-1934, ed. Anson Rabinbach (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985). 14 Zeisel, “The Vienna Years,” 14.

35 ultra-American regalia of an empirically minded institution-building, intellectually adventurous, and wide ranging social scientist.”15 Lazarsfeld himself, in his memoir, recalled his activity in the Socialist Student Movement in Vienna after the First World

War, and its influence on his work: “We were concerned with why our propaganda was unsuccessful, and wanted to conduct psychological studies to explain it.”16 Lazarsfeld was not only a committed socialist, but also a determined institution-builder who sought to organize his comrades as activist social researchers.17

That Lazarsfeld was able to channel his desire for social progress into institutional forms with broad applications beyond the realm of socialist politics is partly the result of his ambition and fascination with the methods of social research, and partly because of the European crisis that produced an exile community forced to adapt to radically new circumstances. Lazarsfeld was born in Vienna on February 13, 1901 to secular-Jewish, socialist-intellectual parents. His father Robert was a lawyer who often defended political activists pro bono, and his mother Sofie was a leading individual psychologist trained by Alfred Adler; both were published authors.18 It was an upper middle-class, established and integrated Jewish family that was mainly agnostic in religious matters.

15 David Riesman, “Ethical and Practical Dilemmas of Fieldwork in Academic Settings: A Personal Memoir,” in Merton, Qualitative, 226-7. 16 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir” in Fleming and Bailyn, 272. 17 “I was very active in the socialist youth movement,” recalled Lazarsfeld. “It was really...almost transferring my clique of younger people […] into this whole [research] activity.” Quoted in Morrison, Search, 19. 18 Morrison, Search, 25; David L. Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” Biographical Memoirs (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1987), 254. Sofie Lazarsfeld was also a prominent sex reformer, counselor, and a member of Wilhelm Reich’s Socialistic Society for Sexual Research. She was at the forefront of a movement in interwar Vienna to transform sexual knowledge from a medical specialty into a popular reform movement, and she supported public outreach efforts such as as “marital advice” columns in non-medical publications. She encouraged women to express their feelings about sex and their bodies, and she published her views in a 1931 book, Wie die Frau der Mann Erlebt (“How Woman Experiences Man”). Britta McEwen, Sexual Knowledge: Feeling, Fact, and Social Reform in Vienna, 1900-1934 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 91-111.

36 The Viennese “non-Jewish Jews” like Lazarsfeld’s family were inclined toward political liberalism around the turn of the century and, later, to the Social Democratic Party.19

Lazarsfeld came of age during the First World War and, in its wake, the birth of the new republic in Austria, a time of euphoria on the political left.20

With no serious challenge from the Communist party, “Red Vienna” under the hegemonic rule of the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (SDAP, or the Social

Democratic Workers’ Party)—as the only European capital where socialists held nearly absolute power—provided a model for a “third way” beyond state communism and liberal capitalism. European socialists and labor movement leaders saw Vienna’s brand of municipal socialism as a practical “Western” alternative to Bolshevism and the doctrinaire Marxism of the Communist International.21 The Party was moreover the

“natural home” for Jews, according to historian David Morrison, because its ideology of brotherhood and internationalism acted as a “buffer” against anti-Semitism—even though the party itself was not entirely free of it.22 The Social Democratic government enacted sweeping social welfare reforms that attempted to create a “comprehensive proletarian counterculture” that was woven into the new socialist institutions and infrastructure of the city.23 Among a majority of Viennese, pride in one’s city was virtually identical with

19 Christian Fleck, “Introduction to the Transaction Edition” in Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Hans Zeisel, Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002) [original translation published 1971 by Aldine Atherton, Inc., Chicago], xx. 20 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Here is a summary of my impressions of Jerusalem and the UNESCO seminar made after 10 days,” 1971, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 2/2, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archive (Institut für Soziologie, Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria) [hereafter, “PFL Vienna”]. 21 Anson Rabinbach, The Crisis of Austrian Socialism: From Red Vienna to Civil War, 1927-1934 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 1-4; 7. The historian Janek Wasserman, however, points out that the term “Red Vienna” was initially deployed by right-wing political opponents (whom he groups under the rubric of “Black Vienna”) as a pejorative, and that Social Democrats themselves avoided using the term for fear of endorsing conservative caricatures of the city as a Jewish bastion of Bolshevism. Janek Wasserman, Black Vienna: The Radical Right in the Red City, 1918-1938 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 2-8. 22 Morrison, Search, 26; Marie Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna” in Lautman, 136. 23 Helmut Gruber, Red Vienna: Experiment in Working-Class Culture, 1919-1934 (New York: Oxford

37 pride in the Party, according to Lazarsfeld. The SDAP reached into nearly every aspect of public and community life, sponsoring all kinds of organized associations, and

Lazarsfeld admitted to being part of this “machine.” “In fact, there was practically no activity for which there did not exist an association specifically titled Social Democratic,”

Lazarsfeld recalled. Class consciousness became a way of life, and the Austrian Social

Democratic Party member was a “classic example” of a class-conscious worker, according to Lazarsfeld.24

While Jews had always been prominent in the Social Democratic Party, their position did not preclude expressions of anti-Semitism. The founder of the Party, Viktor

Adler, had converted to Protestantism, and he feared that the Party would be identified with Jewry and thus subject to anti-Semitic prejudices. Party members often responded to anti-Semitic charges against them (the term Judensozi was in common currency) by

University Press, 1991), 5. 24 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Development of a Test for Class-consciousness” in Continuities in the Language of Social Research, eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Ann K. Pasanella, and Morris Rosenberg (New York: Free Press 1972), 41-3; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Robert Lynd, ca. 1951, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. Austrian social democracy was first nurtured in the Bildungsvereine, or cultural societies, of the latter half of the nineteenth century, which circumvented imperial restrictions on politics by focusing on self-improvement and education, which would remain central to Viennese social democracy. The Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky became a leader in the movement for social democracy while at the University of Vienna, but the founder of the modern Austrian Social Democratic Party was Viktor Adler, a Jewish medical student who entered politics first as a German nationalist and later as a socialist when he came to know prominent Marxists such as Friedrich Engels. The party benefited from the growth of trade-union organizations in the 1890s, but it suffered a setback with the election of the Karl Lueger of the Christian Social party as mayor of Vienna in 1895. Lueger would govern the city until his death in 1910. While Lueger saw anti-Semitism as a good electoral strategy—it was the one common denominator to bring together a wide range of political parties—he did not see it as a rational governing policy, and he recognized the key role that Jews played in the city economy. But it was Karl Lueger’s Vienna where a young art student, Adolf Hitler, arrived in 1906, and where his anti-Semitic ideas would harden before he left for Munich five years later. The historian George Berkley posits that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was a product of his hatred of the Social Democratic party, which espoused internationalism. Hitler had nothing against socialism, per se, but the internationalist ideology of the party made it necessarily non-German. That Jews had become so deeply involved in the Social Democratic party was further proof to Hitler of their international, and therefore non-German, character. George E. Berkley, Vienna and Its Jews: The Tragedy of Success, 1880s-1980s (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1988), 29-43, 103-11; Rabinbach, Crisis, 7-10, 11-12; Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 193.

38 pointing out the “Jewish influence” in other parties, or by attacking stereotypical Jewish capitalists, even with crude illustrated caricatures in their publications. They feared being perceived as a “Jewish defense force,” and many Jewish Social Democrats believed that the final “solution” to the Jewish question was complete assimilation in a future socialist society. But when the Liberal Party collapsed in 1895, the Social Democratic Party became, in effect, the only viable political option for Jews. Aside from the tiny and inconsequential Communist Party, it was the only political party that was not explicitly anti-Semitic. The Christian workers who composed the rank-and-file members of the

Party could sympathize with Jews as an oppressed minority, and there was very little if any economic competition between them for industrial jobs, since Jews generally worked in the professions and in non-industrial jobs. Moreover, for Jews who no longer practiced their religion, the ideology of social democracy aligned with a Jewish tradition of social justice, and the great involvement of the Party in every aspect of life formed a kind of substitute, secular religion. Jews could join their non-Jewish “comrades” in socialist organizations that did not exclude them with “Aryan” clauses, and they could thus integrate into Austrian society. The utopian internationalism inherent in socialist ideology was also deeply attractive to Jews who had suffered under repressive and exclusionary nationalisms. 25

25 Jack Jacobs, “Austrian Social Democracy and the Jewish Question in the First Republic” in The Austrian Socialist Experiment: Social Democracy and Austromarxism, 1918-1934, ed. in Anson Rabinbach (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985); Harriet Pass Freidenreich, Jewish Politics in Vienna, 1918-1938 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Berkley, Vienna and its Jews. The German-Jewish rabbi and philosopher Leo Baeck described Judaism as a religion of “ethical optimism” that called on man to face with world with the “will to change it.” The struggle for social progress and the very idea of the future was thus essential to the nature of the religion. “In Judaism the future cannot exist without the will to work toward it,” wrote Baeck. “The future stands before us as the certainty guaranteed by the task and the task as the certainty guaranteed by the future.” Leo Baeck, The Essence of Judaism [revised ed.] (New York: Schocken Books, 1948) [original 1905], 84-5, 231.

39 It was in this context that Lazarsfeld grew up: he was a socialist “by birth.”26 His home life was essential to his his political development, which made him an “insider” with access to the cultural and intellectual elite of Vienna, which included not only the leaders of the Social Democrats but also the famous Wiener Kreis, the philosophical group of logical positivists. His mother Sofie hosted a regular salon that was attended by the psychologist Alfred Adler—to whom she was a devotee—and the socialist leaders

Friedrich Adler and Otto Bauer, as well as notable figures like the economic historian

Karl Polanyi. These intellectual heavyweights noticed the bright, young Paul and engaged them with their ideas.27 Friedrich Adler, a close friend of Lazarsfeld’s mother

(with whom she may have had a romantic affair), became a “revered mentor” for the young boy.28

The physicist Friedrich Adler was the son of Party founder Viktor.29 But a falling out between the Adlers would come to signify a dramatic, generational conflict in the context of the First World War. Older Social Democrats and Jews had initially supported the war, and they fought for the Austrian empire against Russia, which was viewed as an anti-Semitic and anti-trade-unionist country. However, Friedrich rejected his father’s pro-war stance and organized an anti-war, leftist opposition within the Party (which also included the Marxist social philosopher Max Adler). Friedrich’s commitment was so deeply felt that, on October 21, 1916, he assassinated the Austrian prime minister, Count

Karl Graf Stürgkh, so that he would have a platform for the Social Democrats’ antiwar

26 David L. Sills, “The Lazarsfeld Story as Genre” in Lautman, 151. 27 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 135-40; Fleck, “Introduction,” xxi; Wasserman, Black Vienna, 168. 28 Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 110-11. 29 Morrison, Search, 36.

40 message at his murder trial.30 By the time of the trial in May of 1917, popular opinion had decidedly shifted toward the policy of the younger Adler, who argued that the Party’s war policy contradicted the fundamental principles of socialist internationalism. By

October, the antiwar left had become a significant force in the Party, with Otto Bauer at the forefront. After the war, the pardoned Friedrich Adler would become the editor-in- chief of the Austro-Marxist publication Der Kampf, which was known for its support of modern science against dogmatism on the left and right. His taking the reins of this important publication signaled the new, more radically democratic direction of Austro-

Marxist thinking and Social Democratic politics.31

Adler’s eloquent plea politicized a generation and convinced its members to join the movement for peace and social democracy. Among the converted was Lazarsfeld, who had been arrested at a demonstration outside the courthouse in support of Adler.

While he was imprisoned, Adler was in correspondence with Lazarsfeld, and he encouraged the boy to study mathematics. Lazarsfeld also occasionally visited Adler in prison and helped him to smuggle political and scientific manuscripts out of jail. “As a student I was in close personal contact with the main socialist figures in Austria,”

Lazarsfeld recalled, “and it would indeed be quite easy to trace their influence on my own work.” Adler had worked with Albert Einstein as a professional mathematician, and Otto

Bauer, the leader of the Social Democrats, was a trained econometrician. Such study had great prestige among Austro-Marxists who were attempting to merge social science and

30 Zeisel, “The Austromarxists,” 120; Paul Neurath, letter to David Sills, February 27, 1979, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4; Rabinbach, Crisis, 18-19; Berkley, 136; Wasserman, 57-8. 31 Rabinbach, Crisis, 18-19. Although Friedrich Adler was sentenced to death for his act, he was eventually released in 1918 with the collapse of the monarchy. “Biographical Notes on the Principal Austro-Marxists” in Austro-Marxism, eds. Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 286-91.

41 mathematics in the service of social progress. The particular relationship between Adler and Lazarsfeld epitomized the “atmosphere within which he grew up in Vienna,” according to David Morrison, “with its peculiar combination of political dedication and academic scholarship.” Unlike the Communists, who believed in revolutionary violence, the Austro-Marxists believed in educating workers and harnessing social science to understand and influence voting behavior.32

History provided them with a chance to put their theory of social democracy into practice. The new Republic of Austria was declared on November 12, 1918, a day after the death of the Socialist leader Viktor Adler. Otto Bauer became the new leader of the

32 Fleck, “Introduction,” xx; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III”; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Yvon Bourdet, October 2, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2; David E. Morrison, “Paul Lazarsfeld 1901-1976: A Tribute,” Redaktionelles, 7-9, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “PFL ancillary”; Michael Freund, “Sociography: The Marienthal Story,” Austria Today, March 1978, 55-7. As an intellectual movement, Austro-Marxism had certain affinities with its German cousin, the “Frankfurt School” of Critical Theory, but because the Social Democrats would come to power in Vienna, the ideology of Austro-Marxism was put into political practice in a way that the Frankfurt School ideology never was. Both groups were deeply interested in the use of empirical social science as a venue for the refinement of theory, and they shared a kind of intellectual “father” in Carl Grünberg. Before going on to serve as the first director of the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt, Grünberg had studied and taught at the University of Vienna, and his students included many of the most prominent Austro-Marxists, such as Max Adler, Otto Bauer, and Friedrich Adler. The group came together at the University, where they formed the Freie Vereinigung Sozialistischer Studenten und Akademiker, and they met at the Café Central, which was also frequented by fellow Marxists Leo Trotsky and Karl Kautsky. They formed the intellectual foundation of the Social Democratic Party, publishing articles in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, the Party’s daily newspaper, and Der Kampf, its monthly journal. They engaged in intellectual battles with Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian marginalist school of economics, which imagined an ideal, rational economic actor and dismissed the empirical sociology that was so essential to Austro-Marxism. They used social science to refine their theory, and they were particularly interested in the relations of the various classes (workers, the new middle class, the peasantry) and ways to create alliances between them. (Tom Bottomore, “Introduction,” Austro- Marxism, 1-44.) There was also some intellectual affinity between the Austro-Marxists and the “Vienna Circle” of logical empiricists centered around Moritz Schlick. The Vienna Circle espoused the principle of wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung, or “scientific world-conception,” which explicitly rejected the metaphysical German Weltanschauung and embraced empirical, communal methods of research. Karl Bühler, the psychologist and mentor of Lazarsfeld, was a periphery member of the Circle, although Lazarsfeld described his own cohort as “socialist empiricists.” Friedrich Stadler, “The Vienna Circle: Context, Profile, and Development” in The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism, eds. Alan Richardson and Thomas Uebel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 13-40; Jennifer Platt and Paul K. Hoch, “The Vienna Circle in the United States and Empirical Research Methods in Sociology” in Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigre German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933, eds. Mitchell G. Ash, and Alfons Söllner (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute; Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 236.

42 Social Democrats, and the Party became the de facto caretaker of the new republic for its unique ability to manage returning soldiers, Jewish refugees, and the radical crowds of unemployed workers who were making revolutionary demands in the context of mass poverty and in the wake of the Russian revolution. Yet the Social Democrats would never achieve hegemony in Austria, because the Christian Social party remained dominant in the rural villages and agrarian districts. But the Social Democrats carried 54 percent of the vote in the Vienna municipal elections in May of 1919, giving them the authority to enact their ambitious social programs in the capital. It was the first socialist party to rule a city with a population of over one million, and it became a virtual state within a state. For the next fifteen years “Red Vienna” became a unique experiment in cultural and infrastructural reform along the lines of the socialist idealism. By 1920,

Vienna had achieved the status as both capital of the republic and a separate province, which gave it the authority to use local taxation to develop an ambitious program of municipal socialism that included the massive construction of new housing complexes for workers, the largest of which was named after Karl Marx.33

In this revolutionary context, Lazarsfeld grew up as a seriously political young man: he participated in discussion groups, he helped to found and acted in a political cabaret, and he was a troop leader in the socialist youth organization Rote Falken.34

Lazarsfeld also created a monthly newspaper for socialist students and wrote regularly for the monthly journal of the Social Democratic Party, Der Kampf Sozialdemokratische

Monatschrift, to which the likes of Leon Trotsky and Karl Kautsky contributed.35 As a

33 Gruber, 13, 20-22; Rabinbach, Crisis, 20-28; Berkley, 138, 147, 151. 34 The Rote Falken were something like a politicized Boy Scouts, which taught its members to reject bourgeois values and habits in the pursuit of proletarian discipline and ethical socialism. Gruber, 166 35 Fleck, “Introduction,” xx; Morrison, Search, 19, 38; Coser, 110; Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” 255.

43 young intellectual—as opposed to being a worker—in the Social Democratic Party,

Lazarsfeld developed a “well-managed inferiority complex” for which he compensated by doing a variety of menial labor.36 But Lazarsfeld’s leadership skills were apparent early on. He formed a league of socialist students, Verein für sozialistische Mittelschüler, and later organized socialist summer and winter camps for youth. The camps executed an idea of “socialist education” by integrating age groups to instill a sense of responsibility and cooperation. He demonstrated his organizational prowess with these groups, which combined fun and games with political seminars, music, poetry, and music.37

Lazarsfeld met his first wife, Marie Jahoda, in 1919 at the age of eighteen while leading a camp for undernourished Viennese children, and even then he was experimenting with polling and questionnaires, combining his social science with his social commitment. She recalled the exciting, revolutionary atmosphere of the time:

The decadent Habsburgs had been blown away; the republic was new; socialists in government were new; and Paul, like other young people had actively participated in the revolutionary activities at the end of the war. He was full of creative energy.

Lazarsfeld’s life was “filled to the brim” with socialist party activities in those days, according to Jahoda. He was so committed that, on the day of his wedding to Jahoda in

1926, he insisted on attending a meeting of his middle-school group. Despite his later work in market research and his feeling that his political instincts were frustrated in the

U.S., Jahoda insisted that his commitment was lifelong, and that he never shed Austro-

Marxism’s basic social values as a “guide for living in the present.”38 “Having grown up

36 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Dr. Natalie Rogoff, February 24, 1954, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Vb, Mappe 1/3. 37 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 138; Paul Neurath, letter to David Sills, February 27, 1979, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 38 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 135-40; Stehr, 151. Jahoda later recalled that, for Lazarsfeld and his band of social researchers, Austro-Marxism was more than just a theory or a promise; it was a

44 in an exciting and constructive period of socialist optimism,” Lazarsfeld later recalled, “I have never quite lost my hope for radical social change.”39 His transition into the methodology of social science made him merely a “Marxist on leave.”40 His lifelong friend Hans Zeisel remarked that the socialist reform movement gave direction to

Lazarsfeld’s scholarly pursuits and “indelibly shaped his humane political views.”41

Distinguished by their lack of dogmatism, the Austro-Marxists felt that real social improvement could be achieved through dedicated empirical social research.42 There was a “considerable political interest” in the kind of work Lazarsfeld wanted to do because it clarified the importance of social stratification.43 The Austro-Marxists offered Lazarsfeld a “macrosociological orientation,” according to the historian Christian Fleck, which gave him a theory of social stratification.44 This tradition made Lazarsfeld suspicious of the abstractions of pure theory that were dominant in the European humanistic tradition of the social sciences. He believed that the practical experience and methodology of empirical research could aid social theory. Alluding to Max Weber, Lazarsfeld made the case for his method: “It is not enough to develop constructive typologies; one must decide under which type a particular person or group actually should be classified.”45

“view of life” and an all-encompassing activity for the “here and now.” Marie Jahoda, “The emergence of social psychology in Vienna: An exercise in long-term memory,” British Journal of Social Psychology 22 (1983): 343. 39 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Sociology of Empirical Social Research,” American Sociological Review 27 (December 1962): 765. 40 David E. Morrison, “Paul Lazarsfeld 1901-1976: A Tribute,” Redaktionelles, 7-9, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “PFL ancillary.” 41 Hans Zeisel, “In Memoriam: Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” Public Opinion Quarterly (Winter 1976/1977): 556. 42 Morrison, Search, 17; Morrison, “Transference.” Also Ziesel, “The Vienna Years,” 10; Coser, 111; Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research” in Organizing for Social Research, eds. Burkhart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa (Cambridge, Mass: Schenckman Publishing Company, 1982), 21. 43 Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” The American Sociologist 17 (1982): 150-1. 44 Fleck, “The Choice Between Market Research and Sociography,” 93. 45 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Sociology of Empirical Social Research,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 6 (December 1962): 759; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Bernard Bailyn, February 7, 1968, PFL

45 Indeed, Lazarsfeld believed that there was “scarcely an area of social life where one cannot find quantified data.”46 Paul Neurath, founder of the Lazarsfeld archive at the

University of Vienna, observed that the political climate of the time was such that socialist intellectuals like Lazarsfeld were drawn to psychology and psychoanalysis because they wanted “to participate in the creation of the new man for the new socialist society.”47

Indeed, the aim of the Austro-Marxists, as articulated by the theoretician Max

Adler, was the creation of neue Menschen whose political consciousness would be the product a regime of education deployed as an instrument of class struggle. Adler sought to marry the Kantian categorical imperative with Marxian historical materialism through the Austrian commitment to Bildung, which viewed education not only as the acquisition of knowledge but as the progressive alteration of behavior. The party was further influenced by the individual psychology of Alfred Adler, which held that feelings of inferiority were the product of capitalist alienation and could be rectified through cultural programs.48 Adler stressed the social context and urged clinicians to trace neuroses back Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific II. 46 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Measurement” in Knowledge and Society: American Sociology, ed. Talcott Parsons (Washington, D.C.: Voice of America, 1968), 109. 47 Paul Neurath, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the institutionalization of empirical social research,” paper given before a joint session of the Columbia University Seminars on Content and Method of the Social Sciences and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, Nov. 11, 1981, 6, box 185, folder 7, “PFL – Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archive, Univ. of Vienna, 1980-1984,” Robert K. Merton Papers [hereafter, RKM] (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York). Indeed, Vienna was a node for cross-pollination between the politics of social democracy and intellectual movements in psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, and economics. The Marxists theorists Georg Lukács and Antonio Gramsci developed their ideas on class consciousness and hegemony while on extended stays in Vienna, and Karl Polanyi revised his economic thinking in the pages of Vienna’s socialist journals. Close associates of Freud, meanwhile—such as Helene Deutsch, Siegfried Bernfeld, and Josef Friedjung—practiced their theories in the Austro-Marxist journal Der Kampf. Wasserman, Black Vienna, 60-8. 48 Lazarsfeld wrote a report for a socialist journal about a conference in Dresden in 1927 that explored the possibilities of combining Adlerian individual psychology with Marxism. Conference attendees believed that the material security provided by a planned, socialist economy was essential for the prevention of individual neuroses (which were interpreted as the collateral products of capitalistic, privatized thinking) and for the development of community. Paul Lazarsfeld, “Marxismus und Individualpsychologie,” Die sozialistische Erziehung 7 (May 1927): 98-101.

46 to society, but he believed that individuals were motivated more by future goals than by past conflicts. Municipal policies were explicitly designed with the aim of transforming consciousness as a precondition for a socialist future that extended beyond Vienna. The hegemony of the Austro-Marxists in “Red Vienna” would provide the context for this radical experiment in transforming culture, institutions, infrastructure, and consciousness.49

The Bühlers, the University of Vienna, and the Forschungsstelle

Lazarsfeld spent the 1922-23 academic year in Paris, where he inaugurated a lifelong fondness for the city and French intellectual culture. He quickly befriended the socialist leader Léo Lagrange, who would visit Lazarsfeld in Vienna to learn about the

Austrian socialist youth movement there.50 Lazarsfeld returned to study at the University of Vienna in 1923, where he would go on to earn a doctorate in applied mathematics in

1925.51

While Lazarsfeld was at the University, Karl and Charlotte Bühler were appointed to establish a department of psychology.52 Their Vienna Psychological Institute, founded in 1922, was seen by the leaders of the Social Democratic Party as a venue to provide

49 Gruber, 34-39, 83-84, 113; Rabinbach, 28; Hughes, Sea Change, 194; Sheldon Gardner and Gwendolyn Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, 1918-1938 (New York: Praeger, 1992), 177. The Social Democrats were not shy about dramatizing their mission. At the International Worker Olympics held in Vienna in 1931, a group of young socialists carrying red flags toppled a “huge gilt idol representing capitalism” to signal the coming of a socialist future. Gruber, 109. 50 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Yvon Bourdet, October 2, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mrs. Leo Lagrange, May 6, 1969, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 2/4. 51 Lazarsfeld’s dissertation applied Einstein’s theory of gravitation to the movement of the planet Mercury. Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” 255; Everett M. Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 250. 52 Charlotte was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Berlin that had converted to Protestantism. She studied under Carl Stumpf in Berlin, where she was exposed to Gestalt psychology. She went to Munich to study with Karl, and they were married a year later. Gardner and Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, 151.

47 scientific support educational methods which focused on the development of the child in the social context. According to Marie Jahoda, the Institute created a “third force” in addition to the schools of Freud and Adler, and it was “quite natural” that Lazarsfeld would often sit in on the Bühlers’ seminars. He was particularly influenced by their empirical study of human action, which was the germ for the development of a system of categories by which motives could be described. Karl Bühler had been a member of the

Würzburg school of German psychologists, where the empirical study of action had originated. The English word action is an ineloquent translation of the German

Handlung—a “chain of external behavior and inner experiences” that is driven by an individual’s goal and which ultimately has consequences for himself and others.

Charlotte also studied goal-directed action in childhood and adolescence, comparing the differences between a child’s performance earlier and later in development. Together, the

Bühlers’ work led to the articulation of “categories by which goal of human action could be systematically described,” according to Lazarsfeld. Market research would become, for Lazarsfeld, the perfect venue to study human motivation; it was a way to develop an

“accounting scheme” by which the actions of individuals could be aggregated and understood statistically. Lazarsfeld felt that empirical research in Europe had been impeded by the traditions of the human sciences, while a “primitive” behaviorism, which was mainly concerned individuals’ responses to external stimuli, frustrated the study of motivation in the U.S. He became determined to synthesize these approaches.53 53 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Historical Notes on the Empirical Study of Action: An Intellectual Odyssey,” chapter 2 in unknown publication, 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Papers Vb” Mappe 1/3; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Working with Merton” in The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, ed. Lewis A. Coser (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich), 35-66; Fred Turner, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 46; Mitchell G. Ash, “Emigré Psychologists after 1933: The Cultural Coding of Scientific and Professional Practices” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration, 132-33; Marie Jahoda, “The emergence of social psychology in Vienna,” 346.

48 Lazarsfeld realized that the method of action analysis could be applied to any number of choices: why people bought one product and not another, why they voted the way they did, and why they listened to a certain radio program. In a study of youth occupational choices, Lazarsfeld used empirical research to show that these decisions were linked with social stratification. He was influenced by the Baltic German biologist

Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of “cognitive biological space,” the idea that the same objective scene would appear differently to different species. Lazarsfeld translated this idea to the human social sphere to derive the notion of a “psychological space” wherein the vision of the working-class adolescent was necessarily narrower than it was for his middle-class peer. This “depressed objective situation” lowered the working-class adolescent’s level of aspiration and perpetuated socioeconomic divisions. The world of the “proletarian consumer,” likewise, was much more restricted than that of his middle- class counterpart: “As part of this reduction in effective scope the interest in other than the most essential details is lost; requirements in regard to quality, appearance and other features of merchandise are the less specific and frequent the more we deal with consumers from the low social strata.”54 Lazarsfeld’s political commitment as a socialist thus animated his academic commitment as a social researcher, and his fascination with methodology drove him to constantly refine his work.

Lazarsfeld impressed his mentor Charlotte Bühler when he shared with her his sophisticated statistical analysis of some questionnaires filled out by “proletarian youth.”

Lazarsfeld theorized that, because they went to work at age fourteen and were deprived of the “energizing” experiences of middle-class adolescence, working-class men never

54 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Sociology of Empirical Social Research,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 6 (December 1962): 758; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Methodological Problems in Empirical Social Research,” Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology 2 (1959): 230-1.

49 developed an “effective scope” and were kept in an inferior position.55 Lazarsfeld had acquired the questionnaires from a leader of the Socialist Young Workers who appealed to the rhetoric of workers but failed to see the meaning in quantifiable data.56 This was a kind of “secondary analysis” that Lazarsfeld pioneered, and he later published the material as Jugend und Beruf (“Youth and Occupation”), a study of the motivations behind vocational decisions.57 It was, Lazarsfeld later recalled, “very definitely the origin” in his interest in the problem of “reason” or motivational analysis.58 This novel presentation convinced Bühler to appoint Lazarsfeld as her assistant, and later as a teacher of statistics and social psychology.59 Lazarsfeld felt that Europe lagged behind the U.S. in the application of statistical methods to problems in social psychology. His courses on statistics were, he claimed, among the first offered in Europe. He later published a textbook based on his lectures, Statistisches Praktikum für Psychologen,60 which was at the time the only book on the subject available in the German language.61

After completing his Ph.D., Lazarsfeld had been working as a math and physics teacher in a Gymnasium (a rigorous high school). Around 1927, he happened to meet a student who mentioned that she had a commission from an American market researcher

55 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” 56 “[H]e was just interested in their misery, you see,” recalled Lazarsfeld. Morrison, Search, 19. 57 Christian Fleck, “The Choice Between Market Research and Sociography, Or: What happened to Lazarsfeld in the United States?” in Lautman, 89. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Jugend und Beruf: Kritik und Material (Jena, 1931). 58 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Peter Rossi, May 12, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. Drawing on the work of the Bühlers as well as the Adlerian concept of inferiority, Lazarsfeld created psychological categories based on the lower levels of aspiration he found in proletarian youth relative to their middle-class peers. Wasserman, Black Vienna, 170. 59 Neurath, 6. Lazarsfeld noted that, while he was greatly influenced by Charlotte Bühler, some other students were put off by her “Prussian” style, which was a bit like an “army sergeant.” Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Bernard Bailyn, February 7, 1968, PFL Vienna, Box, Rote Mappe, “miscelle scientific II.” 60 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Statistisches Praktikum für Psychologen (Leipzig, 1929). 61 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Statistics for Fieldworkers in Psychology,” translated by John G. Jenkins, 1935 [original German version 1931], PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7), Mappe 2/2.

50 to do interviews with consumers on the subject of why people bought various kinds of soap. Market research was virtually unknown in Austria at the time, and this was

Lazarsfeld’s first exposure to the concept. It occurred to him that commercial contracts would provide the financial means for research research and the opportunity to develop research methodologies on the problem of choice.62

Partly because virulent anti-Semitism prevented his own professional establishment as a university professor,63 Lazarsfeld decided to create a new social research center associated with the Bühlers’ Institute of Psychology. This became the

Österreichische Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle (“Austrian Research Branch for Economic Psychology”), the private research institute run by Lazarsfeld over which

Karl Bühler presided. The name connoted “the application of psychology to social and economic problems,” according to Lazarsfeld.64 The novel structure of the

Forschungsstelle—which Lazarsfeld would later reproduce in the U.S. at the University of Newark, Princeton, and Columbia—was an institute that was affiliated with a university but had the autonomy to perform “contract” research for outside clients, which were usually commercial concerns.65 The Forschungsstelle was itself modeled on

62 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 139; Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 133; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, "No Dates III." 63 Indeed, some of the worst anti-Semitism of the interwar years occurred among students at the University, where war veterans inclined to violence encountered a large Jewish minority whom they perceived as competition for jobs. Organized beatings of Jewish students became common, and the Deutsche Studentenschaft demanded that the percentage of Jewish students and professors be limited to ten percent. A nascent and sporadically violent Nazi student movement also published lists of Jewish professors—many of them among the most internationally renowned scholars—and targeted them for student boycotts. See Bruce F. Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti- Semitism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 89-96; 194-5. 64 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Forty Years Later” in Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Hans Zeisel, Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002) [original translation published 1971 by Aldine Atherton, Inc., Chicago], xxxix. 65 Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 274-5.

51 Vienna’s Institut für Konjunkturforschung, the “Institute for Business Cycle Research,” directed by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, which also functioned autonomously from the university.66 One of the vice presidents was from the chamber of commerce, and the “illustrious” board included some of Vienna’s most important business leaders, university professors, and representatives from unions and trade associations. Lazarsfeld became a firm believer in the scientific value of commercial work as a means to finance and develop social research methods. The university was unwilling to fund empirical research on such a scale, and Lazarsfeld was indifferent to the content of the work so long as it enabled the him to develop methods of social research. The contract work provided him with a “steady flow of empirical data” without which he would have been unable to do as much methodological work as he did. Indeed, his kind of survey research did not spring from the academy alone, but from “direct contact with industry” and the “cross- fertilization” of research conducted in the realms of business, government, and the university.67

But Lazarsfeld also did work for political and scholarly organizations like Max

Horkheimer’s Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt. Frankfurt had been a radical hotbed in the revolutions of 1848, and it was the German city with the highest proportion of Jews. The Institut was founded by Felix Weil, a millionaire Marxist who brought on

Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and the psychologist Erich Fromm. Despite its reputation for speculative Marxist theory, the Institut also sponsored empirical studies from the time

66 Fleck, “Introduction,” Marienthal, xxi. 67 Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfled,” 256; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III”; Converse, 258; Stehr, 153; David E. Morrison, “Paul Lazarsfeld 1901-1976: A Tribute,” Redaktionelles, 7-9, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “PFL ancillary”; Paul Neurath, letter to Dr. David Sills, February 27, 1979, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4; Paul Lazarsfeld, “The Outlook for Testing Effectiveness in Advertising,” The Management Review, January 1936, 10.

52 Horkheimer assumed the directorship in 1930.68 Lazarsfeld credited the Institut with the conclusion that the German working class was vulnerable to Hitler and Nazism because the German family fostered submission to authority.69 Lazarsfeld could rely on a corps of socialist students and unemployed socialist intellectuals, who “liked to be in organizations” and were deeply loyal to him, to do much of the work of data collection.

Many of the students were influenced by a “prevailing spirit of collective action,” and they were inspired by early reports of the integration of schools and factories in Russia.70

Lazarsfeld thus retained his social-democratic commitments even as he retained a steady source of income to sustain his institute and give it the flexibility to work on projects of his choosing. Lazarsfeld’s academic interest in the decision-making process and his fascination with methodology trumped whatever uneasiness he might have had with contract work. In fact, he liked doing commercial projects because they gave him the opportunity to work out his unique approach to social science research through empirical studies.71 Recalling an early commission from an American market research expert to study consumer motivations in soap buying, Lazarsfeld saw the potential to study decision-making in more manageable context, with fewer complications, than

68 Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1973), 24-7; Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 234-5. 69 P. F. Lazarsfeld, “Sociology” in The Human Sciences, n.d., PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Va, Mappe 2/2. The Institut would later assemble its research, published as Studien über Autorität und Familie (“Studies on Authority and the Family”) in 1936. Horkheimer had charged Erich Fromm, who had doctoral training in sociology, with the task of investigating the attitudes of German workers since the end of the war in 1918. Fromm was attempting a synthesis of Weberian sociology, Marxian political economy, and Freudian psychoanalysis, and he suspected that the family was the most important mediating agency between society and the individual. It would be the basis for his concept of “social character.” See chapter 2, Lawrence J. Friedman, The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013). 70 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 139; Coser, 112; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Bernard Bailyn, February 7, 1968, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “miscelle scientific II”; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” 71 Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” The American Sociologist 17 (1982): 152.

53 would be the case in another study he wanted to do on voting: “Such is the origin of my

Vienna market research studies: the result of the methodological equivalence of socialist voting and the buying of soap.”72

Lazarsfeld made the case to potential commercial clients that his method of investigating consumer motivations—which relied on a systematic tabulation of data derived from directed interviews—could reveal what simple questionnaires could not.

He argued that the technological rationalizing of products compelled the “psychological rationalizing of sales.”73 Lazarsfeld’s friend and Forschungsstelle collaborator Hans

Zeisel cited the influence of research methods that were being developed in the United

States, which could improve the marketing knowledge of the manufacturer who had theretofore relied on mere “intuition.” The early studies of Lazarsfeld’s Forschungsstelle introduced the irrational anxieties of consumer psychology to a class of businessmen who tended think of consumers as rational economic actors. The institute collected data through “conversations” conducted by trained research staff, who recorded their results in

“diagrammatic” form, supplemented by verbal reports which were later subjected to statistical analysis. A 1933 study of shoe-buying in Zurich, for example, revealed the prevalence of an “inferiority complex” among consumers—an empirical research finding that supported the psychologist Alfred Adler’s theory. Respondents complained of being

“totally exposed” in a shoe store, fearful of holes in their stockings, and anxious about being completely at the mercy of a salesperson. Another study found a stark class

72 Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 279. 73 Paul Lazarsfeld, “New Ways of Investigating Markets” [translation of Neue Weze der Marktferschung], presentation to the meeting of the “Mercantile Advertising Committee” at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Berlin, Oct. 1932, 11, box 175, folder 9, “Printed Material by PFL – With Annotations in His Hand,” Paul Felix Lazarsfeld Collection [hereafter, PFL] (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York).

54 division in chocolate-buying behavior—based not on price but on the appearance of different stores—as well as an upper-class preference for bitter chocolates.74

Lazarsfeld directed about forty market research studies at the Forschungsstelle for

Austrian, German, and Swiss clients in a variety of consumer-oriented businesses.

Between 300 and 1500 respondents were interviewed for each report. Subjects were carefully selected to produce a cross-section of society that included representative samples of the three main socio-economic strata. The issue of class and social stratification, of particular concern to Lazarsfeld’s cohort of Viennese socialists, was essential to the practice of market research because of the key role it played in consumer behavior. Lazarsfeld’s conception of social division was sophisticated enough to differentiate both economic and cultural categories, which were particularly important distinctions for consumer preferences. (A high school teacher would have more in common with a university professor than with a grocer, for example, who in turn might have more in common with a merchant—even though the teacher and the grocer might have more comparable incomes.) It was a more pragmatic approach to the socialist program, a hallmark of the Austro-Marxists’ tendency to preference empiricism over dogmatism. “The Social Democratic social psychologists detected the integration of working-class people into the market society at a time when their purchasing power was still negligible,” notes historian Christian Fleck. “To take ordinary people seriously was a core effort by Vienna’s Social Democrats, and to stretch this endeavor to ordinary consumers sounds much more egalitarian than high-brow reasoning about the masses and

74 Robert A. Fullerton, “The art of marketing research: Selections from Paul F. Lazarsfeld’s ‘Shoe Buying in Zurich (1933),’” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 18 (Fall 1990): 319-27; Hans Zeisel, “Market Research in Austria,” Human Factor 8, no. 1 (January 1934): 1-4.

55 their vices.”75

Researchers could examine the problem of class stratification by studying how consumers’ psychological motivations affected their willingness to use laundry services, or how psychology affected habits in everyday purchases of staple goods such as as noodles, vinegar, and milk. For example, one study developed a profile of the

“proletarian” consumer whose tastes were different from those of the “bourgeois” consumer. Working-class consumers, who had access to a narrower range of goods and were ill-informed about them, generally preferred sweet chocolate (and other strong sensory experiences), whereas the upper-class consumer preferred bitter chocolate and generally blander things. Factors such as age and cultural differences also affected consumption patterns. Austrians, for example, were not great tea drinkers, but they were amenable to picking up the habit at key stages in their lives—an important discovery for a manufacturer. Lazarsfeld and his corps of Social Democrats used these studies to develop empirical research methods, while the content of the work helped them to understand the daily life of the common man. “Their own Socialist beliefs, far from leading them into ritualistic denunciations of consumer society,” notes historian Ronald

Fullerton, “seem to have helped them empathise unusually well with the mass of consumers trying to get through each day.”76 Lazarsfeld recalled that the study of

75 Fleck, “Introduction,” Marienthal, xxiii-xxiv; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Statistics for Fieldworkers in Psychology,” translated by John G. Jenkins, 1935 [original German version 1931], PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7) Mappe 2/2. The historian Helmut Gruber argues that the Social Democratic party leaders paternalistically denigrated the cultural tastes of workers, finding them to be vulgar and crass, because they failed to understand the mass appeal of new media like radio and film. Gruber refers to a 1931 study of radio listening habits sponsored by the Social Democrats and carried out by Lazarsfeld’s institute, and he points to the socialist leaders’ displeasure at the results which showed that their programs fared poorly relative to “light” entertainment. Yet Lazarsfeld’s careful attention to the cultural tastes and consumer habits of workers—in this particular radio study and in his market research studies —provides an example of a genuine interest in the daily lives of workers. Gruber, 115, 125, 135, 141 144-45. 76 Ronald A. Fullerton, “An Historic Analysis of Advertising’s Role in Consumer Decision-Making: Paul

56 working class problems was “always in the forefront” of their interests.77 These studies allowed Lazarsfeld and his researchers to hone their methods for larger works with a more explicit socialist commitment.

The Marienthal Study

The most important of these early works was Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal, a study of a depressed Austrian village of 1,486 inhabitants, about twenty miles southeast of Vienna. Marienthal had suffered chronic unemployment after the closure of a textile factory (a flax mill, which later changed to a cotton mill) in the summer of 1929 amidst the Worldwide Economic Crisis. All factories in the village were shut down by 1930.78

The American sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd had published Middletown in

1929, a new kind of empirical sociological study that was based on participant observation. The study had been enthusiastically received by American advertising men, who saw it as demonstrating a new kind of qualitative market research that would give them insight into the subjective experience of consumers.79 Lazarsfeld was inspired by F. Lazarsfeld’s European Research,” Advances in Consumer Research 26 (1999): 498-503; Zeisel, “The Vienna Years,” 12; Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 281; Neurath, 10; Ronald A. Fullerton, “Tea and the Viennese: A Pioneering Episode in the Analysis of Consumer Behavior,” Advances in Consumer Research 21 (1994): 418-21; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Factor of Age in Consumption,” Market Research 3, no. 3 (September 1935): 13-6. 77 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Forty Years Later” in Marienthal, xxxvii. 78 The report was originally published as Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal, ein soziographischer Versuch über di Wirkungen langdauernder Arbeitslosigkeit, mit einem Anhang zur Geschichte der Soziographie, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von der Österreichischen Wirtschaftspsychologischen Forschungsstelle [“The Unemployed of Marienthal: A Sociographic Essay on the Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment, with an Appendix on the History of Sociography, treated and edited by the Austrian Research Unit for Economic Psychology”] (Leipzig, 1933). My references to the work are drawn from an English translation: Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Hans Zeisel, Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002) [original translation published in 1971 by Aldine Atherton, Inc., Chicago]. 79 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 75-6. The Lynds’ “Small City Study” of Muncie, Indiana was eventually published as Middletown: A Study in Contemporary Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929). The book became a national best-seller, and it was accepted as a Ph.D. thesis by Columbia University, where Robert Lynd began a tenured professorship in 1931. Although the Lynds’ analysis

57 both the method and the content, and he had originally set out in 1930 to investigate the use of leisure time by workers, whose unions had recently won a shorter working day.

But when he shared his plan with Otto Bauer, leader of the Austrian Social Democratic

Party, Bauer was indignant: how could Lazarsfeld study leisure time in a period of such high unemployment? Moreover, the Social Democrats were generally skeptical of mass culture and leisure-time pursuits, which might distract workers participating in its planned programs for the creation of neue Menschen.80 Lazarsfeld subsequently changed course and, along with principal collaborators Hans Zeisel and his first wife Marie

Jahoda, set about the study. They had financial support from trade unions as well as a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, which had for years supported Charlotte Bühler’s

Child Research Center.81

was very sensitive to class differences, it intentionally ignored immigrants and African Americans in an effort to represent a “typical” American community. The Lynds’ nostalgic focus on native, white Protestants ended up representing a community “more wished-for than real,” as historian Sarah Igo has noted. And although the Lynds were critical of “pecuniary” culture in their reverence for preindustrial times, Middletown became, ironically, essential reading for market researchers and business strategists looking to reach the “average” American. Sarah E. Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 59; Richard Wightman Fox, “Epitaph for Middletown: Robert S. Lynd and the Analysis of Consumer Culture” in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980, eds. Richard Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 101-41. 80 Zeisel, “The Vienna Years,” 13; Gruber, 135. Bauer was one of the most influential Austro-Marxist theoreticians and political leaders in the European movement for Social Democracy in the interwar years. He believed that cultural values were essential for social progress, and that the state could play a critical role in changing consciousness to make workers “mature” for socialism. Bauer sought a “third way” distinct from radical Bolshevism and passive reformism, and rather than an impossible conflict between classes, Bauer believed in the “balance of class forces”: neither the bourgeoisie nor the proletariat could completely dominate the state, and each must therefore share power as social reforms and education paved the way for a socialist future. Rabinbach, 34-44; Gruber 38-39. 81 Lazarsfeld later recalled, somewhat hazily, that Jahoda joined the project later on, after most of the field work had been done. Her main work was in the analysis of interviews and writing the text, according to Lazarsfeld. Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. Hans Zeisel, September 18, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. The Lynds’ Middletown study had also been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation through the Institute of Social and Religious Research. Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 150. Charlotte Bühler had acquired some of her techniques as a Rockefeller fellow in 1924, working under the Yale child psychologist Arnold Gesell. Mitchell G. Ash, “Emigré Psychologists after 1933: The Cultural Coding of Scientific and Professional Practices,” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration, 133; Gardner and Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, 153.

58 The village of Marienthal was chosen partly for the pervasiveness of unemployment and economic devastation there, and partly because it had been a stronghold of the Social Democratic labor movement. While Lazarsfeld did not participate in data collection or the writing of the text—with the exception of the introduction—he did serve as a director and intellectual leader of the project. He met regularly with his collaborators and challenged them to quantify their data. This would become a typical role for Lazarsfeld, as a director of research, in part because his

“forceful” personality would have made him a poor interviewer, according to Jahoda.82

Marienthal employed diverse methods of empirical research, including field observation, analysis of diaries, examination of organizational archives, and the use of questionnaires and interviews.83

Lazarsfeld, Jahoda, and Zeisel understood their study as part of a tradition of

German social science. They saw antecedents to their study in the work of Max Weber and particularly in Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Classes in England, which organized “sociographic” facts in the theoretical framework of class struggle.

They were also inspired by the social texture conveyed in the Lynds’ Middletown, which produced an “overall image” of life in Middletown through “skillful overall description combined with vivid graphic pictures of school and family life.” The Viennese social researchers were stimulated by American “quantifying sociography” despite the fact that

82 Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 139; Christian Fleck, “Introduction,” Marienthal. Jahoda, who would later take over the directorship of the Forschungsstelle after Lazarsfeld’s departure, developed projective interviewing techniques designed to reveal the pervasiveness of economic ideology that could not be expressed by a lay person without resorting to slogans. For example, a respondent might be asked to compare two hypothetical individuals, one a spendthrift and one a saver, and decide which was more “useful” to society. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Public Attitude toward Economic Problems,” Market Research 5 (1936): 13-5. 83 Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research” in Organizing for Social Research, eds. Burkhart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa (Cambridge, Mass: Schenckman Publishing Company, 1982), 23; Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 139.

59 the “social question” never really emerged in the U.S.: this kind of research tended to focus on specific problems and not general concerns like class differences. Prior to the emigrations that would begin in 1933, there was little integration between the Continental and Anglo-American traditions of sociology; the former was, for the most part, interested in speculative issues, while the latter modeled itself on the natural sciences through the use of empirical methods, but it was tinged with an idea of progressive reformism in the manner of Lynd. With Marienthal, Lazarsfeld and his colleagues hoped to synthesize the statistical and survey methods of American social research with a “full description of concrete observations,” informed by their theoretical forebears, to produce a complete portrait of the social dimensions of a community.84

Beginning in the fall of 1931, researchers immersed themselves in the lives of the unemployed men and their wives and children, seeking to learn the smallest details of their lives and then reconstruct them objectively as an overall social structure. Over 120 working days, researchers integrated themselves into the community, attempting to “fit naturally” and avoid being mere reporters or outside observers. Researchers visited the homes of Marienthal residents on the pretense that they were facilitating a clothing distribution program, a conceit that allowed them to closely observe families. By the time they had finished, they had collected a mass of data weighing about sixty pounds in paper documents. This trove of sociological documentation included the records of 478 families, the life histories of 32 men and 30 women, the time sheets on daily activities for

80 individuals, and various other records and data.

What they found was a depressed community completely transformed by the

84 “Afterword: Toward a History of Sociography” in Marienthal; Thomas Wheatland, The Frankfurt School in Exile (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 191-99.

60 pervasive condition of unemployment. The regular rhythms of factory life had given way to the complete absence of a schedule, except for the fortnightly payments of unemployment relief that were taken by three-quarters of the families in Marienthal.

Women, whose household labor did not diminish, and children, who attended school, remained disciplined by time, but the forced idleness of unemployment had a deleterious effect on adult men. While employed, the men made good use of their precious leisure time, but under the condition of unemployment, they squandered it. Despite having more time, the unemployed men read less, and their level of participation in political activity dropped precipitously. Subscriptions to the Arbeiterzeitung, the main organ of the

Austrian Social Democratic party, declined by 60 percent between 1927 and 1930. Social

Democratic party membership had also declined by 33 percent in the same period, but a local branch of the Nazi Party had been recently founded.

Political activity and, indeed, all activity had been dampened in Marienthal. A small portion of the community, about seven percent, was “broken” or “apathetic,” characterized by complete passivity, neglect of home and children, and alcoholism. But the most common basic attitude found in Marienthal, defining about 70 percent of families, was “drifting along,” according to the researchers. It was an attitude if resignation, devoid of hopes, dreams, and plans for the future, which affected even children in terms of their aspirations—or lack thereof—for future careers and even

Christmas gifts. Yet, at the same time, households in depressed Marienthal were maintained, the children were cared for, and there was an “overall feeling of relative well- being.”

To the dismay of its socialist backers, the study revealed that the situation of

61 persistent, widespread unemployment had produced not a revolutionary fervor but rather a general feeling of resignation, apathy, and hopelessness.85 According to Jahoda, the interest aroused by the Marienthal study was due to its demonstration of “how a major social problem could be illuminated by social science.” “The public debate produced arguments for two incompatible outcomes of large-scale unemployment: it would create a revolutionary atmosphere or it would create public apathy,” wrote Jahoda. “Marienthal produced an answer: apathy.”86 Empirical social research had produced real, discernible knowledge about the motivations, or lack thereof, of a specific social stratum. The conclusion was even more chilling in retrospect: the Nazis in Germany would exploit the conditions of unemployment and apathy to serve their reactionary political program. “On a large scale it is quite probable that part of the success of the early Hitler movement came about because large numbers of unemployed were taken into barracks and kept busy with paramilitary training,” Lazarsfeld recalled.87

Lazarsfeld’s mentor Charlotte Bühler immediately saw the value of the study and sent her student to the 1932 International Congress of Psychology in Hamburg, where he reported the results of the yet unfinished work. It attracted much attention among

American psychologists including Gordon Allport and Goodwin Watson, who would later serve as important contacts for Lazarsfeld.88 The published version of the report first

85 Lazarsfeld collaborated with a Bohan Zawadzki of the University of Warsaw in a subsequent study of narratives written by unemployed Polish men and women. It confirmed many of the findings of the Marienthal study concerning the failure of the experience of unemployment to produce a revolutionary class consciousness. Being on the dole was cause for humiliation, and unemployment did not lead to mass action. Instead, it left the mass paralyzed, “inert,” estranged, isolated, and ultimately deprived of its mass power. Bohan Zawadzki and Paul Lazarsfeld, “The Psychological Consequences of Unemployment,” Journal of Social Psychology 6 (1935): 224-51. 86 Marie Jahoda, “PFL: Hedgehog or Fox?” in Merton, Qualitative, 5. 87 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Forty Years Later” in Marienthal, xxxiv. 88 Neurath, 13-14. When Lazarsfeld was in the U.S. as a Rockefeller fellow in the spring of 1934, he met with Watson and discussed forming an “Academy of Viennese Psychology” in the U.S., possibly in Chicago. Lazarsfeld was concerned about the fate of the Viennese leaders of psychology under the new

62 appeared in the spring of 1933, just a few months after Hitler had seized power in

Germany. At the request of the publisher, Leipzig-based Hirzel, the authors consented to leaving their Jewish names off the title page. But the book was nevertheless soon banned by the Nazis, who subsequently burned most copies in Germany.89

Meanwhile, despite the efforts of the Bühlers to secure Lazarsfeld an academic appointment, the advancement of his academic career at the University of Vienna had been frustrated by anti-Semitism. Lazarsfeld could only achieve the status of

Privatdozent, an adjunct position that merely gave him the “right to teach.” Jews had always been a convenient scapegoat for popular resentments, and the difficult economic conditions further provoked the reactionary attitude. Despite the fact that the assimilated

Jewish leaders in the Social Democrats took pains to avoid associating the Party with

Jewry, the connection was unavoidable. Even Social Democrats in the provinces often spoke derisively of the “Jews in the Vienna headquarters.” Given these frustrating political and professional conditions, and on the basis of the Marienthal study, the

Bühlers nominated Lazarsfeld for a fellowship with the Rockefeller Foundation.90

Lazarsfeld’s application was essentially pre-approved on the basis of the Bühlers’ recommendation and Lazarsfeld’s previous work. Nevertheless, a Rockefeller

Foundation officer in Paris asked Lazarsfeld to provide a “detailed account” of his plans for the twelve-month fellowship in the United States.91 In a rather sketchy outline,

Austrian regime, and he thought that such a refugee academy could include representatives of the schools of Freud, Adler, and the Bühlers. Goodwin Watson, letter to Fred A. Moore, March 22, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 89 Fleck, “Introduction to the Transaction Edition,” Marienthal, xix; Michael Freund, “Sociography: The Marienthal Story,” Austria Today, March 1978, 55-7; Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” 257. 90 Fleck, “Introduction,” Marienthal, xxii; Morrison, Search, 22; Jahoda, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld in Vienna,” 138-9; Berkley, 153; Gruber, 25-7. 91 John V. Van Sickle, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, April 4, 1933, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3.

63 Lazarsfeld indicated that he was interested in studying American organizations which applied psychology to economic and social problems. He wanted to go to New York to learn American methods of market analysis and their application in the techniques of advertising. He was also interested in organizations that employed social research to understand business, such as the Bureau of Business Research of New York University and the U.S. Department of Labor. He specifically mentioned Columbia University, which he believed to be a center for “market analysis.” It was also the home institution of Professor Robert Lynd, who was in correspondence with Lazarsfeld and was

“interested” in his work. But Lazarsfeld also wanted to investigate social class divisions, racial relations, and the “special problems of community life.” He also expressed an interest in the work in social psychology being done at the University of Chicago by

Ernest Burgess and W. I. Thomas, which had inspired much of his own work at the

Forschungsstelle.92

The Rockefeller Fellowship in the United States

Lazarsfeld arrived in New York in September of 1933 with a letter of introduction from the Rockefeller Foundation.93 By this time, the Marienthal project had been introduced to the American audience in a report that appeared in The Nation magazine, and at least one major American publisher had expressed interest in publishing a translation of the study.94 Thus it was not his typical work in market research but rather 92 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Stacy May, ca. 1933, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Biography I.” 93 Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 275; Stacy May, letter To Whom It May Concern, September 30, 1933, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 94 Robert N. McMurry, “When Men Eat Dogs,” The Nation, January 4, 1933, 15-18; Charles [Lears?], letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, December 20, 1933, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933- 1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. According to Lazarsfeld, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) produced a “typewritten” English translation in 1933. But by the time Marienthal had been canonized as a classic of social research in the 1960s, Lazarsfeld strongly resisted

64 his more exceptional work on unemployment that was the catalyst for Lazarsfeld’s initial move to the U.S. during the Great Depression. The liberal terms of his fellowship granted Lazarsfeld the freedom to pursue whatever projects he wanted, wherever he wanted. He was provided with a stipend as well as money for travel and research.95 He immediately sought the guidance of Robert Lynd, who would become a friend, colleague, and mentor to whom Lazarsfeld would later credit his “whole professional career” in the

U.S.96 Right away, Lynd arranged for Lazarsfeld to give a talk on his Marienthal study before a meeting of sociologists in New York, and he set up another talk that Lazarsfeld would give before a group of marketing consultants. Lynd also contacted a New York publisher about a manuscript on the psychology of marketing that Lazarsfeld was working on.97

Lynd also helped Lazarsfeld to get involved working on various New Deal programs, a regime of progressive reform that was deeply attractive to the Social

Democrat in Lazarsfeld.98 Based on his experience with the Marienthal study, Lazarsfeld

the publication of an English translation. He was somewhat embarrassed by its crude methodology, and he thought that it should be treated as a “historical document” and not a work with contemporary relevance. He pleaded in vain with his collaborators Jahoda and Zeisel not to publish an English translation. Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Herman R. Lants, December 12, 1966, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 36, Correspondence, 1966-1968, Mappe 1/2, folder “Hyman H./4.1.1966 – Jean Stoetzel/24.1.1967”; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, letter to Marie Jahoda, January 23, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blue Mappen 61, “Marienthal”; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Hans Zeisel, March 28, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. 95 Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” The American Sociologist 17 (1982): 150-55; George W. Bakeman, administrator, European Office of the Rockefeller Foundation, Paris, signed and stamped statement, April 5, 1933, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 96 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Robert Staughton Lynd,” The American Sociologist 6 (August 1971): 265-7. 97 Frederic M. Thrasher, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, November 14, 1933; Robert Lynd, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, November 15, 1933; Ordway Tead, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, December 14, 1933; V. H. Pelz, letter to Robert Lynd, February 2, 1934; V.H. Pelz, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 26, 1934. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 98 Early in his fellowship, Lazarsfeld proposed to the Federal Works Administration a study on public attitudes toward New Deal policies. Joseph J. Mayer, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 23, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3.

65 favored the American policy of work relief to the European standard of the dole, which, he found, led to apathy and, eventually, a greater vulnerability to the regressive temptations of fascism.99 As a member of the Consumer Advisory Board of the National

Recovery Administration, Lynd also arranged for Lazarsfeld to direct studies of consumer demand, buying habits, and the organization of consumer advocacy groups.100 In a report proposed to the Consumer Advisory Board, Lazarsfeld recommended the introduction of motivational methods of inquiry to the study of housewives’ purchasing behavior; this approach would take into account the relevant “emotional factors” that affect buying decisions.101 With the help of Lynd, and by his reputation from the Marienthal study,

Lazarsfeld was invited to work on research projects for the Federal Emergency Relief

Administration (FERA). He furthered his integration into the field when he met a cohort of empirical sociologists in Washington who worked mainly with census data.102 As a fellow for the Social Science Research Council, Lazarsfeld undertook an analysis of data that was compiled in FERA’s 1934 Occupational Characteristics Survey, which covered some 150,000 relief cases. His work was interrupted by a brief trip to Europe, but when he returned he attempted to apply a secondary “psychological” analysis to interpret the data. Though his analysis was limited by the material available to him, he concluded that age was a more important factor than schooling in prolonging the duration of

99 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Methodological Problems in Empirical Social Research,” Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology 2 (1959): 231. 100Alexis Sommaripa, letter to Dexter Keezer, January 16, 1934; Robert Lynd, letter to Mrs. J. J. Daniels, January 24, 1934; Ruth A. Boynton, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, January 27, 1934; Dexter M. Keezer, letter to Alexis Sommaripa, January 29, 1934. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933- 1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 101Paul Lazarsfeld, “Study of Consumer Buying (draft),” February 1, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 102This group would go on to create the Sociological Research Association. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 294; A Dececmber 16, 1933 letter to Lynd, from Hazel K. Stiebeling of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Home Economics, offers to give Lazarsfeld work on a food consumption study, box 2B, folder, 10, “Correspondence, Lynd, Robert,” PFL.

66 unemployment: older workers had virtually no chance of being re-hired. His analysis was published by the Works Progress Administration.103

Lynd was impressed by Lazarsfeld, whom he saw as an innovative researcher who was committed to using the empirical tools of sociology to advance progressive social reforms. Lynd’s efforts to promote Lazarsfeld’s work elicited many invitations for speaking engagements and other inquiries from trade, professional, academic, and advocacy organizations, such as the newly-formed Consumers’ Research, Inc.104

Remarkably, Lazarsfeld did not consider himself a sociologist at the time, admitting that he rather passively found himself classified that way when he arrived in the U.S.105

Given his work for the Bühlers and his interest in human motivations and decision- making, Lazarsfeld saw himself as a kind of social psychologist.106 This disposition lent

103Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Howard Myers, December 20, 1935, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Factors Influencing Length of Unemployment as Found in the Occupational Characteristics Survey: Findings of a Special Analysis,” Works Progress Administration, Division of Social Research (Washington), April 1936; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Age and Other Modifying Factors in Unemployment,” 1936. PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/U II. 104John Hader, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 20, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. Lazarsfeld and Lynd had common ground in their use of the experience of consumers as an empirical basis for social research. At the time, Lynd was studying the effects of unemployment on the middle class, and he had recently published a lengthy report on “The People as Consumers” for the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends. Lynd perceptively analyzed a number of important trends in the consumer field, including the broader availability of consumer credit, the contradiction between Puritan social values of frugal abstinence versus advertising’s alluring invitations to indulge in expensive pleasures, and the rise of fashion and style obsolescence in many product categories. Lynd also recognized that classical economists’ assumption that the consumer was a rational actor was not correct, and that it would be more accurate to consider humans as “only partially rational bundles of impulses and habits shaped in response to an unsynchronized environment.” Lynd’s social-democratic impulses were evident in his discussion of consumer advocacy groups like Consumers’ Research and the National Consumers’ League, and in his call for a federal agency with the specific charge of defending the consumer’s interest. Robert S. Lynd (with the assistance of Alice C. Hanson), “The People as Consumers,” chapter 17 in Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends, Volume 2 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933), 857-911. 105Paul Lazarfeld, letter to Dr. John Egermeier, April 20, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 106Lazarsfeld was even reluctant to use the term “sociology,” preferring “social science,” but he finally admitted that he belonged to that field. Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Robert Merton, September 6, 1945, PFL Vienna, Box, PFL Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946, Briefe und Memos 1932-1946, Mappe 3/3.

67 itself well to market research, and Lazarsfeld began to ingratiate himself in the world of

American business and advertising.107 Lazarsfeld was drawn to such studies not because he had a particular interest in marketing problems, but mainly because this field could provide him with the opportunity—and, importantly, the money—to practice his empirical methods of investigating motivations.

Lazarsfeld seized one such opportunity early on in his fellowship when he learned of a non-profit market research group called the Psychological Corporation (PSC) of New

York, where he quickly secured himself a position. At least since the 1903 publication of

Walter Dill Scott’s Theory of Advertising, marketers had been interested in using the methods of modern psychology to create more effective advertising. In 1921, a group of applied psychologists launched the consulting firm PSC in an effort to make their services available beyond the limited sphere of academia. At the same time, the advertising business was still struggling to shed its nineteenth-century Barnum image and establish itself as a serious profession. Emerging at a time when most of what passed for market research did very little to investigate the subjective experience of consumers, PSC was one of the first U.S. consulting firms to employ trained psychologists to address marketing problems. Market research had consisted mostly of tabulating brand preferences, indexing media coverage, and calculating the “buying power” in particular regions. In this context, the work of PSC appeared to be innovative. The company was

107For example, Lazarsfeld soon received flattering invitations to consult with executives at the major advertising firms J. Walter Thompson and BBDO as well as the behemoth corporations General Electric and General Foods. Osgood S. Lovekin, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, July 30, 1934, PFL Vienna, Box, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3; John G. Jenkins, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, September 10, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946) Mappe 2/3; Chester E. Haring , letter to David R. Craig, October 31, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; PW, letter to PA [copy to Lazarsfeld], December 27, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3.

68 directed by Henry C. Link, who in 1937 developed the Psychological Barometer or “Link

Audit,” a semiannual household survey on consumer products and brands.108 Among

Lazarsfeld’s colleagues was Rensis Likert, who was so impressed by the work of the

Forschungsstelle that he translated one of its studies on tea consumption.109

While working at PSC, Lazarsfeld proposed a number of projects that would employ his method of motivational research, such as a study of the psychological aspects of people involved in stock market activities. He was suspicious of economistic thinking which, he believed, did not take psychology into account or consider the social status and background of important economic actors. He wanted to conduct a study based on

“several thousand” qualitative interviews that were designed to reveal unconscious motivations.110 Lazarsfeld became involved in a number of consumer research projects, such as a study sponsored by the Du Pont company on the “tactile-kinaesthetic distinctions” between silk and the company’s synthetic fabric, rayon, which respondents tended to favor over the natural fiber.111

108Marchand, Advertising, 8-9, 69-76; Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 236; Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 247. 109Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. John A. Popplestone, October 11, 1966, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. Likert, who went on to become the director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, later wrote to Lazarsfeld, reflecting fondly on their time at PSC and the “charming personality” and “delightful sense of humor” of the Viennese émigrés. Rensis Likert, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 22, 1951, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2. 110Paul Lazarsfeld, “Proposal for a Study of the Psychological Aspects of Stock Market Activities,” Psychological Corporation, ca. 1933/34; “TENTATIVE OUTLINE, Indicating nature of data to be obtained by carefully trained interviewers concerning Interviewees (Iee) and their dealings in the stock market,” ca. 1933/34. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 111Rowena Ripin and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Tactile-Kinaesthetic Perception of Fabrics with Emphasis on Their Relative Pleasantness,” Journal of Applied Psychology 21, no. 2 (April 1937): 198-224. Lazarsfeld also worked on a study for the Milk Research Council that was based on 2,000 interviews and questionnaires, the results of which were categorized with punch-cards and tabulated by machine that sorted the data into categories defined by economic class and sex. The study found a widespread belief in the nourishing quality of milk. It served as a sort of all-purpose health aid that could help consumers, contradictorily: put on weight or slenderize, induce sleep or combat fatigue, and sooth the

69 Although the director of the Psychological Corporation later enlisted the

Forschungsstelle as its Continental liaison, Lazarsfeld’s unorthodox methods were generally met with resistance by his behaviorist supervisor.112 Lazarsfeld soon grew frustrated with the “radical behaviorism” of the PSC’s director, who objected to

Lazarsfeld’s efforts to develop more sophisticated questionnaires that were designed to avoid the problem of “rationalization.”113 Lazarsfeld preferred the technique of the

“open-ended” interview: rather than the rote “yes-no” type of questioning preferred by the PSC president, the interviewer using this method would try to elicit past experiences that might reveal basic psychological drives.114 Lazarsfeld became disillusioned by the banal surveys that PSC conducted in the manner of commercial marketing agencies, which had no academic incentive to refine research methods. Lazarsfeld chaffed at the

American tradition that focused on “objective” data, such as purchasing behavior, but ignored “subjective” data, i.e., consumers’ motives for their purchasing behavior. He believed that the problem of “false motive” could be avoided with the proper questioning technique used in combination with objective data.115

Lazarsfeld went on to conduct a study for the Market Research Corporation of

America on the public’s attitude toward advertising.116 He then went to work on a

nerves or act as a stimulant. Though the study acknowledged the problem of respondents’ rationalizations, it lacked a method to probe their unconscious motivations. “A Study of the Psychological Factors Influencing the Drinking of Plain Milk by Adults,” made for the Milk Research Council, Inc. by the Psychological Corporation of New York, Special Counsel: Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Ph.D., Psychological Department, University of Vienna (Rockefeller Fellow in U.S.A., 1934-35), January 29, 1935, box 1, folder F0050-1, Bureau of Applied Social Research Archive [hereafter, BASR] (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York). 112Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 295; [Paul S. Achilles?] Managing Director, Psychological Corporation, draft letter to Dr. Chalkey, ca. 1935, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Biography I.” 113Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 295. 114Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Controversy over Detailed Interviews—An Offer for Negotiation,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 1944, 38-60. 115Paul Lazarsfeld, “Principles of Sociography” [unpublished manuscript; translated from German], ca. 1934, PFL Vienna, T/UI (1 bis 2-3b), Mappe 1/2. 116Lazarsfeld carefully instructed his interviewers to select respondents from each of three social classes in

70 number of consumer studies—including a three-month study on use of rayon fabrics by

800 Pittsburgh women—with David Craig of the Retail Research Institute at the

University of Pittsburgh. Craig, by his own account, was an “American with a problem,” while Lazarsfeld was an “Austrian with a method.” They collaborated on the study, using the methods that Lazarsfeld had developed at the Forschungsstelle, finding that younger women and women of a higher “intellectual level” were more likely to reject rayon.

Lazarsfeld found the collaboration productive, and he wanted to expand the investigation to the problems of department stores. The two researchers also worked together on a study of consumers’ awareness of gasoline and oil brands.117

In October of 1934 Lazarsfeld published a well-received article in The Harvard

Business Review on “The Psychological Aspect of Market Research,” in which he explained his method of using the statistical analysis of data drawn from interviews to develop a generic profile of the psychological motivations of the typical buyer of a particular commodity. Lazarsfeld described the “accent” of motivation, which included three stages: the attributes of the commodity purchased, including its color, packaging, etc.; the influences coming from the outside world, which would include advertisements, shopping environments, and sales pitches; and, finally, the impulses experienced by the respondent, which were his or her personal attitudes and predilections. This matrix of

the following proportions: 20 percent A class, 50 percent B Class, 30 percent C Class. “Psychological Study” [instructions to interviewers for soap advertisement study], Market Research Corporation of America, ca. 1934, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography I. 117David R. Craig and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Some Measurements of the Acceptance and Rejection of Rayon by Pittsburgh Women: An Experimental Study of 800 Consumers,” paper before the Rayon Fabrics Subcommittee of the Committee on Textiles, American Society for Testing Materials, Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, October 18, 1934, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7), Mappe 2/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to David R. Craig, January 18, 1935, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; David R. Craig and Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, “Purchases of Gasoline and Oil,” Market Research 6, no. 1 (January 1937), manuscript version, (PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Ia, Mappe 1/2.

71 affective forces combined to produce the motivation for a decision or behavior. The job of the researcher was to isolate these factors through a directed interview and then carefully interpret the results.118 The article received much attention in commercial market research circles, giving Lazarsfeld many professional contacts which he would later exploit to find jobs for his fellow Austrian refugees—including the motivational analyst Ernest Dichter—when they began to arrive after the Anschluss in 1938.119

By November of 1934—only one year after his arrival in the States—the “portly, bespectacled Dr. Paul F. Lazarsfeld” had caused such a stir that he was profiled in the marketing periodical Tide.120 Another milestone in Lazarsfeld’s career was the publication, in the summer 1935 issue of National Marketing Review, of his article, “The

Art of asking WHY in Marketing Research.” He used the opportunity to disparage market researchers’ exclusive use of “stereotyped” questionnaires, which were unreliable, he argued, because respondents, whose knowledge of their own motivations may be rather “hazy,” inevitably interpreted them in peculiar and idiosyncratic ways. The only way to determine consumers’ motivations in a consistent and usable way was through the qualitative interview technique, which came to be known as the “depth” interview.

Interviewers recorded their subjects’ responses verbatim and later classified, tabulated, compared, and quantified their data.121

118 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Psychological Aspect of Market Research,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Oct. 1934, 54-71. In a footnote on page 69, Lazarsfeld expressed his gratitude to Charlotte and Karl Bühler, the former for her psychological insight into human development, the latter for his theory of language. Lazarsfeld had been eager to explain his empirical study of action to an academic audience, but he said that “only market research people were interested.” Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Working with Merton” in The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, ed. Lewis A. Coser (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich), 47. 119Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” 120“Doctor in America,” Tide, November 1934, 58-62. 121Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Art of Asking WHY in Marketing Research: Three Principles Underlying the Formulation of Questionnaires,” National Marketing Review, Vol. 1, No.1 (Summer, 1935), 26-38.

72 In addition to his publications, Lazarsfeld gave talks at the meetings of various trade groups, emphasizing his method of psychological research as the analysis of motives, conscious and unconscious, combined with the study of action.122 Lazarsfeld’s celebrity in the world of market research was confirmed when he was commissioned to write four chapters for a textbook produced by the American Marketing Association, The

Technique of Marketing Research. According to Lazarsfeld, this was the first textbook describing market research in a systematic way.123 One of the chapters considered the practice of “depth psychology,” which Lazarsfeld cited as the beginning of “motivation research.” As he did in “The Art of Asking Why,” Lazarsfeld divided the psychological, reason-analysis of the purchasing decision into three parts: internal tendencies, outside influences, and product attributes. Lazarsfeld’s articles guided readers on the proper conduct of interviews, helping aspiring market researchers to identify their subjects’ psychological “rationalizations,” which were evasive responses that disguised genuine motivations. Lazarsfeld advised readers on how to get resistant respondents to withdraw their defenses so that they would submit to embarrassing revelations, such as a habit of reading a low-brow magazine. Lazarsfeld summarized useful concepts from the field of psychoanalysis, such as the Freudian concept of repression. He referenced Erich Fromm and the Viennese psychologist Alfred Adler, whose theory of the “inferiority complex”— that a desire for security drove human behavior in a quest for dominance over others—

David Jenemann describes Lazarsfeld’s method as the stabilization of “volatile and fickle subjects” as “consistent and coherent objects along standardized axes.” David Jenemann, Adorno in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 5. 122Arthur W. Kornhauser and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The Techniques of Market Research From the Standpoint of a Psychologist (New York: American Management Association, 1935). 123Paul Lazarsfeld, “Progress and Fad in Motivation Research,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Seminar on Social Science for Industry—Motivation, held in San Francisco by Stanford Research Institute, March 23, 1955, p. 16.

73 was frequently applied in the work of the Forschungsstelle.124

From Visiting Fellow to Émigré

As Lazarsfeld was becoming a celebrity in the marketing profession in the U.S., fascism and anti-Semitism were on the rise in Austria. The Austrian chancellor Engelbert

Dollfuss, of the Christian Social Party, took advantage of a parliamentary political dispute by dissolving the body in March 1933 and preventing it from reconvening. After a failed socialist uprising in February 1934, Dollfuss banned both the Nazi party on his right and the Communist and Social Democratic parties on his left, thereby destroying the republic and declaring himself dictator. A bloody civil war ensued, and Dollfuss was assassinated on July 25 in a failed Nazi coup that ended with Dollfuss’s protégé, Kurt von

Schuschnigg, in power. The Social Democrats, now illegal, were forced underground, and von Schuschnigg, while less hostile to Jews than Dollfuss, sanctioned measures to reduce the presence of Jews in Austrian society. Under this authoritarian Ständestaat,

Lazarsfeld’s teaching position was terminated, and the quasi-fascist regime imprisoned most of his family, including his parents. His wife, Marie Jahoda, took over the directorship of the Forschungsstelle and remained in Vienna with their daughter, but their marriage ended.125 Lazarsfeld recalled, in comic understatement, that there was an

“intermediate fascistic government which was not to my taste.”126

124Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 297; Ferdinand C. Wheeler, ed., The Technique of Marketing Research (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937). Relative to Freud, Adler emphasized the importance of social relations and a sense of community in the development of both “normal” and neurotic personalities. Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” 125Berkley, Vienna and its Jews; Zeisel, “The Austromarxists,” 124-5; Neurath, 14; Sills, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” 258; Pauley, Prejudice, 260-66; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Public Attitude toward Economic Problems,” Market Research 5 (1936): 13-5; Christian Fleck, “Emigration of Social Scientists’ Schools from Austria” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration, 198-223. 126Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” The American Sociologist 17 (1982): 151.

74 Given these developments, he sought an extension of his Rockefeller fellowship for another year, and he had the support of many American academics and market researchers with whom he had worked while on his fellowship.127 Responding to a letter of support from Robert Lynd, a Rockefeller officer in Paris endorsed the renewal of

Lazarsfeld’s fellowship on the grounds that his future in Vienna was “irreparably impaired” by his “socialistic affiliations” and his family’s ties to the socialist leader Otto

Bauer. The officer generally agreed with Lynd’s assessment, but pointed out— presumably in contrast to what Lynd had said—that Lazarsfeld “definitely bears the marks of his race.” But that had nothing to do with the “merits of the case,” the officer admitted, and Lazarsfeld’s fellowship was subsequently renewed.128

Lynd set about trying to find Lazarsfeld a position in the marketing department at the Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania.129 Lazarsfeld took a trip to Vienna in the summer of 1935, and by that fall he had resolved to remain in the United

States permanently once he had settled his affairs in Vienna. Herta Herzog, an associate in market research who would become his second wife, planned to join him.130 He had a position lined up with David Craig at the University of Pittsburgh that earned him a visa, but when that job ultimately fell through, he decided to emigrate anyway, despite the somewhat shaky validity of his papers. “I thus arrived in New York as the classic

127N. H. Engle, letter to George S. Messersmith, n.d. [ca. 1935], PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 128John V. Van Sickle, letter to Robert Lynd, April 27, 1934; Norma S. Thompson, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, June 13, 1934. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 129George A. Lundberg, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, January 21, 1935, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3. 130René Greiner, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, November 13, 1935, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; Personnel Security Questionnaire [form DD-48] completed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, February 23, 1951, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography I.

75 immigrant, penniless,” recalled Lazarsfeld.131 But, in fact, he had already established many contacts in his new field. His mentor, Lynd, had been applying social research to

New Deal government activism in the Consumers Advisory Board,132 and he soon helped

Lazarsfeld to secure a position as a supervisor of work-relief students at the University of

Newark..

Lazarsfeld directed the students’ analysis of thousands of questionnaires that had been filled out by unemployed youth for the National Youth Administration (NYA), a

New Deal program. He recalled that these students “transferred an inclination for common action into an acceptance of academic teamwork.”133 Among other things, the study found that unemployment was much higher among black boys than among white boys, and that black boys’ jobs were of a much more temporary nature—yet they had twice as much “family responsibility” relative to whites.134 Such research, much like the work of the Forschungsstelle, created much-needed jobs for researchers and fit well into

Lazarsfeld’s socialist background, as Morrison notes.135 And, as he had in Vienna,

Lazarsfeld also did contract work for Max Horkheimer’s Institute of Social Research, which had migrated to Columbia University in 1934.136 Members of the Institute, including Horkheimer and Erich Fromm, had already established friendly relations at

Columbia with Lazarsfeld’s American benefactor Lynd, who encouraged their further collaboration.137 While Lazarsfeld was still at Newark, Lynd and members of the exiled

131Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 304. 132Smith, 148. 133Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Bernard Bailyn, February 7, 1968, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “miscelle scientific II.” 134“Place of Leisure-Time Activities,” ca. 1936, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7), Mappe 2/2. 135Morrison, Search, 57. 136Martin Jay, Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 30. 137Robert Lynd, postcard to Paul Lazarsfeld, May 6, 1935, box 2B, folder, 10, “Correspondence, Lynd, Robert,” PFL. Columbia was the natural home for the Institute, given the contacts its members had

76 Institute assisted him with a study on the psychological effects of unemployment, particularly as it related to parental authority.138

By the fall of 1936, Lazarsfeld had established, with the help of university president Frank Kingdon, a Research Center at Newark on the model of his

Forschungsstelle in Vienna. Like the Forschungsstelle, the Newark Research Center took outside contracts, which covered half of Lazarsfeld’s salary and the expenses of the

Center. Among these contracts was a study, sponsored by the Works Progress

Administration, of Millville, New Jersey, which, like Marienthal, suffered from chronic unemployment.139 Another study found that “personal contacts” was the most important factor in finding a job.140 The Center also did consumer studies on topics such as youth milk consumption, finding that milk drinking was a habit that needed to be conditioned.141

The workers provided by the NYA, under the supervision of an official from the Federal

Writers Project, also worked on a study on the class and racial stratification of magazine readership.142

nurtured with many Columbia faculty over the years. See Jay, Dialectical, 39. 138Philip Eisenberg and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Psychological Effects of Unemployment,” Psychological Bulletin 35, no. 6 (June 1938): 358-90; Max Horkheimer, “Preface” in Mirra Komarovsky, The Unemployed Man and His Family: The Effect of Unemployment Upon the Status of the Man in Fifty- Nine Families (New York: Octagon Books, 1971) [first printing in 1940]. 139Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 276, 288-9. 140Paul Lazarsfeld and Hazel Gaudet, “Who Gets a Job?” Sociometry (February 1941): 64-77; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, et al., Coming of Age in Essex County: An Analysis of 10,000 Interviews with Persons 16-24 Years of Age (Newark, N.J.: Essex County Superintendent of Schools and University of Newark Research Center, 1936). 141The best place to acclimate young people to milk-drinking was in the schools. Flavored milk would accommodate them to the taste, according to the study. “Dislike of Milk among Young People: Development of a Method to Measure and Analyze This Dislike,” a psychological study made co- operatively by the Milk Research Council, Inc. and the University of Newark Research Centre, August 1936, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7), Mappe 2/2; “Milk Drinking Habits Among Young People,” a Psychological Study made co-operatively by the Milk Research Council, Inc. and the University of Newark Research Centre, 1938, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/U II. 142Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Rowena Wyant, “Magazines in 90 Cities—Who Reads What?” The Public Opinion Quarterly 1 (October 1937): 29-41. The study found, for example, that industrial workers were avid readers of True Story, African-Americans were fond of True Confessions, and the highly-educated on the East Coast read the Atlantic Monthly.

77 The Office of Radio Research

Just as Lazarsfeld was settling into his role as director of the Center at Newark,

John Marshall of the Rockefeller Foundation approached Hadley Cantril, a professor in the social sciences at Princeton, about setting up a radio research project under the auspices of the university. Marshall was an amateur radio enthusiast and an early supporter of research into the social effects of mass communications. The power of radio was indisputable, but the precise nature of its effects, particularly as a commercial medium, were little understood.143 The Trustees of the Foundation wanted to start a study of radio, and they called on Marshall to find the appropriate people to lead it.144 Cantril was one of the founding editors of Public Opinion Quarterly, and with co-author Gordon

W. Allport he had produced one of the first important studies on how radio was creating a

“new mental world” in The Psychology of Radio, which he published in 1935.145 He was considered to be an expert in the field, and yet he initially expressed little interest in

Marshall’s proposal to investigate the impact of the powerful new medium of radio on

American society.146 He notified Frank Stanton, head of research at the Columbia

143On the early uses of radio as a medium of advertising, see chapter 4 of Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). The simultaneous appearance of radio as a mass medium and the rise of dictators like Mussolini and Hitler also contributed to fears that the new medium could create the conditions for mass dictatorship. See chapter three in Benjamin L. Alpers, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 144John Marshall, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, January 12, 1969, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 1/4. Marshall would later organize the Communications Group, which included Cantril and Lazarsfeld, to bring these scholars together to institutionalize the study of mass media as a new social science. See chapter 3 in Brett Gary, The Nervous Liberals: Propaganda Anxieties from World War I to the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 145Susan J. Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 131; Hadley Cantril and Gordon W. Allport, The Psychology of Radio (New York: Peter Smith, 1941) [original 1935]. 146Converse, Survey Research, 149.

78 Broadcasting System (CBS), about the opportunity. “I personally don’t give a damn about it since my interests are elsewhere,” wrote Cantril to Stanton. “But if you should want it I think we could get something out of Marshall.”147

Lazarsfeld had encountered Cantril, Allport, and Stanton while touring the country on his Rockefeller fellowship, and they had him in mind as a possible director of the radio research project, given his experience studying radio at his Forschungsstelle in

Vienna.148 Stanton, who would later serve as president of CBS from 1946 to 1971, was immediately impressed with Lazarsfeld’s ability. Cantril had his doubts—possibly because he considered Lazarsfeld to be his rival—but Lazarsfeld’s American savior

Robert Lynd once again came to the rescue, convincing Cantril that Lazarsfeld would be perfect for the position. In August of 1937, Cantril wrote to Lazarsfeld while he was visiting his family in Vienna. He notified him that the Rockefeller Foundation had awarded a grant to the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton for the purpose of establishing a center for radio research. The aim was to “determine eventually the role of radio in the lives of different types of listeners, the value of radio to people psychologically, and the various reasons why they like it.” Cantril rather awkwardly noted that Lazarsfeld was not his first choice for the directorship of this project—that

147Hadley Cantril, letter to Frank Stanton, Oct. 26, [1936?], box 20, folder 11, “Radio Research Market Studies: Stanton-Lazarsfeld program analyzer, 1937-1945,” Frank Stanton Papers [hereafter, FS] (Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Stanton later recalled that he was “one of two who brought [Lazarsfeld] to this country,” and he took great pleasure in the success of Lazarsfeld, whom he called “one of the giants in the social sciences.” See Rena Bartos and Arthur S. Pearson, “The Founding Fathers of Advertising Research,” Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 17, No. 3, June 1977. 148In Vienna, Lazarsfeld had come up with the idea of establishing a “barometer” based on survey research to record and analyze the radio listening habits of the general population. Marie Jahoda, “The emergence of social psychology in Vienna,” 347. Lazarsfeld shared with Cantril and Gordon Allport studies done on radio at the Forschungsstelle by Herta Herzog, which they evidently appreciated. It appears that Lazarsfeld had also asked Allport about a fellowship for Herzog. Hadley Cantril, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, December 11, 1933; Gordon W. Allport, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, November 22, 1933; Gordon W. Allport, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, December 22, 1933. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3.

79 would be Frank Stanton, but he was determined to remain at CBS. For himself, Cantril admitted that his heart was not in this type of research, nor was he very good at it. Cantril revealed that he had written Lynd for a recommendation, seeking “someone like

Lazarsfeld” but not the man himself, on the presumption that Lazarsfeld would want to stay at Newark. But when Lynd replied that Lazarsfeld was the best man for the job,

Cantril finally acceded, and almost tacitly offered Lazarsfeld the directorship. He sweetened the deal by offering an assistantship to Herta Herzog, Lazarsfeld’s wife, who had written a dissertation on the effects of radio. He initially rejected Lazarsfeld’s request to base the research in Newark, but suggested that much of the work could possibly be done there.149

Lazarsfeld was impressed by the offer, but he was hesitant to abandon the Newark

Research Center. He was attached to his research institutes as “super-personalities” through which he could practice methodology and train students who would become his living legacy. He said this institution-building desire was part of his self-effacing

“European attitude” which made him hesitant to “go ahead alone.” Lazarsfeld was certain that the Newark Center was dependent on his leadership and would collapse if he left. He also feared losing contact with his friends and colleagues at Columbia, including

Horkheimer. He consulted with Lynd on the matter, and he resolved to follow his mentor’s advice because he owed his “whole American existence to him.” Despite

149Hadley Cantril, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, August 9, 1937, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” Lazarsfeld noted that Herzog had a special gift for theory and introspection, and she helped him with these aspects of his research and writing. Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, May 5, 1938, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio- 1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefeund Memos 1932-1946, Mappe 3/3; Personnel Security Questionnaire [form DD-48] completed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, February 23, 1951, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography I.

80 Cantril’s initial resistance to the idea, Lazarsfeld was finally able to convince him that he could direct the project—which became the “Princeton Office of Radio Research”—from his center at Newark.150 John Marshall had created the project with the mission of investigating the social effects of radio, but Lazarsfeld was able to run the Office with little interference.151

Although Lazarsfeld held the title of “Research Associate” at Princeton, most of the work was done at the Newark Research Center.152 But by the summer of 1938, upon the impending collapse of the University of Newark, the project would move to rented space in New York. By the fall of 1939, due partly to the conflict between Cantril and

Lazarsfeld,153 the project finally moved to Columbia University—once again with the help of Robert Lynd. The radio project became part of the university’s Council for

Research in the Social Sciences. It was attached to the sociology department as a

“research laboratory” with the aim of developing research methods, providing apprentice training and access to empirical data for graduate students. Lazarsfeld’s friend and colleague Samuel Stouffer recommended him as a “producer” who would be a “stimulus to graduate students.” Lazarsfeld joined the Columbia sociology faculty at this time along with Robert Merton, who was to be the theoretical sociologist to balance

150Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Robert Lynd, ca. 1937, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Hadley Cantril, August 8, 1937, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “PFL ancillary.” Lazarsfeld’s reply predates Cantril’s offer because they had been communicating over the wire. Lazarsfeld usually refers to the “Office of Radio Research,” but it is also commonly referred to, mostly in secondary accounts, as the “Princeton Radio Research Project.” 151Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to John Marshall, January 6, 1968, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 1/4. 152Alexander Leitch, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, April 21, 1938, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 2/3. 153Lazarsfeld complained that he “repeatedly had difficulties” with Cantril on the project because of his “bad handling” of research funds. He dismissed Cantril as mainly a “popularizer of other people’s ideas” who had “little competence” and had “hardly done any original research.” Paul F. Lazarsfeld, letter to Keith Kane [the letter is a draft and may never have been sent], December 17, 1942, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2.

81 Lazarsfeld’s empirical approach, thus resolving a dispute over the methodological direction of the department. Lazarsfeld would remain at Columbia until his retirement in

1969, serving as chair of the Department of Sociology from 1951 to 1961. Despite their differences, Merton and Lazarsfeld became close over the course of their tenure, professionally and personally. Merton worked closely with Lazarsfeld on the radio project, and he became its associate director when it was later rechristened as the “Bureau of Applied Social Research” in 1944.154

Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research was one of the first centers devoted to the study of mass communications. Research into radio was at the time still in an embryonic stage.155 Part of Lazarsfeld’s initial resistance to the project stemmed from his devotion to the scientific study of motivation, which did not appear to apply directly to a study of radio. But he came to see how the data of radio research could be used to study psychological problems of social policy and social action. Researchers deliberately combined qualitative and quantitative market research methodologies, beginning their studies with detailed interviews, which were followed by larger sampling for “statistical verification.” The Office was also, importantly, a refuge for émigré scholars from Europe

154Although most sociologists at the time held applied sociology in low esteem, Lazarsfeld insisted on including it in the name of the Bureau because he felt that it most accurately described its work. Rogers, A History of Communication Study, 291. My account of the founding of the Office of Radio Research is drawn from the following sources: Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 304-33; Converse, Survey Research, 150; Barton, 26; David L. Sills, “Stanton, Lazarsfeld, and Merton—Pioneers in Communication Research” in American Communication Research—The Remembered History, eds. Everette E. Dennis and Ellen Wartella (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996); “How Does It Come to Be So?” The New Yorker, January 28, 1961, 39-63; Press release on the death of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Office of Public Information, Columbia, August 31, 1976, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Biography I”; Philip M. Hayden, letter To Whom it May Concern [notarized affidavit], June 14, 1940, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2; Samuel A. Stouffer, letter to Frederick C. Mills, February 17, 1941, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefeund Memos 1932-1946), Mappe 3/3. 155Lazarsfeld saw conspicuous flaws in the way radio research had been done. He pointed to a pollster’s presumption that, because listeners of the “Ford Symphony Hour” were more likely to own a Ford, the program served as a successful advertisement. But Lazarsfeld noted that they had failed to consider the possibility that Ford owners tuned in simply to reassure themselves of wisdom of their purchase. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Professor Richard Conweiser, n.d., PFL Vienna, T/U XI, Mappe 2/4.

82 who engaged in diverse modes of social research. These scholars were all concerned with the issue of social stratification that had driven Lazarsfeld from his days as a Social

Democrat in Vienna. Radio was a unique among media for its accessibility, because after the initial investment, it was virtually free. There were few geographic or economic barriers to its use—unlike magazines, newspapers, or movies, which were limited in their distribution and required a purchase for each use. Radio was ephemeral, but its effects were cumulative, because it continued in time, becoming part of the daily or weekly habits of listeners. Radio, furthermore, played a different role in the lives of listeners, depending on their occupational or socio-economic status, and it was particularly relevant in the life of a housewife. The Office also performed content analyses of radio programs, which could reveal the prevalence of stratified social roles social roles and capitalistic ideology. A “negro character,” for example, may have the chief characteristic of “doglike devotion to his master with little or no portrayal of any individual thoughts, feelings or individuality of his own.” The so-called “true-life” stories of radio serials may not actually deal with social or economic problems, and may actually in inhibit a critical attitude and imbue the listener with a fatalistic philosophy of life, e.g., “husbands never understand their wives.”156

Émigré Social Researchers: Conflict, Community, and the Origins of Mass Culture Criticism

The prodigious output of the Office of Radio Research included four published

156Fleming, 311; Neurath, 19; Marjorie Fiske and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Columbia Office of Radio Research,” Hollywood Quarterly 1, no. 1 (October 1945): 51-9; Marjorie Fiske and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Office of Radio Research: A Division of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University,” Educational and Psychological Measurement 5, no. 4 (Winter 1945): 351-69; Robert Merton [probably], “Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Office of Radio Research,” June 15, 1947, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2.

83 volumes and two special issues of the Journal of Applied Psychology that documented the myriad analytical modes the researchers used to understand the American public and its various segments through the medium of radio.157 Lazarsfeld’s group also collaborated with Max Horkheimer’s exiled Institute of Social Research on a special 1941 volume of its journal, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, that attempted to bridge the methodological and epistemological divide between the Institute’s humanistic, dialectical

“Critical Theory” and Lazarsfeld’s brand of empirical social research. “It gives us great satisfaction that for the first time some of our ideas have been applied specifically to

American subject matters and introduced into the American methodological debate,” wrote Horkheimer in the preface. “We feel particularly indebted to Paul F. Lazarsfeld who has taken categories developed by us in a totally different, highly abstract context, and attempted to present them in terms of the concrete desiderata confronting today’s social research.”158

The reevaluation of empirical data occasionally went in the other direction, as in

Frances Holter’s article in the radio project’s special February 1939 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology. Holter examined materials from the Institute’s Studien über

Autorität und Familie (“Studies on Authority and the Family”), an elaborate empirical study, much like Marienthal, concerning the effect of unemployment on parental authority. The study was carried out in Germany—with some methodological assistance

157Hadley Cantril, with Hazel Gaudet and Herta Herzog, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic with the complete script of the famous Orson Welles Broadcast (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940); Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Radio and the Printed Page: An Introduction to the Study of Radio and Its Role in the Communication of Ideas (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1940); Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, Radio Research, 1941 (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941); Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, eds. Radio Research, 1942-1943 (New York: Essential Books, 1944); Journal of Applied Psychology 23 (Feb. 1939); Journal of Applied Psychology 24 (Dec. 1940). 158Max Horkheimer, “Preface,” in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Volume IX (New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941): 1.

84 from Lazarsfeld—before the emigration if the Institute scholars, who later assembled the research data in 1935.159 Holter was specifically looking for the role of radio in these families and found that it was crucially important to the psychological well-being and status of families that had no money for other entertainments or diversions. When families were forced to sell their radios, the loss was particularly acute for the children, who felt a sharp decline in status because they could no longer invite their friends into their homes to listen to the radio.160

This collaboration between Lazarsfeld and the Institut had begun in Europe, continued at Newark, and became even closer when Lazarsfeld invited the Institut associate Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno to direct a study on music in late 1937. At the time, Adorno was living in England, studying at Merton College, Oxford, but the

Horkheimer group desperately wanted him to join them in the U.S. Lazarsfeld felt indebted to the members of the exiled Institute for their support of his work at the

Newark center, and he was intrigued by Adorno’s writings on the “contradictory” or critical—in a dialectical sense—role of music in society.161 “I considered it a challenge to see whether I could induce Adorno to try to link his ideas with empirical research,” recalled Lazarsfeld.162 Lazarsfeld sought a “European approach” to the study of music that was more theoretical in stating its research problem and more pessimistic in its attitude toward “an instrument of technical progress.”163 At the same time, the Institute

159Jenemann, 7-8. To American readers of Autorität und Familie, Institut member Erich Fromm’s integration of psychoanalysis and sociology in the concept of character types was the most original methodological development in this work. Thomas Wheatland, The Frankfurt School in Exile (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 208-10. 160Frances Holter, “Radio Among the Unemployed,” Journal of Applied Psychology 23 (Feb. 1939): 163- 69. 161Morrison, Search, 107. 162Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 322. 163Letter from Lazarsfeld to Adorno, Nov. 29, 1937, quoted in Christian Fleck, A Transatlantic History of the Social Sciences: Robber Barons, the Third Reich and the Invention of Empirical Social Research,

85 was integrating some Anglo-American empirical methodology in its practice of social science. Indeed, the original conception of Critical Theory, as first articulated by

Horkheimer, was a dialectical attempt to merge sociology and social philosophy. Critical

Theory was to incorporate empirical research to discover why the revolutionary aspects of orthodox Marxism had failed to materialize.164

Lazarsfeld began lobbying Cantril and Stanton early in his tenure at the Radio

Research project to bring Adorno on board. “I think that he is another case where a foreigner can be gotten at half the price we would have to pay an American of equal competence,” reasoned Lazarsfeld, perhaps in facetious attempt to demonstrate his

American-style pragmatism. “I see Frank in conflict between his desire as director to save money and his distrust of foreigners as a native of Ohio.”165 Lazarsfeld’s plan was to pair Adorno with an American empiricist, whom he found in the psychologist and jazz musician Gerhard Wiebe, to develop “a convergence of European theory and American empiricism.”166

But it would turn out to be a difficult tenure at the radio project for the notoriously misanthropic Adorno. Almost immediately after Adorno arrived in February of 1938,

Lazarsfeld found himself forced to defend, on intellectual grounds, the odd-looking,

“very absent-minded German professor” to the other project directors. Adorno’s resolute foreignness made the immigrant Lazarsfeld feel “like a member of the Mayflower

trans. Hella Beister (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), 176. 164Wheatland, Frankfurt School in Exile, 202-5. 165Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, December 15, 1937, box 3A, folder 7, “Correspondence, Stanton, Frank & Cantril, Hadley,” PFL. 166Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 322. Lazarsfeld believed that some sociologists’ obsessive analysis of the “manifestos of the representatives of the tradition,” such as Max Weber, was unproductive. He thought that it would be more socially useful for them to analyze empirical studies. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Philosophy of Science and Empirical Social Research,” in Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 1960 International Congress, eds. E. Nugel, P. Suppes, and A. Tarski (Stanford University Press, 1960), 466.

86 Society,”167 and within a year of his arrival Lazarsfeld was complaining to Stanton that the “hard laws of social contacts” were making much trouble for the admittedly brilliant theorist.168 By the summer of 1939, Lazarsfeld wrote a lengthy personal letter to Adorno express his grave disappointment with his fellow émigré’s stubborn devotion speculative theory in the context of the empirical method that dominated the Office of Radio

Research.169 Indeed, the incompatibility of the American empiricist and the German dialectician was revealed in early meetings between the two. Adorno expressed his impatience with empirical methods, which interested him only insofar as they might help to prove his theories. In discussing a project to investigate audience response to popular music, Adorno asserted that “the reaction of people takes place in a very commodity-like way.” He quickly concluded: “Although we are all convinced that this will come out, it will be valuable to check it at any rate.”170 For Adorno, empiricism was not a path to knowledge but a rather tedious proof of true insight derived from introspection.

Despite a genuine interest on the part of both parties to bridge the divide between

167Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 300-1. To some degree, Lazarsfeld took advantage of his foreignness to avoid being categorized as a Jew. (Coser, Refugee Scholars, 119.) As a heavyset, “funny man” with an “ever-present” cigar, he embraced the charming affectations of the stereotypical Viennese intellectual. His cigars were so ever-present that he once avoided a customs tax by claiming, successfully, that they were his “working tools.” David L. Sills, “Paul Lazarsfeld... ‘He taught us what sociology is—or should be,’” Columbia Today, December 1976, 41-2; “Roundletter No. 2” [from Oslo], August 25th, 1948, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. Yet his colleague and close friend Samuel Stouffer, who vouched for Lazarsfeld in his petition for naturalization, noted that some people were prejudiced against him because of his strong accent and “distinctly foreign appearance.” He had a “rather heavy Germanic way” about him which struck some as arrogance, but Stouffer insisted that he was “one of the most modest of men.” Samuel A. Stouffer, letter to Frederick C. Mills, February 17, 1941, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933- 1946, Briefeund Memos 1932-1946, Mappe 3/3; “Americans Who Are Well and Intimately Acquainted with Professor Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Have Not Been Witnesses on His Petition for Naturalization,” November 18, 1942, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. 168Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Frank Stanton, Dec. 5, 1938. PFL, Box 3A, folder 003/6, “Correspondence, Stanton, Frank II.” 169Martin Jay, Dialectical Imagination, 222. 170“Results of the Meeting with T. W. A. [Adorno] and G. B. Wiebe, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 30 and 31, 1938, 7, box 1, folder B0070, “Results of the Meeting with T.W.A. And G.B. Wiebe,” Bureau of Applied Social Research archive [hereafter, “BASR”] (Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library).

87 empiricism and Critical Theory, the fundamental conflict would remain. David Morrison, writing on the dispute between Lazarsfeld and Adorno, observes that the latter had a personality “not easily given to recognizing the power of facts where they did not accord with his own suppositions about the world.”171 Lazarsfeld, meanwhile, consciously resisted his own inclinations to empiricism in his desire to incorporate Critical Theory into his program. Lazarsfeld consistently defended Adorno against the growing skepticism of the other directors of the Office of Radio Research, a position owing partly to Lazarsfeld’s confidence in Adorno’s brilliance and partly to an empathy stemming from their common European, Jewish heritage.172 In addition to inviting Frankfurt School scholars like Adorno and Leo Lowenthal to work on the radio research project, Lazarsfeld expressed a wish to unite the two modes of inquiry: his own “administrative” research and the opposed “critical” research. In his 1941 contribution to Horkheimer’s journal,

Lazarsfeld wrote: “The idea of critical research is posed against the practice of administrative research, requiring that, prior to and in addition to whatever special purpose is to be served, the general rule of our media of communication in the present social system should be studied.”173

Lazarsfeld remained so intrigued by the potential of Critical Theory that he would later invite the members of the Institute to join his own organization. However,

Horkheimer declined: he officially cited his poor health, but he was privately dismissive of the positivistic drift of the sociology at Columbia and Lazarsfeld’s willingness to do

171David E. Morrison, “Kultur and Culture: The Case of Theodor W. Adorno and Paul Lazarsfeld,” Social Research 45 (Summer 1978 ): 337. 172Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Bernard Bailyn, February 13, 1968, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio- 4, Mappe 1/4. 173Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, “Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Volume IX (New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941): 9.

88 contract work for big business and the mass-culture industries.174 But even though

Lazarsfeld felt that “only a very catholic conception of the task of research can lead to valuable results,”175 he ultimately remained ambivalent about Critical Theory. While it seemed to have “a core of intellectual integrity,” he ultimately felt that it was also

“foolish and irresponsible,” summarizing his feelings toward the practice as “a mixture of curiosity, interest, respect and irritation.”176

That lingering skepticism was shared by many of Lazarsfeld’s more pragmatic,

American colleagues. Indeed, it was his obsessive empiricism and inclination towards applied research that made Lazarsfeld a peculiar sort of émigré and a “doyen of American sociology,” according to historian Anthony Heilbut.177 Lazarsfeld’s champion, the progressive Robert Lynd, was initially attracted to the Frankfurt School members’ espousal of social reform and to Lazarsfeld’s demonstrated commitment to social democracy. Lynd was also impressed by Lazarsfeld’s devotion to empirical methods, which was partly inspired by his own approach to social research.178 But Lynd may not have anticipated the degree to which Lazarsfeld would employ sociology in the service of commercial interests, and he would later ask Lazarsfeld where his conscience had gone.179 Heilbut concludes that Lazarsfeld fully sublimated his “revolutionary tendencies” into “marketable use.” “Thanks largely to his work,” writes Heilbut,

“mechanical systems of observation could chart everything from voting preferences to

174Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, from the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 90. See also Jay, Dialectical, 220. 175Lazarsfeld, “Remarks,” 16. 176Quoted in Morrison, “Kultur,” 352. 177Heilbut, 77, 95. 178Thomas Wheatland, “Not-Such-Odd Couples: Paul Lazarsfeld and the Horkheimer Circle on Morningside Heights” in David Kettler and Gerhard Lauer, eds. Exile, Science, and Bildung: The Contested Legacies of German Emigre Intellectuals (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 172, 181. 179Stehr, 152.

89 tastes in mouthwash and deodorant.” This kind of research, which provided a rationale for the administration of consumer tastes but compromised the sociologist’s capacity for critical social engagement, was anathema to both Lynd and Adorno.180

But beyond his distaste for the application of social research in the service of capitalist industry, Adorno, despite some initial effort, simply could not resolve empirical methods with Critical Theory. This method was deeply engaged with the problem of commodity fetishism, a Marxian idea that posited a distortion in the consumer’s subjective relationship to a commodity good. According to Martin Jay, this was the crux of Adorno’s conflict with Lazarsfeld: “Questionnaires or interviews were inadequate because the opinions of the listeners themselves were unreliable.”181 Literature scholar

David Jenemann defends Adorno on this count, arguing that, if the truth of subjectivity is mutability, then the fixing of subjective elements to a graph amounts to the “liquidation” of subjects, or subject-murder.182

In his own account, Adorno admitted his initial naïveté about the American situation and the degree to which “rationalization” had “permeated the so-called mass media.”183 In contrast to Lazarsfeld and his corps of empiricist social researchers, Adorno insisted that his role was to interpret social phenomena, “not to ascertain, sift, and classify facts and make them available as information.”184 Adorno always maintained his

European sensibility, and the exoticism of Newark, New Jersey struck him upon his

180Heilbut, 98-9; Smith, 153. See also Seymour Martin Lipset, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld at Columbia: A Great Methodologist and Teacher” in Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976): La sociologie de Vienne à New York, eds. Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1998), 255-70. 181Jay, Dialectical, 190. 182Jenemann, 6. 183Theodor W. Adorno, “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America,” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, eds. Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), 340. 184Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 339.

90 arrival in February 1938: “When I traveled there through the tunnel under the Hudson, I felt a little as if I were in Kafka’s Nature Theater of Oklahoma.”185 He had been invited to direct Lazarsfeld’s music study, but he was not prepared to abandon his critical methods, or to suppress his foreignness, for that matter. He chaffed at the charter from the Rockefeller Foundation, which limited the study to the commercial radio system and did not encourage probes into the broader sociological consequences of the system itself.

Moreover, Adorno believed that the basic method of American-style empirical research was fundamentally flawed: “What was axiomatic according to the prevalent rules of social research, namely, to proceed from the subjects’ reactions as if they were a primary and final source of sociological knowledge, seemed to me thoroughly superficial and misguided.”186 For Adorno, such responses were corrupted because subjects engaged with the medium of radio like a commodity fetish.

Adorno was particularly disturbed by a machine called the “program analyzer” that had been developed by Lazarsfeld and Stanton to measure and quantify audience members’ responses to radio programs and commercials. Lazarsfeld—who had been measuring audience responses to a music program using penciled checks on paper that were synchronized with a metronome—challenged the technically-proficient Stanton to develop a more sophisticated machine.187 The program analyzer was a simple mechanical device by which subjects indicated their approval, disapproval, or indifference to program content in real time through electronic push-buttons. It attracted attention in the

185Fleming, 342. The reference to the bizarre final chapter of Franz Kafka’s novel Amerika is telling: Kafka had relied on no empirical investigation or firsthand understanding, but only secondhand accounts, for his story set in the U.S. 186Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 343. 187Susan J. Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 138.

91 marketing trade press as a breakthrough in audience research.188 A promotional brochure hailed the machine as a revolutionary invention in the science of audience analysis. It proclaimed that the program analyzer “points out the straight road from radio advertising to sales,” and would help marketers attract the right audience for a particular product, hold their interest, and sustain it through regular listeners.189 Lazarsfeld wanted to use the device in the music study, and Adorno was mentioned in one article as an “expert in music research” who had initiated experiments with the gadget.190 Adorno, however, was appalled by the thing:

A small machine which enabled a listener to indicate what he liked and didn’t like by pushing a button during the performance of a piece of music appeared to be highly inadequate to the complexity of what had to be discovered; and in spite of the seeming objectivity of the data supplied. […] I was particularly disturbed by the danger of a methodological circle: that in order to grasp the phenomenon of cultural reification according to the prevalent norms of empirical sociology one would have to use reified methods as they stood so threateningly before my eyes in the form of that machine, the program analyzer. When I was confronted with the demand to ‘measure culture,’ I reflected that culture might be precisely that condition that excludes a mentality capable of measuring it.191

Adorno felt that Lazarsfeld’s empirical methods did nothing to expose reification

—the naturalization of historically contingent social phenomena; rather, the technique of quantification ultimately reinforced the artificial norms of capitalist production. After some initial openness to empirical methods, Adorno ultimately recoiled from the demand that he produce not insight but, rather, information. He resisted by devoting himself

188“Program Analyzer: That’s the name of an interesting new gadget developed for radio research,” Tide, May 1, 1940; Joseph Creamer and George H. Allen, “Ups and Downs in Audience Interest,” Advertising & Selling, July 1941, 32-6, 68. 189“Listen to Your Listeners: How to Improve Your Program with the Lazarsfeld-Stanton Program Analyzer” [promotional brochure], Consulting Division, Columbia University’s Office of Radio Research, ca. 1942, box 20, folder 11, “Radio Research Market Studies: Stanton-Lazarsfeld program analyzer, 1937-1945,” FS. 190“Program Analyzer: That’s the name of an interesting new gadget developed for radio research,” Tide, May 1, 1940; Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, May 12, 1938, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I, Mappe 1/2. 191Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 344, 347

92 mostly to analyzing content rather than reception, and he had a tendency to make broad theoretical suppositions about audience responses. Adorno felt that to deny the mass media’s standardization, commodification, and “pseudo-individualization” of artistic products would be to submit to reification. For Adorno, it was futile to analyze society on the basis of its own artificial, institutionalized terms, rather than by critical, historical, and epistemological inquiry—that is, through the practice of Critical Theory.192

Another Frankfurt School scholar working on Lazarsfeld’s radio research project,

Leo Lowenthal, also chaffed at the reified methods of empirical social research.

American social science, he would later write, refused to “enter the sphere of meaning” and, in its obsession with artificially isolated social sectors, was much too close to market research and all its associated expediency and tendency to manipulation. “It imagines that horizontal segments constitute its research laboratory,” Lowenthal lamented, “and it seems to forget that the only social science laboratories that are properly admissible are historical situations.”193 While the pragmatic, mathematically-minded Lazarsfeld accepted and quite willingly used the reified categories and social strata that made a science of empirical research, these dialectical critical theorists resisted the empirical- analytical mode’s practical usefulness for business as an applied science.

But despite their resistance to empirical methodologies, Lowenthal and Adorno did produce substantial work for the radio research project, generally in the field of content analysis—as opposed to audience reception—some of which made it to publication. Lowenthal’s “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” for example, appeared in

192Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 346. 193Leo Lowenthal, “Historical Perspectives of Popular Culture” in Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, eds. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957), 52.

93 Radio Research, 1942-1943, and it was in many ways characteristic of the mass culture criticism that would become characteristic of the Frankfurt School scholars. Lowenthal also contributed to ongoing discussions involving Institute members that would lead to

Adorno and Horkheimer’s essay on the “Kulturindustrie” (“The Culture Industry”).194

The essay appeared a few years later in The Dialectic of Enlightenment, a text that was initially published only in German (Dialektik der Aufklärung) and thus failed to enter directly into the American discussion until much later.195 Anticipating the argument in that now-famous essay, Lowenthal wrote that, “since the average working day follows a routine which often does not show any change during a life-time, the routine and repetition characteristics of leisure-time activities serve as a kind of justification and glorification of the working day.”196

Adorno—who would come to resent David Riesman’s “popularization” of the

Institute’s style of critique in The Lonely Crowd197—ultimately published three works from his time at Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research, but only one with its imprimatur: an essay on the “Radio Symphony” that appeared in Radio Research, 1941.198 Adorno had been inspired by an essay on “the work of art in the age of technical reproducibility” written by his friend Walter Benjamin, an associate of the Frankfurt School scholars who had remained living in exile in Paris, resisting pleas from his colleagues to leave the

Continent as the Nazi threat mounted. While Adorno generally agreed with the content of

Benjamin’s analysis, he had a much more pessimistic attitude concerning the social

194Jay, Dialectical Imagination, 212. 195Jay, Permanent Exiles, 49. 196Leo Lowenthal, “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Frank N. Stanton, eds (New York: Essential Books, 1944), 546. 197Jay, Permanent Exiles, 49. 198T. W. Adorno, “The Radio Symphony: An Experiment in Theory” in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, Radio Research, 1941 (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 110-39.

94 implications of the mass culture industries.199 While developing his ideas for the “Radio

Symphony” essay, Adorno gave a lecture to Lazarsfeld’s group of researchers in which the influence of Benjamin’s idea of the aura was clear. “Not only does the ideal of the original become falsified by radio,” said Adorno, “but the adequacy and sincerity of mass reproduction is spoiled by the cult of the original.”200 Adorno developed many of the same themes in an unpublished study on the “NBC Music Appreciation Hour,” ostensibly an educational program designed to encourage a fuller enjoyment of music. For Adorno, however, the program encouraged not the enjoyment of music itself, but rather the awareness that one knows music. He concluded, cynically: “The pleasure involved consists of a fetishistic hoarding of information about music, which one enjoys as a miser enjoys the gold he has accumulated.”201

With the collaboration of George Simpson, Adorno produced two other essays on popular music while working at the Office of Radio Research. A version of the first was

199Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 342. The Frankfurt School historian Martin Jay attributes Benjamin’s optimistic attitude to the influence of the radical German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who insisted on the revolutionary potential of the popular arts and technological innovation. Benjamin acknowledged, and Adorno agreed, that the “aura,” or cult-value, of a work of art was lost through is mass reproduction. But while Benjamin, like Brecht, held out hope for the progressive potential of political, collectivized art, Adorno and the other members of the Institute saw the products of mass culture as a threat, lulling the masses into complacency through distraction. Jay, Dialectical Imagination, 201-11. 200Theodore Wiesengrund-Adorno, lecture, January, 1939, box 1, folder B0072, “Lecture Delivered by Theodore Wiesengrund-Adorno, January, 1939,” BASR. In the published essay that followed, Adorno resisted the notion that symphonic music transmitted over the radio waves was bringing high culture to the masses, because the aura of the original, its very essence and capacity as a negative (in a dialectical sense) art form, was inevitably lost. It became a mere “medley or potpourri”; it was a commodified, reified “quotation” that was passively consumed by the listener. Adorno, “Radio Symphony,” 131. 201T.W. Adorno, “Analytical Study of the NBC Music Appreciation Hour,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 63, box 2, folder B107, “Analytical Study of the NBC Music Appreciation Hour by T.W. Adorno,” BASR. Though not listed as an author, Adorno also contributed to Duncan MacDougald’s study on song “plugging” by Tin Pan Alley, published as an essay titled “The Popular Music Industry” in the 1941 radio research volume. MacDougald decried the tastes of the general public, which seemed to prefer “obvious songs with simple melodies and commonplace lyrics” over the superior compositions of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and even Cole Porter. But the masses were forgiven, for what made a song a “hit” had little to do with its inherent qualities and more to do with the incessant, aggressive marketing, or “plugging,” of the industry. Duncan MacDougald, Jr., “The Popular Music Industry,” in Lazarsfeld, Radio Research, 1941, 109.

95 later published as “A Social Critique of Radio Music” in the Spring 1945 issue of Kenyon

Review,202 but was initially presented as a candid lecture in October of 1939 to his fellows at the project. In the lecture, Adorno emphasized the commodity and fetish character of radio music. While he did reference some tentative empirical studies of radio listeners, he implicitly critiqued the program analyzer and its reduction of listener responses to

“like” and “dislike.” And he went further in his critique of the whole enterprise of empirical listener studies—the very aim of the radio research project—which, he argued, were clouded by “pseudo-individualization,” or the mere illusion of free choice in the face of standardized production. Against the empirical method, he defended Critical

Theory, which could come closer to reality than the tainted “facts” that empirical research produced.203

As the historian David Morrison has pointed out, Adorno’s work for Lazarsfeld’s organization was alien to the “administrative” work that prevailed there and made its studies so valuable to marketers and mass media corporations.204 Lazarsfeld sincerely tried to bridge the divide between intellectuals and mass-media producers,205 but he would regretfully admit that, partly due to his own administrative distractions, his aims ultimately fell short. “Adorno and I agreed that he would establish a more discriminating

202T. W. Adorno, “A Social Critique of Radio Music,” The Kenyon Review, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1945), 208-17. 203T. W. Adorno, “On a Social Critique of Radio Music,” paper read at the Princeton Radio Research Project by T. W. Adorno, October 26, 1939, box 1, folder B0076, “On a Social Critique of Radio Music, Adorno, F2,” BASR. Adorno continued his mass culture assault in the essay “On Popular Music,” which appeared in the special 1941 journal issue produced collaboratively by Horkheimer’s Institute and Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research. Adorno slammed the music industry for differentiating content that was actually undifferentiated, and he sketched an argument—which would later come to fruition in “The Culture Industry”—that diversions of mass culture entertainment merely served to reproduce working capacity. T. W. Adorno, “On Popular Music” in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Volume IX (New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941). 204David E. Morrison, “Kultur,” 343. 205Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 315.

96 typology; then a questionnaire might lead to a quantitative distribution of different types of music listeners,” Lazarsfeld recalled. “But no indicators for such a typology were developed because the direction he gave could hardly be translated into empirical terms.”206 Ultimately, John Marshall, the Rockefeller Foundation officer overseeing

Lazarsfeld’s radio project, cut off funding for Adorno’s music study. Adorno’s position had always been somewhat tenuous, and Marshall found his work on music aggressively critical, unscientific, and unverifiable.207 Marshall respected Adorno’s intellect, and he later remembered being generally in favor of the project and “very impressed” by

Adorno’s approach. He hesitated in his decision, but he ultimately decided that the project involved too much “scatter” and called for a sharper focus.208

Lazarsfeld insisted that he never regretted having invited Adorno onto the project, and he did maintain respect for him. But Lazarsfeld later confessed that, after a while, even he felt somewhat embarrassed by the stubborn, misanthropic Adorno.209 And while, late in his life, Adorno did defend the value of empirical research,210 his immediate experience at the Office of Radio Research only heightened his belief that it was a mercenary travesty of social science. “Adorno’s life was dedicated to unmasking

206Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 324. 207Morrison, “Kultur,” 347, 352; Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, July 19, 1939, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefeund Memos 1932-1946, Mappe 3/3. 208John Marshall, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, January 12, 1969, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 1/4; Fleck, Transatlantic History, 199; Jenemann, 50. Marshall was seeking to legitimate the field of mass communications research, and the general direction of the Communications Group of scholars was towards behaviorist, empirical research that focused on the effects of communications, something Adorno speculated about but did not study. Adorno’s work was compelling as social theory, but it was not in line with the public relations objectives of the Rockefeller Foundation. Although Marshall supported the qualitative analyses of Frankfurt School associates like Siegfried Kracauer— who critiqued Nazi propaganda films—this work could be defended as part of the Foundation’s antifascist, pro-democratic commitments. Adorno’s more speculative approach, however, did not fall within that purview. Gary, 87-101. 209Morrison, “Kultur,” 348. 210Adorno, “Scientific Experiences,” 364.

97 commodity fetishism,” explains David Morrison, “and he was certainly shocked by scholarship that supported it: shocked by the close links between research and the culture industry and shocked by methodology that attempted to measure culture where measurement meant reacting to it.”211

Lazarsfeld’s program for “administrative” research was, in many ways, antithetical to the Critical Theory of Horkheimer’s Institute, but his experience in building institutions was instrumental in supporting the work of the Frankfurt School scholars. Indeed, Lazarsfeld’s research bureaus provided jobs for many refugee social scientists.212 Lazarsfeld eventually helped Horkheimer to secure grants from the Jewish

Labor Committee and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Unlike the somewhat esoteric, academic studies the Institute often engaged in, the topic was of urgent concern to the American Jewish community, and the proposed study more closely followed standard American sociological practices.213 These grants, and particularly the one from the AJC, restored the reputation of Horkheimer and Adorno and led to the “Studies in

Prejudice” project which included The Authoritarian Personality.214 The foundational 211Morrison, “Transference,” 198. 212These refugees included his first wife Marie Jahoda, his second wife Herta Herzog, his old friend Hans Zeisel and Zeisel’s sister Ilse, and Paul Neurath—son of Otto, one of the founders of the “Vienna Circle” of logical empiricists. Lazarsfeld provided these immigrants with “social capital” and access to an “opportunity structure,” according to his colleague Robert Merton. Merton, “Working with Lazarsfeld: Notes and Contexts” in Lautman, 190-1. 213Horkheimer’s Institute, with its substantial endowment, had long been insulated from financial concerns and the need to adopt American methods to integrate itself in American academia. It operated in relative autonomy in a German-speaking enclave on Morningside Heights until it experienced financial crisis, losing its $400,000 endowment in 1937. The financial strains became so severe by 1939 that some members, including Erich Fromm, were asked to leave the Institute. Other members, including Leo Lowenthal and Herbert Marcuse, were advised to look elsewhere for work; this is how Lowenthal came to work for Lazarsfeld and for the U.S. Office of War Information. Horkheimer began to conceive a project that would employ a psychoanalytic methodology to explore how anti-Semitism was not just a problem for Jews in Europe, but for all of Western civilization—this would become the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Horkheimer also kept up a series of strategic attacks on the Institute’s ex-member Fromm, who had departed from orthodox psychoanalysis, which helped the Institute to win the support of U.S. Freudians. Wheatland, “Not-Such-Odd Couples,” 180; Wheatland, Frankfurt School in Exile, 207-25; Jay, Permanent Exiles, 43-4. 214That study, a collaborative effort of the Berkeley Public Opinion Study Group, introduced the famous

98 support also freed Adorno and Horkheimer to pursue their more philosophical projects, most notably The Dialectic of Enlightenment, which contained the famous essay on the culture industry.215 And although Horkheimer declined an invitation to formally incorporate the Institute into the sociology department at Columbia, his group did substantially benefit from its association with Lazarsfeld.216

Despite Lazarsfeld’s empirical, quantitative proclivities, his Office of Radio

Research served as an institutional adjunct to the émigré scholars of the Frankfurt School, and it nurtured their radical critique of mass culture. Although Adorno and other émigré scholars chaffed at Lazarsfeld’s positivism,217 his institutions did much to support the development of a critical, scientific inquiry into mass society. Moreover, some of

Lazarsfeld’s methods were adopted by Horkheimer’s Institute, and even Adorno found himself in the awkward position of defending empirical techniques when he later returned to Germany.218 But early work of the radio project, in particular, broke new ground in the

“F-scale,” a scientific method for measuring the latent potential for fascism in individual personalities. The concept was imagined by Adorno, but his colleagues translated his abstraction into the quantitative, empirical terms of American sociology. Lazarsfeld was impressed by this “famous American study,” and he later expressed regret that he had not been able to do the same with Adorno’s work while he was with the radio project. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 325; Jay, Dialectical, 244; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Methodological Problems in Empirical Social Research,” Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology 2 (1959): 225-49. Lazarsfeld wanted to develop an empirical measurement for class consciousness in the U.S., where it was much less apparent than it was in Europe. He produced a test that tried to get to the issue through questions about respondents’ trust in business and government, their belief in the possibility of merit-based success, and their feelings on the wisdom of a labor-based political party. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Development of a Test for Class-consciousness” in Continuities in the Language of Social Research (New York: 1972), 41-3. 215Kettler, 180. The Dialectic of Enlightenment was originally published in German in Amsterdam in 1947, but it did not become widely available until a reissue in 1969, and the English version first appeared three years after the reissue. H. Stuart. Hughes, The Sea Change: The Migration of Social thought, 1930-1965 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 156. The historian Christian Fleck has noted the greater propensity of Austrian social scientists, relative to their German counterparts, to engage with the English-speaking world. Christian Fleck, “Emigration of Social Scientists’ Schools from Austria” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration, 220-21. 216Jay, Permanent Exiles, 43. 217Brett Gary notes that émigés Ernst Kris and Hans Speier, who were among the communications scholars associated with Marshall, shared Adorno’s aversion to Lazarsfeld’s obsession with quantitative methods. See Gary, 276. 218Jay, Dialectical, 251.

99 study of media, marketing, and mass culture, with keen attention to social stratification.

Social Class in the Daytime Serial and Radio Research in Print

The first publication from the radio project, for which it received a special grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, was a study of the hysterical public reaction to the

Halloween1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles’s Mercury

Theatre. Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog—his second wife and a fellow émigré researcher

—resolved on the night of the broadcast to conduct a study of the phenomenon.219

Although Hadley Cantril is credited as the principal author of the 1940 published report,

The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic,220 he had practically begged

Lazarsfeld to enlist Herta Herzog for help on the study. She came on to conduct a secondary analysis of the interviews, but she ultimately became something more than a coauthor.221 The report emphasized that many people, particularly those of lower income and educational levels, had come to rely on the radio rather than newspapers for news, and that the ongoing European crisis had put American listeners on edge. Referring to the study, Lazarsfeld reported that it nicely demonstrated his method of quantifying the data acquired from qualitative interviews conducted in case studies, which functioned to

219Fleck, Transatlantic History, 186. 220Hadley Cantril, Hazel Gaudet, and Herta Herzog, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940). “Such rare occurrences are opportunities for the social scientist to study mass behavior,” wrote Cantril in the preface. He argued that a study of the widespread panic “should give us insight into the psychology of the common man and, more especially, the psychology of the common man of our times.” Cantril, vii. 221Hadley Cantril, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, ca. 1939, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976 (mixed Dates), Mappe 2/6; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hadley Cantril, October 12, 1939, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. In reference to the Welles study, Lazarsfeld later complained that Cantril “had practically nothing to do with it.” Cantril’s insistence on taking credit for the book led to their falling out and Lazarsfeld’s decision to move the radio project to Columbia. Quoted in Ann K. Pasanella, “The Mind Traveller: A Guide to Paul F. Lazarsfeld’s Communication Research Papers,” The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University, 1994, 30. RKM, Box 444, folder 5, “PFL – General, 1941, 1957-1972, 1986-1996, (2/2).”

100 objectify them for general applicability.222

A second volume from 1940, Radio and the Printed Page, which was dedicated to

Robert and Helen Lynd, anthologized the early work of the radio project and expanded on the themes of social stratification and the emergence of radio as a mass medium that threatened to overwhelm print.223 Perhaps the clearest lineage from the social-democratic heritage of much of the Lazarsfeld cohort to the concerns of project reports may be found in the attention given to market segments: the commercial application of the socialism’s critique of class stratification. An article by Lazarsfeld in the first special issue of the

Journal of Applied Psychology, for example, found that psychological criteria, apart from income, could be just as valid in determining the socioeconomic status of a subject.224

Similarly, an undated report from the early 1940s, completed as part a broad study of daytime radio serials directed by Herzog, looked at the reaction of respondents to a series of radio commercials. It found that women on lower socio-economic levels generally preferred highly dramatized, narrative commercials, whereas college-educated women tended to favor descriptive commercials.225

Drawing on Herzog’s studies and the work of another of his fellow radio researchers, Rudolf Arnheim, Lazarsfeld emphasized the failure of the serials to present social conditions as the cause of protagonists’ problems. “The disturbing incidents are usually introduced by individuals; individuals also solve the problems,” argued

222Paul F. Lazarsfeld and W. S. Robinson, “The Quantification of Case Studies” in Journal of Applied Psychology 24XXIV (Dec. 1940): 820. 223Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Radio and the Printed Page: An Introduction to the Study of Radio and Its Role in the Communication of Ideas (New York: Duel, Sloan and Pearce, 1940). The book contained a study by Herzog on the “Professor Quiz” radio program which found that the quiz program served as an outlet for listeners who lacked much formal education to relieve their class resentment towards “college people.” 224P.F. Lazarsfeld, “Interchangeability of Indices in the Measurement of Economic Influences,” Journal of Applied Psychology 23 (Feb. 1939): 33-45. 225“Preliminary Test of Six Kolynos Commercials,” n.d. [ca. 1942], box 2, BASR.

101 Lazarsfeld, adding that those individuals were usually men. “Social forces, discords inherent in general economic conditions, are seldom introduced,” said Lazarsfeld in 1942.

He was lecturing a group of advertisers, radio executives, and public opinion pollsters at

CBS about how to make the programming more socially relevant. He felt that radio serials could be improved “from a social point of view,” and he wanted to use research toward this end. Most of the characters in the daytime “stories” belonged to the middle class, while the working class was completely ignored and the rich were belittled as incompetent. Lazarsfeld complained that the programs promoted a fatalistic attitude by

“highlighting with approval” the group to which the listeners themselves belonged while doing nothing to encourage self-criticism or any efforts toward self-improvement.226

Lazarsfeld was relying on the research of Herta Herzog, who directed a series studies of daytime radio serials for the Office of Radio Research. In a 1941 issue of

Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, the journal of Horkheimer’s exiled Institute,

Herzog published “On Borrowed Experience,” one of the first critical analyses of daytime radio serials.227 Herzog often employed “depth” interviews and other methods of motivational research in her preliminary research.228 She used these early pilot studies as

226Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “What we really know about daytime serials,” talk at the Columbia Broadcasting System, October 21, 1942, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Iia, Mappe 2/2; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Research Problems in the Field of Public Relations,”in Public Relations Directory and Yearbook, Inc. (New York: The Longacre Press, Inc., 1945). 227Herzog found that each housewife listened to, on average, about six and a half different serials to help “keep her company” while working at home alone. The serials all had roughly the same formula: “getting into trouble and out again.” Listeners would interpret the “trouble” situation through the filter of their own experience, and it would give them an outlet for pent-up anxieties and aggressiveness that could be relieved vicariously as a “short-lived pseudo-catharsis” through the characters in the serials. Though listeners enjoyed this “borrowed experience,” they did not desire such intense drama. However, they were able incorporate some small sliver of that experience into their lives through the products, such as beauty creams, that were advertised in the programs. Herta Herzog, “On Borrowed Experience: An Analysis of Listening to Daytime Sketches” in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941): 65-95. The first issue of Volume IX was a collaboration between Horkheimer’s Institute and Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research. 228In a series of studies testing the effectiveness of several commercials for household products, Herzog found that women on the “lower cultural level,” lacking higher education and income, were more likely

102 the basis for larger, more systematic studies of daytime serials and their commercial sponsors. She led a study in November and December of 1941 for the advertising firm

Blackett-Sample-Hummert, directing interviews of nearly 5,000 married and unmarried women representing a cross-sample of age and income groups.229 The American Home

Products Corporation had offered premiums through some of its programs, such as “The

Romance of Helen Trent,” and Herzog’s study examined the market group exposed to such promotions. She found typical daytime serial listeners to have a lower income and less education, and they were more likely to live in smaller towns.230

The project’s concern for social stratification was also evident in its fourth published volume, Radio Research, 1942-1943, which received a notice in Time.231 The anthology contained a multifaceted study directed by Herzog on listeners of daytime radio serials, better known as “soap operas,” an allusion to their mass-market commercial

to listen to daytime serials and preferred commercials with “dramatic” presentations and money-back guarantees. In contrast, the college-educated group preferred commercials with “straight talk” that presented scientific arguments for the merits of various products. Herta Herzog, “Test on Bisodol Commercials,” Office of Radio Research—Consulting Division, June 1942; “Preliminary Test of Six Kolynos Commercials,” n.d., box 2, BASR Archive. 229Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzoz, “Daytime Serials: Their Audience and Their Effect on Buying,” report for Blackett-Sample-Hummert by the Office of Radio Research, December 1941 – February 1942, box 2, folder “B-0131-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; BSH – Commercial Studies,” BASR. 230Lazarsfeld’s cohort of researchers also emphasized class stratification in its market studies. A 1944 study of wine-drinking habits found that, while both upper-class and working-class consumers enjoyed wine as an “escape,” their psychological motivations were entirely different. Working-class drinkers desired wine for its “pep and stimulation,” as an exciting diversion from monotony, whereas high- income drinkers enjoyed it as an aid to relaxation. Goodwin Watson, “A Socio-Psychological Study of Wine Drinking: Final Summary Report,” Office of Radio Research (A Division of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Director), Consulting Division, April 7, 1944, box 113, BASR. A cover letter from Lazarsfeld to the company that had commissioned the report noted that higher income groups tend to prefer more subdued sensations, like dry rather than sweet wines. “Sweet rather than bitter chocolate, strongly smelling flower perfumes, louder colors are better liked in the lower income groups,” observed Lazarsfeld. “This should give leads as to what one should stress in advertising in magazines which are known to reach different social strata.” “Wine Drinking – Motives, Kinds and Conditions: Interim Report Number III,” BASR, March 27, 1944, box 113, BASR. Lazarsfeld frequently cited this anecdote—which was from his early market studies in Vienna— suggesting his lasting sensitivity to the variable tastes, desires, and motivations of different social strata. See also Lazarsfeld’s article, “Sociological Reflections on Business: Consumers and Managers,” in Social Science Research on Business: Product and Potential, eds. Robert A. Dahl, Mason Haire, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). 231“Suds,” Time, May 8, 1944.

103 sponsors.232 That study included an analysis of the narrative content of the programs by

Rudolf Arnheim.233 Arnheim argued that, due to the attentiveness with which the commercial producers of the serials met the desires of their intended market, much could be revealed about that audience through an analysis of the substance of the programs.

Arnheim found the working classes totally unrepresented by the protagonists of the serials he analyzed, but he also found that personal qualities—accessible to all and independent of political economy—were the means by which social inequality was countered. Moreover, the problems that the principal characters encountered were caused not by social, economic, or political conditions, but rather by individuals, and particularly by male individuals. Arnheim speculated that these vaguely ill but incomprehensible social forces unconsciously took human shape in unambiguously “bad” villains whose actual position in the social context was never interrogated. Any dissatisfaction present in the protagonist, with whom the listener identified, did not produce a desire for improvement or reformation, but was instead “drained off by substitute gratification.”234

“As long as pleasure and satisfaction are considered the principal aims of art,” Arnheim concluded pessimistically, in the vein of the Frankfurt School, “there is no justification for reforming programs which undoubtedly please and satisfy more widely and strongly

232Herzog concluded that the typical listener of daytime serials was also less inclined toward newspapers and a critical attitude, and more inclined toward the “true story” kind of sensational magazine. Listeners with little formal education were drawn to the radio serial because it provided these “naïve” individuals with the vicarious experience of more “sophisticated” persons. Herta Herzog, “What Do We Really Know About Day-Time Serial Listeners?” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton (New York: Essential Books, 1944). In 1949, W. Lloyd Warner published Social Class in America, which became a guidebook for marketers looking to understand the class basis of consumer markets. Warner referred to research showing that soap operas were particularly appealing to women of the class level of the “Common Man.” W. Lloyd Warner, Social Class in America: A Manual of Procedure for the Measurement of Social Status (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1949), 31. 233Rudolf Arnheim, “The World of the Daytime Serial” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, eds. in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton (New York: Essential Books, 1944). 234Arnheim, 78.

104 than any art produced on a higher cultural level.”235

Lazarsfeld maintained that it was difficult for the producers of media content—the writers—to comprehend its effects; that was the special province of the social researcher trained in the analysis of media and its effects.236 For the culture industry and the advertisers who made the enterprise viable, Lazarsfeld’s research bureau revealed the social role of media in the lives of American readers, listeners, and viewers. A 1943 report by for a consultant to the National Association of Broadcasters examined radio as a

“social force” and a way of life for listeners.237 The author of the report, Marjorie Fiske

—who collaborated with Leo Lowenthal, her future spouse—found that daytime serials helped listeners to forget their troubles while commercial advertisements instructed them on what to buy. Listeners were grateful for the programs, and they expressed their gratitude by buying the products advertised. Radio was a particularly powerful medium for advertising because, unlike print, commercials reached audiences without competition from adjacent advertisements or editorial content, and thus the medium reduced the modern consumer’s confusion in making choices. The voice of radio had a “surplus value” over print, because trained actors could inflect their speech in such a way that listeners were inclined to adopt the announcer’s positive attitude toward the product under consideration. Radio could also produce commercials incorporating short narrative dialogue that permitted audiences to “listen in,” a subtler form of persuasion that print’s tendency to bombard readers with exhortations to buy. Listeners did not merely tolerate

235Arnheim, 85. 236Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, “The Psychological Analysis of Propaganda,” in Writers’ Congress: The Proceedings of the Conference held in October 1943 under the sponsorship of the Hollywood Writers’ Mobilization and the University of California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1944), 362-80. 237Marjorie Fiske, “Survey of Materials on the Psychology of Radio Listening,” Office of Radio Research, December 1943, box 113, BASR.

105 commercials; most actually liked them. Radio, moreover, was a better medium than the newspaper to tap the consuming potential of the typical household, because housewives, who did most of the shopping, were more likely to tune into the radio than to read the newspaper.

Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research at Columbia University, which was rechristened as the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) in 1944, was a center for the analysis of the mass audiences of both radio and print media. Even Lazarsfeld’s major study of voting behavior, The People’s Choice, was sponsored by Life magazine, which secured the rights to publish the results after the 1940 election.238 Lazarsfeld advised that advertisers should be aware of the different media experiences of magazines versus newspapers, which were read by a broader range of socioeconomic groups.

Magazines, even of the mass variety, were more specialized than newspapers, and because they were kept in the home for longer periods, they tended to advertise products that required long-range buying decisions. They also very often served as a kind of

“extra-curricular” education for many people, particularly through their biographical sketches. In general, educated people of a higher “cultural” level tended to prefer print to radio, and there was a larger percentage of these high-class individuals among readers of

238Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Alfred de Grazia, September 28, 1966, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. The study made Lazarsfeld an authority figure on voting, a topic to which he would return again and again in his career. In the fall of 1944, he wrote a series of columns in The Nation about the national election, based on the Bureau’s research. He reported, among other things, that low- income women were much more likely to be undecided voters, and that, while black voters generally supported the Democratic Party, they had deep reservations about its role in the South. Bureau of Applied Social Research, “Polls, Propaganda, and Politics,” The Nation, n.d. (ca. August 26, 1944), PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Iia, Mappe 2/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Polls, Propaganda, Politics: The Negro Vote,” The Nation, September 30, 1944, 379. In the wake of Harry Truman’s surprise victory over Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election, Lazarsfeld came under fire for predicting the very opposite on the eve of the election. He admitted the failure of the polls, positing that they had been correct in judging public opinion but had not been able to predict turnout, particularly among lower- income groups, with great accuracy. Interview with Lazarsfeld, Radio Stockholm, ca. November 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2; Allen H. Barton, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” The Bureau Reporter XXIII, no. 1 (October 1976), 1-2.

106 magazines than among readers of newspapers.239

A 1943 study of Life found that the photo-magazine clarified in pictures the abstract news of the week; it was an easy and enjoyable way for readers to get “culture.”

The magazine was even aspirational for many, an expression of “better things,” believed to be read by a “higher class of people,” according to one respondent. But Life’s very large circulation justified it as worthy reading material: it had intrinsic value by virtue of being a mass publication.240 Lazarsfeld did studies for other major magazines such as the

Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, American, and Time. He made the case for a deeper analysis of audience characteristics, which “cut across” the traditional demographic categories of age, sex, and economic level. Other kinds of personality characteristics—such as an interest in politics are a belief that “woman’s place is in the home”—were often more important to the advertiser looking for the right vehicle for his message. These categories were essential to the special medium of magazines, which were generally more specialized than other media: they paved the way for the segmentation of consumer markets. This kind of study required an understanding of motivation, which was one of Lazarsfeld’s main research interests.241

While there had been some content analyses of the editorial aspects of magazines

239Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Daily Newspaper and Its Competitors,” The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, January 1942, 32-43; Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazines Research: Content Analysis,” Magazine World, November 1945, 34-6; Paul Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazine Research Content Analysis,” Magazine World, February 1946, 38-9, 45. 240“Some Observations of Life Readers,” January 1943, box 113, BASR Archive. 241Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazine Audience Research,” Magazine World, August 1945, 16-8, 32; Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Magazine Research: Problems and Techniques,” Magazine World, March 1946, 17-8. A study of subscribers done for the editors of the mass-circulation, pocket-sized Quick magazine found that some higher-educated subscribers criticized the magazine for its superficiality and felt that it was directed to “low brows.” Jeannette Green, “What Subscribers Think about Quick Magazine,” prepared for the editors of Quick Magazine, April 1951, box 120, BASR Archive; Rolf Meyersohn, “The Role of Quick Magazine in the Lives of Its Syracuse Subscribers,” BASR prepared for the editors of Quick Magazine, July 1952, box 120, BASR Archive.

107 —such as Lowenthal’s “Biographies in Popular Magazines”—Lazarsfeld argued for the value of analyses of other elements, such as covers, illustrations, and advertisements.242

Lazarsfeld’s Bureau studied content and reception as well as audience composition.

Researchers found that ethnic minorities were very often depicted as crude personifications of common stereotypes for the groups they represented, e.g., “the childlike Negro, the avaricious Jew, the gangster Italian.” In one analysis of characters in magazine stories, 90 percent were found to be “pure white, 100%’ Americans” versus the actual percentage of this kind of “WASP” American in the population, which was about

60 percent.243

Market Research in the Context of the Second World War

The use of psychological categories in content analysis had been pioneered in the

1920s and 1930s by Harold D. Lasswell, who is known for the media studies formulation,

“Who says what to whom with what effects?” Lasswell wanted to study the impact of mass media content on public opinion, presuming that people could “harden” themselves against the effects of propaganda if they understood how it worked. During the war, these methods were mobilized by the U.S. government, as in its Research Project on

Totalitarian Communication, which greatly advanced the development of

242Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazine Research: Audience Analysis,” Magazine World, October 1945, 35-6. 243Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazine Research: Content Analysis,” Magazine World, September 1945, 34-6. An early introduction to the magazine’s serial format of storytelling, for both boys and girls, came through the medium of comic books. A 1946 Bureau study on comic books found that young people had their own system of comic book classification: the youngest children read “funny animal” comics like Bugs Bunny for the projective “many selves” period; older children preferred the Superman-type adventure comics for the “ego- inflation” period; and adolescents eventually graduated to “true story” comics, which were often adaptations of classical, educational, or “factual” material. Marjorie Fiske and Katherine Wolf, “The Children Talk About Comics: A report on comic book reading, based on detailed case studies of 100 children from various family backgrounds,” January 1946, box 114, BASR Archive.

108 communications research. Laswell directed the government’s Experimental Division for the Study of Wartime Communications, which studied enemy radio broadcasts and other mass media communications in foreign nations. Domestically, the U.S. government studied native broadcasts from suspected subversives as well as the content of radio broadcasts and commentaries in domestic periodicals that were sponsored by the government.

Lazarsfeld, who became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1943, worked as a consultant for the Office of War Information. He used the Program Analyzer to study the effects of indoctrination films on American soldiers, and he also studied the effects of the

U.S. government’s war propaganda in mass magazines. He found among respondents a remarkable capacity to assimilate propaganda into existing systems of belief, which could produce the so-called “boomerang effect”: the reversal of propaganda to suit pre-existing prejudices. For example, an anti-Semitic respondent might interpret a pro-tolerance message as a license to express bigotry. Lazarsfeld advised that, in the interest of propaganda, mass media should be used in conjunction with social groups, which exert influence through face-to-face contact. The superfluity of mass media propaganda and advertising messages, finally, could lead Americans to become so skeptical that they may wonder if there was “anything left in which they can believe.’244

244Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Bureau of Intelligence, Office of War Information, November 1942, PFL Vienna, T/U IIIb (24 bis 32-33), Mappe 1/2; Elmer Davis, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, June 29, 1944, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefeund Memos 1932-1946, Mappe 3/3; Personnel Security Questionnaire [form DD-48] completed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, February 23, 1951, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography I; Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Problems and Techniques of Magazine Research: Content Analysis,” Magazine World, September 1945, 34-6; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Tolerance Propaganda and Mass Media of Communication,” statement before the President’s Committee on Civil Rights,” n.d., PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UIII b (32-33a bis 34-35d), Mappe 2/2; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Audience Research in the Movie Field,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1947, 160-8; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Communication Research and the Social Psychologist” in Current Trends in Social Psychology, ed. W. Dennis (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Pres, 1948), 256; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Trends in Broadcasting

109 The U.S. government became the greatest user of research during the years of the

Second World War. Social research, surveys, and polling became a “full-fledged weapon,” according to the advertising journal Tide, used both on the fighting fronts and on the home front. The Office of Price Administration (OPA), for example, was one of the most prominent users of market research techniques in the domestic arena. As marketers fended off the OPA’s attempts to apply grade labeling to certain product categories, the OPA itself invested in the research methods of marketers. Through personal interviews and questionnaires, it surveyed women’s attitudes on price controls and rationing.245

The techniques of market research had applications beyond contract work for corporate clients. In fact, Lazarsfeld was, by the early 1940s, a major authority in the related field of public opinion.246 He had developed the so-called “panel technique” of survey research, a method for measuring changes in public opinion and behavior over time that was “unique in the field of public opinion” when it was introduced. It could be used to equal effect by both political pollsters and market researchers, and it was one of the methodological means by which Lazarsfeld attempted to make market research

“acceptable” to sociologists. The essence of the panel method was simple: rather than taking a new sample for each poll, researchers would use follow-up interviews with the same group of people in a representative sample. Lazarsfeld claimed that the panel method could improve statistical reliability even with a relatively small sample, and he Research,” in Studies of Broadcasting, eds. Akinori Katagiri and Koichi Motono (Tokyo: The Theoretical Research Center of the Radio and TV Culture Research Institute, The Nippon Hoso Kyokai, 1963), 49-66. 245“Research: New Weapon of War,” Tide, April 15, 1944, 19-21; “Brand Names,” Tide, April 15, 1944, 22. 246Lazarsfeld was so close to pollster George Gallup that the two made a friendly, if somewhat competitive, wager on the outcome of the 1944 presidential election. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, letter to George Gallup, November 3, 1944, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2.

110 argued that there were a number of other advantages to the method. In the course of repeated interviews, researchers could gather knowledge about the habits and “personal characteristics” of respondents, which could supplement basic demographic information to provide a more complete picture of significant market segments. For example, researchers could relate respondents’ opinions and behaviors to their tastes in leisure-time activities and the types of magazines to which they subscribed. In the study of propaganda, where the intent was to measure the cumulative effects of a sustained media campaign, the panel method could isolate those individuals whose opinions were affected by the propaganda and those individuals who were resistant to it. In this way, even

“slight tendencies” in public opinion could be detected. Furthermore, the method allowed researchers to differentiate between mutable and more fundamental, unchangeable traits and behaviors.247

The Psychoanalytic Method of Ernest Dichter

The Radio Research, 1942-1943 anthology—a summary of the work of

Lazarsfeld’s research group which contained the essays by Arnheim, Herzog, and

Lowenthal—also contained a rather short, curious piece titled “On the Psychology of

Radio Commercials.” It was written the psychologist Ernest Dichter, a former student,

247Paul Lazarsfeld and Marjorie Fiske, “The ‘Panel’ as a Tool for Measuring Opinion,” Public Opinion Quarterly 2 (October 1938): 596-612; Paul Lazarsfeld, “ ‘Panel’ Studies,” Public Opinion Quarterly 4 (March 1940): 120-28; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Repeated Interviews as a Tool for Studying Changes in Opinion and Their Causes,” American Statistical Association Bulletin 2 (January 1941): 3-7; Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Ruth Durant, “National Morale, Social Cleavage and Political Allegiance,” Journalism Quarterly 19, no. 2 (June 1942); Untitled memorandum on panel analysis, “sent to Rockefeller Foundation together with a May 16, 1947 application for $22,000 on a study of panels,” PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I, Mappe 1/2; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Use of Panels in Social Research,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 92, no. 5 (1948): 405-10; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Messrs. Dahl and Haire, November 7, 1958, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers IIIb, Mappe 2/2.

111 fickle friend, and occasional employee of Lazarsfeld. Dichter was one of the more qualitatively-inclined market researchers affiliated with Lazarsfeld’s project, and he later became famous as the main proponent of “motivation research.” It was an idea that he had borrowed from Lazarsfeld, but Dichter practiced it as a kind of psychoanalytic probe into the consumer unconscious through a series of “depth” interviews with willing subjects. Lazarsfeld and Dichter had come from the same milieu of Viennese social psychologists, and both were émigrés who applied their European training to the field of market research in the U.S. But Dichter went much further than Lazarsfeld in commercializing his craft outside of academia, selling himself as a business consultant and as a guru of popular psychology.

While Dichter represented the ultimate embrace of the capitalistic ethos, and

Adorno and Lowenthal represented the ultimate rejection of capitalistic reification, they were all indebted to the institutional framework provided by Lazarsfeld, whose fundamental social-democratic commitments were translated into highly instrumental modes of market research in the United States. These émigré scholars brought to the U.S. a Continental commitment to social inquiry and a penetrating understanding of human motivations that they integrated, willingly or begrudgingly, with the applied science of market research. The Frankfurt School critique of mass media and mass culture, a profoundly anti-capitalist enterprise, had its origins in Lazarsfeld’s Rockefeller-funded radio project. Dichter’s celebration of hedonism, meanwhile, ultimately took its form as a contract firm on the model of Lazarsfeld’s research institutes, but without the legitimizing university affiliation: this will by the topic of my next chapter.

The divergent paths taken by Lazarsfeld’s professional associates and intellectual

112 comrades suggest a dynamic, dialectical relationship of socialist and capitalist ideas that belies the antithetical relationship of these economic models. Socialism’s critique of capitalism emphasized the severity of social stratification, a critical insight that was vigorously applied—or exploited—by marketers and their research consultants.

113 Chapter 2: Psychological Probes and Social Engineering through Market Research

In 1947, the Viennese psychologist Ernest Dichter, who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, published his first book, The Psychology of Everyday Living.1 The book was partly a motivational, self-help guide to personal contentment and successful living, and partly a summary of Dichter’s work as a market researcher and psychological consultant, first for the J. Stirling Getschell advertising agency, then for the Columbia Broadcasting

System, and finally as the head of his own firm, The Institute for Research in Mass

Motivations, which he founded in 1946. The picture-packed book covered a number of topics keeping with the theme of “everyday living”—such as marriage, social anxiety, health, hygiene, and personal appearance—while incorporating the “lessons” Dichter had derived from his commercial research assignments. Dichter argued that the mundane facts of day-to-day life, often centered around various commodities and commercial goods, were more fundamentally important to most people than abstract politics, social ideals, or even civic engagement.

For every basic consumer product, Dichter offered a psychological analysis. A crunchy breakfast cereal provided basic satisfaction because it presented resistance and produced the sensation of overcoming an obstacle at the start of the day.2 Soap was a fetishized commodity that could convey meaning through its color and shape, and bathing was a deeply significant ritual that offered moral purification, a “victory” for

1 Ernest Dichter, The Psychology of Everyday Living (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1947). The title is probably an allusion to Sigmund Freud’s 1904 book, Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens. 2 Dichter would emphasize this idea in a later report for General Mills. Respondents wanted “crunchy, resistant cereals” that would provide an “adversary” against which they could release tensions and express self-assertion. “A Motivational Research Study on Present and Future Psychological Trends in Cereals,” report submitted to General Mills by IMR, October 1955, Signatur-Nr. 712 (IMR 559C), Ernest Dichter Archive (Fachbereichsbibliothek Publizistik-und Kommunikationswissenschaft und Informatik, University of Vienna) [hereafter, “Dichter Vienna”].

114 civilization, and a recurrent opportunity to begin anew. Automobiles offered their drivers ego gratification and sensory pleasure, and car ownership could produce social prestige, a packaged identity through brand association, and even a convenient symbol to define the eras and milestones of one’s life. Cigarettes gave the adult an infantile oral pleasure and a way to dole out rewards and punishments to oneself, and the “companionable character” of cigarettes made smoking a social lubricant.3 Liquor, like cars, could offer social prestige, and though most drinkers were poor judges of quality, they were keenly aware of the social attachments to the various kinds, grades, and brands of intoxicating spirits. For Dichter, human happiness depended as much on these “little things” of everyday life as it did on the “broad ideals of liberty, democracy, fraternity.”4

Dichter called on social scientists and psychologists to embrace the invitations from business concerns to use their training to investigate the practical problems of the consumer. Beyond the immediate commercial applications of such studies, he argued that their findings could contribute to social and democratic progress by revealing the basic motivations and behaviors that defined the individuals who made up the mass of population. Dichter reasoned that, because social scientists were trusted to advise businesses on the best way to market automobiles or increase the popular appeal of a radio program, they could also use their special knowledge “to assist in the social engineering of democracy.”5 True democracy, Dichter argued, had to be reconciled with

3 Dichter, Psychology, 90. 4 Dichter, Psychology, 114-5. 5 Dichter, Psychology, 236. Historian Roland Marchand has noted that advertising people spent “more time, energy, and money than any other mass communicators” in their efforts to discover fundamental beliefs and create a “community of discourse.” Advertisers began to take on the role of “apostles of modernity,” offering their products as the answers to “modern discontents” while educating consumers in adapting to a new world of rationalization and bureaucratization. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), xix-xx; 9-24.

115 the broad appeal of such popular media as soap operas, “true-story” magazines, and comic strips. The commercial market researcher, by applying the techniques of motivational psychology to translate the prosaic into the political, could be an agent of democratic progress.6

Dichter’s line of thinking ran counter to that of Edward Bernays, a nephew of

Sigmund Freud7 who embraced the pernicious uses of mass psychology as a tool of propaganda, a practice he honed while working for the U.S. Committee on Public

Information during the First World War and as a corporate consultant in the field of public relations thereafter. Like Walter Lippmann, the political theorist, Bernays had a low opinion of the capacity of the masses to participate meaningfully in democracy, and he had an inflated view of the efficaciousness of propaganda in manipulating those masses. He believed that the “special pleader” who used the mechanisms of propaganda in order to create public acceptance of an idea or a commodity was part of an “invisible government” that was the true ruling power of the country. But while Lippmann saw individuals as merely the constitutive elements of a mass or herd, Dichter saw individuals as belonging to subgroups with similar motivations. And while Bernays and Lippmann believed in the power to control, or “manufacture consent,” Dichter believed that the psychoanalytic method could transform the mystery of motivations into a science and strategy of desire.8

Dichter and Bernays would agree, however, that the real reasons for human motivations were not known to individuals themselves, who would rationalize behavior

6 Dichter, Psychology, 233. 7 Bernays was born in Vienna in 1891, but he grew up in New York, and his relationship with his famous uncle does not appear to have been very close. 8 Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Edward Bernays, Propaganda (Horace Liveright, Inc., 1928).

116 that was guided by unconscious desires. Their respective careers were part of the growing application of psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis to politics and industry in the twentieth century, going back at least to Walter Dill Scott’s Theory and Practice of

Advertising and Psychology of Advertising, published in 1903 and 1908, respectively.9

As the Fordist ethos of the era anticipated the rise of a regime of mass consumption and a conception of individuality outside of the strictly productive sphere, business leaders and their consultants drew on the insights of Freudianism in viewing individuals as wells of infinite desire rather than as rational actors capable of satisfaction. They were aided in the 1930s by an influx of émigré psychologists—many of them Viennese—including

Dichter, Karl and Charlotte Bühler, Heinz Hartmann, Wilhelm Reich, and Bruno

Bettelheim. Their ideas were not restricted to academia or clinical psychology, but were also appropriated by researchers and business consultants looking to better understand consumer markets. Before the widespread introduction of psychological techniques into market research, marketers had divided the market into two basic segments: “class” and

“mass.” And because women were considered to be the “purchasing agents” of the family, most advertising was directed toward a female audience. But the innovative work of émigré researchers like Lazarsfeld and Dichter gave marketers the tools to refine their understanding of market segments.10

9 Walter Dill Scott, The Theory and Practice of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1903); The Psychology of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1908). 10 Bernays, Propaganda, 47-52; Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 138-162, 276-84; Marchand, Advertising, 168.

117 Social Scientists of Capitalism

As professional marketing consultants, Dichter and the sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld presented themselves as capitalism’s social scientists: in an effort to rationalize a system of selling, they intervened where businesses encountered the mysteries of individual and social psychology. When Lazarsfeld was compelled to defend his practice from the criticism of fellow academics—such as his friend Robert Lynd, a mentor and colleague at

Columbia who spurned Lazarsfeld’s commercial projects—he insisted on its generic value to the larger project of social science. Lazarsfeld was well aware of Lynd’s distaste for the work and his belief that capitalism and big business were thoroughly corrupting

American government and liberal democracy. Lazarsfeld was sensitive to this criticism, and he lamented the fact that his kind market research was not usually applied to social problems in the U.S., while it had been in some European countries. Lazarsfeld did have his limits: he refused contracts from politicized trade groups such as the National

Association of Manufacturers, for example. Lazarsfeld said that he would have preferred it if his research bureau were completely funded by the university—as was the case at

Harvard—but he reluctantly admitted that he and his associates were “not that lucky” and would not have existed at all in the early years were it not for the commercial contract work.11

When Dichter became the target of a public worried about the manipulative power of advertising, he appealed to his role in as a progressive marketer whose function was to

11 Robert Lynd, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, August 25, 1957, Blaue Mappen 58, “Lynd R.S. Correspondence”; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Patricia Kendal, October 8, 1948, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archive (Institut für Soziologie, Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria) [hereafter, “PFL Vienna”]; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Methodological Problems in Empirical Social Research,” Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology 2 (1959): 227.

118 help consumers adjust to the the modern, capitalist world.12 Dichter’s and Lazarsfeld’s voluminous market research work for commercial clients, documented in thousands of reports, clearly had a contemporary, pragmatic value to businessmen and academics. The shift in marketing practices from a homogenized or “whited out,”13 national mass marketing of the early twentieth century and immediate postwar years to the more segmented marketing strategies of the 1960s is a well established narrative.14 This chapter examines the market research reports of Dichter and Lazarsfeld—two of the leaders of the psychology of consumer motivations—to see how that shift began.

Taken as a whole, the work of Dichter and Lazarsfeld demonstrates the way in which Continental varieties of social science and Freudian psychology were put in the service of American consumer capitalism in a very practical way. Their consumer studies

—based on in-depth interviews, laboratory tests of human subjects, and large surveys— show the interchangeability of economic systems: capitalism and socialism, “free” markets and economic planning. They are documents of the transnational exchange of twentieth-century business and social science practices, and they are records of

Americans’ varied, lived experience as experimental subjects in a new world of

12 Marketing professionals tended to make different claims to different audiences when it came to the question of “manipulation.” When selling their services to advertisers in trade journals, they tended to boast of their almost magical ability to mold behavior and produce new desires, but when presenting their work to wider audiences, they insisted that they were merely “ambassadors” of the consumer perspective. Marchand, Advertising, 29-49. 13 Stephanie Coontz, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 64-5. 14 See, for example, Lizabeth Cohen’s account in chapter 7 of A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2004). See also Richard S. Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Thomas, Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Hartmut Berghoff, Philip Scranton, and Uwe Spiekermann, eds., The Rise of Marketing and Market Research (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Sarah E. Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).

119 Keynesian mass consumption. The racial prejudices, class anxieties, and sexual confusion of the American public—and particularly its high-consuming middle-class—is on full display in these frank, revealing reports. As corporations sought to understand their markets, they employed these immigrant social scientists to analyze the conscious and unconscious desires of Americans in the mid-twentieth century.

Vienna: Birthplace of Motivational Research

Ernest Dichter and Paul Lazarsfeld both studied under the husband-and-wife psychologists Karl and Charlotte Bühler at the University of Vienna in the interwar years, and Dichter was Lazarsfeld’s student in a course on statistics.15 Dichter also occasionally performed market research studies for the semi-autonomous research center, or

Forschungesstelle, that Lazarsfeld had founded in 1927 at the University, with Karl

Bühler as president.16 But the two were vastly apart in their respective political allegiances and methodological approaches to social and psychological research. Both were influenced by the ex-Freudian Alfred Adler’s holistic, individual psychology, which emphasized the social context, but Lazarsfeld had also been inspired by the socialist revolutionary hero Friedrich Adler. Dichter, on the other hand, never had any strong political allegiances beyond a youthful flirtation with socialism amidst the romance, and attractive young socialists, of interwar, bohemian Paris.17

In fact, Dichter was resentful about his arrest by the fascist, anti-Semitic Austrian

15 Ernest Dichter, Getting Motivated: The Secret Behind Individual Motivations by the Man Who Was Not Afraid to Ask ‘Why?’ (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), 43-4. 16 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir,” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, eds. Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1969), 274. For a detailed account of Lazarsfeld’s career in Vienna, see chapter 1. 17 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 9.

120 police in 1936 while working for Lazarsfeld’s Forschungesstelle at the University of

Vienna. Dichter had been performing his psychoanalytic “depth”interviews to study the milk drinking habits of Viennese consumers, a job that provided him with a necessary source of income. Indeed, since its inception, the Forschungesstelle had been, in part, an institutional apparatus to provide paying jobs for Lazarsfeld’s friends and associates, most of whom belonged to the Social Democratic Party. This group included Marie

Jahoda, Lazarsfeld’s first wife and his collaborator on the famous Marienthal study of the unemployed, as well as Herta Herzog, his second wife, who would become an influential market researcher in the U.S.18 In the context of rising Austrian fascism since Engelbert

Dollfuss’s 1934 assumption of power—which ended the republic and outlawed the Social

Democratic Party—socialists were forced underground. Unbeknownst to Dichter, the

Forschungesstelle, under the direction of Marie Jahoda, took on a dual role as a clearinghouse of socialist correspondence. When the Forschungesstelle was raided,

Jahoda was arrested and jailed for several months; she was released only on the condition that she leave the country. By this time Lazarsfeld had already emigrated to the U.S., and many of his colleagues had fled Vienna, but Dichter remained and suffered the consequences of his affiliation, despite his apolitical disposition.19

Dichter and Lazarsfeld both came from secular Jewish households, but

Lazarsfeld’s parents were solidly middle-class, socialist intellectuals: his father was a lawyer and legal scholar, and his mother was a psychologist and lay analyst.20 In 18 David E. Morrison, The Search for a Method: Focus Groups and the Development of Mass Communication Research (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998), 57. 19 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 17; Christian Fleck, “Introduction to the Transaction Edition” in Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Hans Zeisel, Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002), xxiv; Paul Neurath, letter to Dr. David Sills, February 27, 1979, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 20 Paul Neurath, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the institutionalization of empirical social research,” paper given before a joint session of the Columbia University Seminars on Content and Method of the Social

121 contrast, Dichter, who was born in Vienna on August 14, 1907, grew up in poverty. He was the son of a “spectacularly unsuccessful” salesman whose inability to provide for his family compelled the young Ernst (he would later anglicize his name after emigrating to the U.S.) to scrounge for fuel and food and wear only second-hand clothes until he was an adult.21 Dichter never saw white bread or metal money as a child, and he was of a generation traumatized by the First World War. “Our whole world and that of our parents seemed to have crumbled,” Dichter later recalled. “I think it was for this reason that so many of the Viennese and Austrians became interested in psychology.” The dissolution of the “old world,” Dichter reasoned, compelled his generation to reevaluate their lives and “what life could mean” to them.22

Dichter was ashamed of his father and instead he found a role model in his more successful uncle, his father’s brother, who owned a department store in Vienna and employed the teenaged Dichter as a window dresser and part-time salesman. One of his early selling successes was the addition of music to a window display.23 Dichter’s uncle had studied merchandising techniques in the U.S., including the notion of “self service,” which he imparted to his nephew, along with an interest in the world of commerce and a strong entrepreneurial drive.24 This early immersion in capitalist marketing practices was an offense to his more left-leaning younger brothers, but nevertheless it was an important supplement to the family income.25

Sciences and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, Nov. 11, 1981, box 185, folder 7, Robert K. Merton Papers (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York); “Dr. Paul Lazarsfeld Dies; Sociologist at Columbia,” The New York Times, September 1, 1976. 21 Dichter, Getting Motivated, ix, 8; Stefan Schwarzkopf, “Introduction to Ernest Dichter and Motivation Research,” in American Consumer Culture: Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 (Adam Matthew Digital, 2014), http://www.consumerculture.amdigital.co.uk/. 22 “Ernest Dichter of Croton: ‘a doctor for ailing products,’” Printers’ Ink, June 26, 1959. 23 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 2; Schwarzkopf, “Introduction.” 24 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 55-6. 25 Daniel Horowitz, “The Birth of a Salesman: Ernest Dichter and the Objects of Desire,” unpublished

122 Dichter happened to live across the street from Sigmund Freud on Vienna’s

Berggasse, but he never studied with or even met the man himself. (This fact, however, would not prevent him from using his Viennese origins as an implicit psychoanalytic credential later in his career in the U.S.) He did, however, receive some brief psychoanalytic training from Wilhelm Stekel, one of Freud’s disciples, who likely imparted on Dichter his interest in symbolism. But Dichter’s real training occurred a short walk away from his Berggasse home at the University of Vienna, where he studied under the Bühlers, who rejected psychoanalysis. Lazarsfeld, a mathematician, was drawn to the quantitative, statistical approach of Charlotte, but Dichter’s qualitative style was more orientated toward the linguistic, Gestalt approach of Karl, which emphasized the holistic mechanism of human perception.26 Dichter also took courses with Moritz

Schlick, the leader of the “Vienna Circle” of logical empiricists, and he developed his own course on human observation. He received his doctorate in 1934. His dissertation,

The Self-Evaluation of Personal Capabilities and Performances, was based on the analysis of narrative interviews, an early instance of what he would come to call “depth” probes.27 He complemented his academic career by writing a syndicated column on psychology for a magazine called Vital. It was an early instance of his tendency toward

manuscript, Ernest Dichter Papers (Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware) [hereafter, “Dichter Hagley”]. 26 Ernest Dichter, “THE SECRET FREUDIAN: Ernest Dichter as a Witness of His Work,” interviewed by Franz Kreuzer (CORF – Nachtstudio, 1981), in A Tiger in the Tank: Ernest Dichter, An Austrian Advertising Guru, ed. Franz Kreuzer, et al., trans. Lars Hennig (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 2007), 21. See also Stephan Schwarzkopf and Rainer Gries, “Ernest Dichter, Motivation Research, and the ‘Century of the Consumer,’” in Ernest Dichter and Motivation Research: New Perspectives on the Making of Post-War Consumer Culture, eds. Stephan Schwarzkopf and Rainer Gries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 9; Schwarzkopf, “Introduction”; Ronald A. Fullerton, “ ‘Mr. MASS motivations himself’: Explaining Dr. Ernest Dichter,” Journal of Consumer Behavior 6 (2007): 369-82. 27 Thomas Cudlik and Christoph Steiner, “Rabbi Ernest: A Strategist of Desire: A Portrait,” in A Tiger in the Tank, 54; Schwarzkopf, “Introduction.”

123 the practical and the popular, and it suggested his nascent attraction to celebrity.28

Dichter also took patients for psychoanalysis, but rising anti-Semitism made a clinical career impossible and forced him and his wife Hedy, whom he had married in

1935, to flee to Paris in 1937. By March of 1938, Hitler had replaced Austrian the chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, with the head of the Austrian Nazi Party, and he annexed Austria to Germany—the Anschluss. Freud and all members of the Vienna

Psychoanalytic Society were forced to flee their city, and Dichter managed to negotiate a visa by convincing an officer at the U.S. consulate in Paris that his method of

“motivational research” would make a substantial contribution to American commercial society.29

An Émigré Market Researcher in New York City

Dichter and his wife arrived in New York in September of 1938. Though he would he would later recall his experience as an archetypical American immigrant story of having arrived “friendless” in New York,30 in fact he had much help from fellow

Austrian refugees. He soon began working as a market researcher for a firm called

Market Analysts, Inc., which also employed several Austrian émigrés from Lazarsfeld’s cohort of social scientists, including Hans Zeisel, who had worked on the Marienthal study. As he had in Vienna, Dichter began with a project to analyze the milk-drinking habits of Americans.

But unlike many of his Austrian fellows, Dichter was unwilling to submit to the quantitative methods that prevailed in American market research. He soon became

28 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 12. 29 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 24; Zaretsky, 243. 30 Sally Helgesen, “Sighting the Giant of Madison Avenue,” Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1977.

124 impatient with the dominant methodology which relied on “superficial” surveys and questionnaires. In Dichter’s view, this approach naively accepted the conscious responses of subjects and made no attempt to probe basic psychological motivations that operated on an unconscious level. He believed that most conscious responses were rationalizations which could not be relied upon to understand basic motivations.31 “I just couldn’t swallow that,” Dichter later recalled. “It was almost comparable to asking people why they thought they were neurotic or to a physician asking a patient why he thought he had whatever disease he thought he had. I started fighting against that.”

Dichter’s Viennese training in psychology, logic, and epistemology led him to believe that this method of direct questioning was ultimately tautological because subjects were inclined through socialization to provide what they believed to be the “correct” responses. Instead, Dichter wanted to use psychoanalytic techniques to probe the unconscious of consumers in an effort to reveal the basic, psychological motivations that guided their behavior. This method, Dichter believed, could provide marketers and advertisers with a special knowledge that would permit better, more effective selling programs and merchandising appeals. Lazarsfeld warned Dichter that, based in his experience, such an apparently nebulous approach would not be well received in the positivistic U.S. Lazarsfeld maintained that Americans had a fundamental belief in figures and statistics, regardless of their attachment to valid or invalid knowledge or concepts. But Dichter persisted, and eventually Lazarsfeld relented and suggested

Dichter’s name to the research department at the Compton advertising agency. Dichter’s pitch was sufficiently impressive to win him a contract to do a study for the agency on

31 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 32-3.

125 Procter and Gamble’s Ivory brand of soap.32

Dichter called the Ivory study his first proper motivational-research study, and he cited it so frequently throughout his career that it achieved an almost mythical status in his personal biography. Based on interviews with about one hundred people, he found that bathing was a deeply significant, ritualistic practice. He learned that young girls would bathe in a particularly careful way before their Saturday evenings dates.33 Dichter, who frequently remarked on the “puritanical” hangups of Americans, also interpreted bathing as a ritualistic opportunity to wash away “psychological dirt” and guilt feelings, while at the same time permitting an auto-erotic experience that gave bathers license to indulge in caressing themselves.34

Though Dichter was more of a researcher than a copy writer, in this instance he claimed to have invented a slogan for an advertising campaign: “Be smart, get a fresh start with Ivory soap.” The “fresh start” was meant to suggest the baptismal quality of the bath, which could evaporate sin in a ritual of rebirth. Dichter’s research method incorporated an element of creativity, and it generally followed from hypotheses derived from his training in psychology and psychoanalysis.35 This differed from Lazarsfeld’s quantitative method of market research, which employed the statistical analysis of thousands of responses to reveal patterns that implied categories of motivation. And while Lazarsfeld was interested in perfecting the sociological method through the practice of commercial market research, Dichter was, first and foremost, interested in the practical application of research. He was always hostile toward pure theory, and he was

32 “Ernest Dichter of Croton: ‘a doctor for ailing products,’” Printers’ Ink, June 26, 1959. 33 Rena Bartos and Arthur S. Pearson, “The Founding Fathers of Advertising Research,” Journal of Advertising Research 17, no. 3 (June 1977): 3-8. 34 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 35. 35 Bartos and Pearson, “Founding Fathers,” 4.

126 never interested in pursuing an academic career. These inclinations led to his immediate and enthusiastic work in commercial market research upon his arrival in the U.S.36

Another of Dichter’s early motivational studies was done for the publishers of

Esquire magazine in 1939. Dichter was charged with the task of discovering why men read the magazine. He conducted 200 interviews to find, rather unsurprisingly, that men were attracted to the magazine’s photographs of nude women. But Dichter maintained that this was an important “discovery” because these photographs aroused a “visual interest” which transferred to the whole of the magazine, including the advertisements.

However, this “finding” was less prominent in the report that Dichter submitted to

Esquire on his study than it was in his romanticized recollection of it. The report, which is rather inchoate and rudimentary, emphasized the authority of the male Esquire reader in making buying decisions and influencing others. Dichter also noted the qualitative difference between newspaper ads, which were little considered during the hurry of the business day, and magazine ads, which were were carefully studied in the leisure hours.37

But in Dichter’s recollection, the most important finding of the study was that the reader’s visual awareness of the nudes carried over to Esquire’s total “image,” a word

Dichter claimed as the perfect translation of the German word Gestalt.38 Dichter’s talent for personal puffery was at least equal to his skill as a psychological analyst and market researcher, and he would frequently claim that the application of the words “image” and

36 Dichter, “THE SECRET FREUDIAN,” 22-4. 37 Ernest Dichter, “The Buying Habits of the Esquire-Magazine Reader,” 1939, box 1, Dichter Hagley. In a later appeal to do a study for Time magazine, Dichter suggested that magazine readers were active participants in the medium, whether they were reading editorial content or advertisements. The total experience resulted in a “restructurization” of the thought process that predisposed the reader to more deeply engage advertising messages. Ernest Dichter, letter to Nicholas Samstag, February 10, 1956, box 3, folder, “Research Reports, 64E-64.6A,” Dichter Hagley. 38 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 35.

127 “personality” to products was his invention.39

Dichter’s most important early study was for the Plymouth division of the

Chrysler corporation. In October of 1939, Dichter pitched his novel “psychological research technique” to D. S. Eddins, president of Plymouth, and the company’s advertising agency, J. Stirling Getchell, Inc.40 Plymouth executives wanted to know why most car buyers bought the same make as their previous car, and they were curious about the degree of influence women had on the purchase of cars. Dichter’s presentation was impressive enough that he succeeded in winning both a commission to do the study and a job on the staff of Getchell. He conducted about 100 “depth” interviews for the study, varying in length from thirty minutes to more than two hours, the results of which he presented in a January 1940 report.41

As he did in many of his early reports, Dichter began by explaining his qualitative method, which, he made clear, differed significantly from the prevalent mode of market research at the time that relied on rote questionnaires, demographic data, and statistical analysis. In contrast, Dichter’s long psychoanalytic interviews were recorded verbatim and examined for small details and offhand comments that could reveal more about motivation than direct responses to questions, which were often “rationalizations.” No attempt at statistical or quantitative analysis was even attempted, because the aim of this kind of market research was to produce a “psychological inventory of appeals and motives” that could be used by other professionals in advertising, marketing, and design

39 See, for example, Ernest Dichter, “Dichter Lists Nine Things to Keep in Mind When Gathering Facts and Creating an Ad,” Advertising Age, September 3, 1966, 63-6. 40 Getchell had won the Plymouth account in 1932 with an impressive slogan, simultaneously modest and competitive, “Look At All Three.” Marchand, Advertising, 307. 41 “The Psychology of Car Buying: A Psychological Study Undertaken to Answer Two Vital Questions About Car Buying,” report prepared by J. Stirling Getchell, Inc., January 1940, box 1, Dichter Hagley.

128 programs. Though his sample was deliberately varied by age, sex, region, economic status, and other factors, Dichter did not attempt to produce a perfectly representative sample. The “statistical approach” was valid as a complement to the psychological approach, Dichter maintained, but it answered a different set of questions: the how, who, where, and when. In contrast, Dichter wanted to learn why; that is, he intended to reveal the psychological basis of consumers’ motivations and behaviors. He accounted for the possibility that subjects’ responses to questionnaires may be rationalizations that unconsciously masked true motives. He said that the quantitative approach was like a still picture or a “snapshot” of a population, but his method was more like a “moving picture” that revealed the “dynamic biography” of respondents by taking suggestive clues from the interview. The results of the depth interviews were interpreted in relation to the

“basic facts” of modern psychology accumulated from years of research and analysis.

The end result was a report designed to support the practical application of the findings through advertising appeals, merchandising strategies, and design programs.

The various findings of Dichter’s study for Plymouth, like many of his studies, mixed mundane observation with remarkable insight. Dichter offered sundry

“conclusions” in the reports on his studies, but in later references and interviews with the trade press he tended to focus on the most alluring and provocative results. In some cases he even appeared to invent “results” retroactively—notably the “finding” that a convertible was like a mistress. For Plymouth, Dichter’s study showed that male respondents imagined a “car ideal” that was often associated with convertibles, which symbolized “perennial youth.” Convertibles were also romanticized by Hollywood, which used them for technical reasons: it was easier to photograph people in them. But

129 these mesmerizing movies worked as subtle advertisements. However, the initial seduction of the convertible was usually tempered by practical considerations and the intervention of the wife, which led most men to finally select a closed model of the same make of car. But Dichter suggested that the allure of convertibles was so powerful that they could deployed as bait in dealers’ showrooms to draw the attention of customers who would ultimately settle for a more utilitarian model.

Dichter also found that the first car owned had a profound importance, symbolizing independence and the breaking of family ties, and serving as an extension of the owner’s personality. This finding, he later said, led to a tagline used in ads: “You still remember when...”42 Cars were also important as symbols of success and markers of social prestige, but Dichter observed that ownership was also tinged with the fear that such a lavish personal expenditure was sinful. He encouraged Plymouth to offer rationalized reasons for the practicality of its cars in advertisements, which were read more attentively by buyers after they had made their purchase. Owners needed reassurance that they had made a sound decision, and good advertising “pins a psychological medal on the buyer for his bravery,” according to Dichter, and could encourage repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth advertising. The wife, as the

“moral conscience” and “practical mind” of the family, was also important in justifying the purchase to the nervous breadwinner, who had pragmatically avoided the temptress of the convertible and settled for the sober sedan. Dichter later argued that his report’s emphasis on the importance of women as decision-makers in the purchase of cars led to more advertising in women’s magazines.43

42 Bartos, “Founding Fathers,” 5. 43 Bartos, “Founding Fathers,” 5.

130 Fear of punishment for “unfaithfulness” was, Dichter concluded, one of the reasons that male buyers tended to stick to the same make for subsequent purchases.

Though it was suggested but not explicitly stated in the report, the racy idea of the convertible as a tempting “mistress” caught on in the trade press, and Dichter was happy to encourage that interpretation.44 The mainstream press noticed, too: Dichter was profiled in the March 25, 1940 issue of Time, described as a “small, neat, emphatic man who speaks in almost perfect English” from “the No. 1 roosting place for the big birds of psychoanalysis.” The profile observed Dichter’s unorthodox, qualitative method that eschewed “statistical questionnaires and surveys.” His study for Plymouth was noted as the basis for a forthcoming “Dichterized” advertisement produced by J. Stirling Getchell that would suggest the lure of the open road and the driver’s passion for mastery over a powerful machine.45

Around the same time, Dichter was profiled in the advertising trade journal Tide, which said that his work was important because it sought to “chart the discrepancy between what people say and what they do.”46 Dichter was keenly aware of the value of such publicity, which secured him a raise from Getchell.47 Both articles mentioned

Dichter’s exotic Viennese background, which, to an American audience, made him a curious, alluring figure who perhaps had some connection with Sigmund Freud—even though he did not. Although this vague association probably lent him legitimacy, Dichter was eager to assimilate into the American scene. He gave his children “unmistakably

44 The Plymouth contract was a paradigmatic market research study for Dichter, and in subsequent references to it, he would invariably note this likely apocryphal “finding” about the convertible as “mistress” and the sedan as “wife.” See, for example, Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1960), 36; and Dichter, Getting Motivated, 38. 45 “Psychoanalysis in Advertising,” Time, March 25, 1940. 46 “Dr. Dichter,” Tide, n.d., box 151, folder 15, Dichter Hagley. 47 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 40-1.

131 American” names—Tom and Susie—and he took speech lessons from a Columbia

University phonetics professor to eliminate all traces of his Austrian accent so that he could achieve a generic, “all-American” drawl.48

Dichter established the general template for his market studies with these early reports for Getchell, which generally proceeded from a specific question posed by the client, but often yielded a variety of results concerning the psychology of consumer motivations that could be used in future marketing strategies and advertising appeals.

Dichter’s brand of qualitative research differed from conventional market research in that it did not endeavor to describe the specific demographic characteristics of the consumers who composed the market for a particular product. Instead, Dichter sought to provide insight into consumer psychology that could be used by creative professionals in marketing strategies and advertising campaigns.

Dichter’s reports were meant to help his clients to craft appeals that would offer satisfaction for basic human desires by projecting qualities onto their products that would embody them with attractive “personalities.” For example, Dichter reassured the Mobil gasoline company that its symbolic trademark, the Flying Red Horse, had great value in developing brand loyalty. For consumers, the familiar sign was a “Psychological Link” in the accumulative process of advertising and corporate identity that one respondent said was like “meeting an old friend.”49 For Chrysler’s De Soto division, Dichter recommended that advertisements should portray the car as part of the owner’s “life aims.” A car was an objective symbol by which the owner judged himself and by which others judged him, and a new car could suggest a “new start” and give its owner a “new

48 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 14, 42-2. 49 “The Psychology of Gasoline and Oil Buying,” report prepared by J. Stirling Getchell, Inc., July 1940, box 1, Dichter Hagley.

132 lease on life.”50 Cars were particularly important in America, where a man without one considered himself “only half a man.”51 Dichter freely offered suggestions for new approaches to marketing a product. He advised the manufacturer of a breakfast cereal to market it as part of “the most important meal of the day” and build a brand that was associated with success in athletics for young boys.52

Market Research and the Psychological Significance of Commodities

As the mass media became insinuated in people’s lives, the commercial apparatus that supported it sought to exploit the folklore of commodities, which the market researchers revealed in their studies. For example, Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog led a study of 310 cases in 1942 for Bisodol, a stomach distress remedy produced by the

American Home Products Corporation.53 They found a preference for fizzing remedies, like Alka-Seltzer, over non-fizzing remedies, because it “killed the taste,” was more

“refreshing,” and induced belching that seemed to indicate its effectiveness. Fizzing made visible the “otherwise incomprehensible” working of the product: consumers could see it working in the glass, just as they imagined it working in their bodies. It reminded them of other pleasant drinks, which gave it an advantage over Bisodol, which came in a chalky, powder form and reminded users of its unpleasant, medicinal qualities.54

50 “The Psychology of Car Buying in the De Soto Price Class,” report prepared by J. Stirling Getchell, Inc., June 1940, box 1, Dichter Hagley. 51 “The Car … “Seven League Boots, ”research report 13.1, n.d. [ca. 1942], box 1, Dichter Hagley. 52 “The Psychology of Breakfast Cereals,” report prepared by J. Stirling Getchell, Inc., n.d. [ca. 1941], Dichter Hagley. 53 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog, “Study on Stomach Distress,” May 1942, box 2, Bureau of Applied Social Research Archive [hereafter, BASR] (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York). 54 A later study by Dichter’s Institute, however, found that, among about a quarter of respondents, the use of Alka-Seltzer had an unfortunate association with “drunks and hangovers” and a lower class of people. “A Motivational Research Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Alka-Seltzer,” submitted to Miles Laboratories, Inc. by IMR, April 1955, Signatur-Nr. 71 (IMR 473C) Dichter Vienna.

133 The form of the product was, in many instances, more important than its functional qualities. In a later study on Pepto-Bismol, another indigestion remedy,

Dichter approvingly cited the fizzing quality of Alka-Seltzer as a “tangible proof” of the product’s effectiveness, even though it might have had little to do with its functional qualities.55 He recommended that advertisements for the Pepto-Bismol should emphasize its immediately demonstrable qualities, such as coating the stomach “as it coats the bottle.” Ads should include the product’s “expected action,” even if it was not the real action, in order to connect its actual qualities to the customer’s “ideas and hopes.”

Dichter found from his “depth” interviews that Pepto-Bismol’s bright, pink color was its most striking feature, and should be emphasized in all modes of marketing. The remedy was also a form of “bottled health insurance” kept in the house, and it could be employed to treat all manner of “upset stomach,” a generalized concept for any sort of disturbance in digestion. Dichter recommended that the product advertising should seek to psychologically assuage consumers’ guilt by first acknowledging their part in getting an upset stomach, but then immediately forgiving them for it and offering a sensible solution.56 Dichter also found that labels on medicines were obsessively read by consumers, and should function as “psychological corollaries,” the advice of a surrogate physician.

These market studies revealed the intimate details of products subsumed in the lives of their users, who often had profound, psychologically complex relationships with

55 Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Study of Pepto-Bismol’s Copy Appeals,” May 1947, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 42A-42E,” Dichter Hagley. 56 In his study of twentieth-century advertisements, historian Roland Marchand calls this narrative style the parable of “Civilization Redeemed”: “The point of the parable was that Civilization, which had brought down the curse of nature upon itself, had still proved capable of discovering products that would enable Nature’s original and beneficent intentions to triumph.” Marchand, Advertising, 223.

134 them. The research findings may appear to be superficial and inconsequential—beyond their immediate practical value to the client—but the images used to apply brands to products could also produce deeply significant cultural associations in the minds of consumers. The depth interviews conducted by Lazarsfeld, Dichter, and the social researchers they employed often evoked startlingly frank responses from subjects that revealed their racial prejudices, sexual desires, class allegiances, as well as their unexamined psychological associations and anxieties. The anonymous and proprietary nature of the studies—and the researchers’ indirect, psychoanalytic manner of questioning—encouraged respondents to discard “rationalizations” and instead provide unguarded responses that suggested unconscious prejudices and desires.

A 1944 study by Lazarsfeld’s research center at Columbia University, the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR), based on interviews with 218 respondents in

Southern cities, examined the connotations of the trademark for Green River whiskey.57

The label on the bottle featured picture of a “colored” man. Producers of the whiskey wanted to know whether the brand image connoted either an “inferior” whiskey or a whiskey “just for colored people.” The study found that consumers were split between those who approved of and those who disapproved of the trademark. Respondents were also asked to compare two versions of the trademark: one with an image of an old man, and the other with the image of a young boy. Many liked the image of the old man, which was what one “expects” to see on a whiskey, reminding them fondly of the “old days” of the South. “It represents the old slave days when they drank their master’s liquor and it was always good,” said one respondent. The “pleasant old Negro” stood for

57 Jeanette Green, “Test of Green River Trade-Mark,” Office of Radio Research, July 1944, box 113, BASR Archive.

135 “something good,” according to one respondent, and many subjects felt that the picture suggested a good, aged whiskey. “You think of rivers and Negroes and horses along with good whiskey,” said one respondent. “The old Negro knew what was good and took pride in serving the best of things,” said another. “It might make me want to buy it.

Negroes are good judges of whiskey.” Yet some objected to the image, which represented a “cheap whiskey” to them. “Most good whiskey don’t have such pictures,” said one younger respondent, a male office worker from Memphis. For the Bureau’s corporate clients, knowledge of the prevalence of such attitudes became a practical marketing tool.

In addition to exposing racial prejudices, the market studies also revealed social hierarchies that were reflected in consumption patterns and brand choices. A wide- ranging 1944 study on wine-drinking habits for Schenley Distillers by Lazarsfeld’s

Bureau found significant class, ethnic, and religious distinctions in the consumption of wine.58 The study was based on 4,000 interviews with subjects from a range of income groups, conducted in thirty cities representing “every section” of the country. Catholics,

Jews, the foreign-born, and the affluent were found to be the heaviest wine drinkers, and, on the other end of the spectrum, were Methodists, Baptists, and other native Protestants who frequently committed to total abstinence. Wine-drinking was a “folkway” that came about not spontaneously in the individual but because of social expectations, and different classes had different expectations. Upper-class drinkers paid little attention to brand names, but they were convinced of the superiority of imported over domestic wines.

Higher-income groups generally preferred more “subdued” sensations, according to

58 “Wine Drinking – Motives, Kinds and Conditions: Interim Report Number III,” BASR, March 27, 1944, box 113, BASR Archive; Goodwin Watson, “A Socio-Psychological Study of Wine Drinking: Final Summary Report,” BASR, April 7, 1944, box 113, BASR Archive.

136 Lazarsfeld, and so they were inclined towards dry rather than sweet wines. Though both classes of drinkers used wine to “escape,” the upper-class groups drank wine to relax, while working-class drinkers drank it for “pep” and stimulation. This differentiation,

Lazarsfeld believed, would give advertisers leads as to what should be stressed in appeals directed at different social classes and market segments through different media.

Dichter at CBS: An Outcast among Exiles

Despite his entrepreneurial drive and relentless self-promotion, Dichter suffered anxiety over the viability of his method relative to the approach of his Viennese colleague

Paul Lazarsfeld. From 1942 to 1944, during his tenure at Getchell and later at CBS,

Dichter kept a diary that revealed both an interest in and a contempt for quantitative research methods. He expressed an underlying fear that his own qualitative method might not, as it were, measure up.59 He read a compilation of articles produced by

Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research, published as Radio Research, 1941, and he was particularly interested in its most qualitative piece, Theodor Adorno’s article on the

“Radio Symphony.”60 In his diary, Dichter acknowledged to himself that he needed to spend more time analyzing interviews in order to realize the “real purpose” of his method. After a meeting with Lazarsfeld at one of his lectures in February 1942, Dichter reported being skeptical of Lazarsfeld’s theories and proud of his own scientific

“maturity,” but at the same time he felt “alone” and nervous about the responsibility that

59 Box 161, folders “Diary, 1942” and “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley. 60 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, Radio Research, 1941 (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941). In the essay, Adorno refuted the argument that radio was a medium for the spread of high culture, such as Beethoven’s Fifth symphony. The technical limitations of the medium bastardized the great symphonies, reducing them to a mere “quotation.” This effect, according to Adorno, trivialized the complexity of the whole so that it could be “owned” by listeners who were clever enough to recognize its sonic trademarks.

137 went along with defining and defending his method. The very next day he went to

Barnes & Noble, where he purchased textbook on economics and marketing. He was keeping to his resolution from his earlier encounter with Lazarsfeld to “know more about statistics.” A few days later he again met with Lazarsfeld, who attacked him for his

“verworrenes denken” (“muddled thinking”). Dichter struggled over whether he could accept Lazarsfeld’s more mathematical, logical way of thinking, but he felt inclined to resist it as he refined his own method.

In October, Dichter met again with Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog, Lazarsfeld’s wife and colleague in market research. They both criticized Dichter’s methods. Herzog, in particular, attacked Dichter for lacking a sound procedure for conducting his surveys and translating them into practical ideas. Nevertheless, Lazarsfeld informed Dichter that his Office of Radio Research colleague Frank Stanton was looking for a new research director at CBS. Dichter was giddy about the prospect of leaving the Getchell ad agency, which he called a “hole,” for a better job with better pay. In later accounts, Dichter would say, anachronistically, that he left the agency upon the death of Mr. Getchell,61 a

“fascinating but complex ad man,” according to Printers’ Ink, who committed suicide in

1943.62 In fact, Dichter was laid off from the agency on October 14, 1942, when Getchell lost two major auto industry accounts as the reconfiguration of industry for wartime forced the cessation of motorcar production and the rationing of tires and gasoline. But

Dichter said that he had been “kind of expecting it all along.”

But only a few weeks later, on November 2, Dichter began a new job at CBS on a six-month trial basis. He reported in his memoir that CBS executive Frank Stanton was

61 See, for example, Dichter, Getting Motivated, 44. 62 “Ernest Dichter of Croton: ‘a doctor for ailing products,’” Printers’ Ink, June 26, 1959.

138 impressed by a study that Dichter would later publish as an article, “On the Psychology of Radio Commercials,” in a volume on radio research edited by Lazarsfeld and

Stanton.63 The article emphasized the “defensive barriers” listeners had erected against

“being sold” by radio commercials, which they found to be generally loud, cheap, and dull. Dichter recommended that the producers of radio commercials imagine the worries, moods, and interests of individual listeners rather than a generic “public.”64 Lazarsfeld expressed his usual “objections” to the speculative and “trivial” nature of the study, annoying Dichter, who convinced himself that Lazarsfeld was “just jealous.” After much back and forth, many revisions, and consultation with Stanton, Lazarsfeld finally agreed to publish the article.

Dichter had done the study while at Getchell, and he worried about what his former boss would think about publishing work done for one of his clients. But Dichter was usually more interested in publicizing himself and furthering his career than he was in protecting the private interests of his commercial clients. He anxiously prepared a speech before a meeting of the American Marketing Association on December 22, 1942, which served as his public debut in the U.S. Dichter’s Viennese friend and fellow market researcher Hans Zeisel told him that his speech was highly anticipated by executives at the advertising firm Benton and Bowles. Dichter was happy that Lazarsfeld was unable to make it to the event, because he felt that Lazarsfeld “heckles me too much and sways the others in their opinion.” The speech was ultimately a success, according to Dichter, and it introduced him to important people in the world of advertising, including Arno

Johnson, the director of research for the mammoth advertising agency J. Walter

63 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 44. 64 Ernest Dichter, “On the Psychology of Radio Commercials,” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, ed. Paul F. Lazarsfeld. and Frank N. Stanton (New York: Essential Books, 1944), 465-81.

139 Thompson. Dichter, a deft manager of his public persona, would become a fixture as a speaker at such trade group meetings and as a writer in the various marketing and advertising publications like Printers’ Ink, which offered to publish his AMA speech.

General Electric also requested a reprint of the speech, and it piqued the interest of

Advertising Age and Radio Daily. Indeed, Dichter’s efforts to publicize himself and his method often took precedence over his practice and the actual development of his craft.

He expressed a desire to write “fluently on popular subjects,” which he saw as a fundamental aspect of his business, and he was gratified when his first articles appeared in Printers’ Ink and Journal of Living in March of 1943. He was always drafting articles and submitting them for publication; some were accepted, but many were not.65

By this time, Dichter was working on a number of projects for CBS, including a study on “war lonely” women and another on daytime radio serials. He collaborated with

Lazarsfeld and Herzog in developing the study of daytime serials, and again he had to defend his qualitative method against charges that such a study would need to incorporate statistical analysis for validity. But because Dichter’s qualitative study could be done on a smaller scale, he was given permission to pursue it, and Lazarsfeld suggested that the

Frankfurt School scholar and émigré Leo Lowenthal could help him with script analysis.

But Dichter resisted Lowenthal’s involvement, partly because of his “close contact with

Lazarsfeld” and partly he was “not americanized enough,” in Dichter’s opinion—but he did somehow want to exploit his connection with Max Horkheimer’s Institute of Social

Research. Ultimately, Lowenthal did not join the study, and Dichter despaired the failure of his fellow émigrés to comprehend the “American Attitude,” something he prided

65 Box 161, folders “Diary, 1942” and “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley.

140 himself on understanding through his willful exposure to popular culture in radio and movies. He found Lazarsfeld’s close friend Hans Zeisel, in particular, to be a “silly guy, completely unassimilated.”

Dichter had already begun to fantasize about starting his own business to be free of the harsh judgment of his Austrian peers, particularly Lazarsfeld, whose approval he constantly sought. He felt that he needed to “be aggressive” in publicizing himself relative to Lazarsfeld and his other colleagues in market research. Dichter also wanted to be free of the anxiety of doing work for hire, scraping by from job to job, and worrying about money owed to him by Lazarsfeld and others. At this time, Dichter was still seeing patients for analysis to supplement his income.66 His position at CBS was always tentative, renewed on a contract basis several months at a time and described by a superior as “extracurricular.”67 In a July 22, 1943 memo to Stanton, Dichter despaired,

“Do you think there is still sense in my sticking around here?” Stanton’s handwritten reply was bleak: “Frankly this looks like the end.”68 Dichter immediately set about looking for jobs, shopping his articles to magazines like Readers’ Digest and Esquire, and he even fantasized about quitting the market research business altogether to instead become a farmer.

His spirits were lifted that fall, though, when his position at CBS was finally made permanent, and he got a contract to do a study on “postwar” appliances for Crowell-

Collier, the publisher of American Magazine, Collier’s, and Women’s Home Companion.69 66 Box 161, folder “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley. 67 J. K. Churchill, memorandum to Ernest Dichter, July 21, 1943, box 161, folder “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley. 68 Ernest Dichter, memorandum to Frank Stanton, July 22, 1943, box 161, folder “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley. 69 Ernest Dichter, “Electrical Home Appliances in the Postwar World (A Psychological Study on Women’s Attitudes),” report for Crowell Collier Publishing Corp., n.d. (ca. 1944), box 3, folder, “Research Reports, 55-55.1E,” Dichter Hagley.

141 Dichter’s initial assignment was to investigate women’s attitudes toward the vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, washing machine, automatic dishwasher, and range.70 Based on the analysis of about seventy case studies of different groups of women, Dichter observed in an early version of the report that the social disruption cause by the war had destroyed old feelings of security and the notion that things would go on as they always had.

Manufacturers, Dichter advised, should look to the market group with the most “future potential” and encourage women to improve themselves intellectually by developing interests outside the home. These women, Dichter advised, would be more amenable to incorporating modern, energy-saving electrical appliances into their lives after the war, especially if they were encumbered with more children. “They’ll cry out for everything that saves time and they’ll want the comfort they had in the big factories,” said one respondent. Yet Dichter advised advertisers against portraying the kitchen as a

“superhygienic” and lifeless “factory” that eliminated all creativity, because women still wanted a feeling of personal achievement from do-it-yourself housework.

A later, published version of the report incorporated a national survey of 2,500 women to supplement Dichter’s interviews.71 It included colorful illustrations, charts, and graphs, and was likely distributed to advertisers and potential advertisers in Crowell-

Collier publications. In this version, Dichter emphasized the presence of three basic types of women: the “true housewife” type, who composed more than half of the sample, was skeptical of new appliances, fearing that they would render irrelevant her established

70 Advertisers in this period lavished much attention on the figure of the housewife, whom they perceived to be the the “general purchasing agent,” or “G.P.A.,” of the household. Advertisements in the interwar years sought to flatter women by portraying the role of housewife as the head of a small business concern which she efficiently managed by employing her capacity for planning and decision-making— qualities that were more typically honored in men. Marchand, Advertising, 168. 71 “Homemaking and Appliances: A Psychological Survey,” Crowell-Collier Research Department, 1945, box 1, folder, “Research Reports, 31-34,” Dichter Hagley.

142 ways of doing things; the “career women,” composing eleven percent of the sample, felt

“imprisoned” in the home, had contempt toward household duties, and only wanted to be able to “press a button and, presto, find all the housework done”; and, finally, the

“balanced homemaker,” about a third of the total sample, which was the “ideal type” from a marketing standpoint. The “balanced” homemaker was prized because she cherished a well-run household, unlike the career woman, but was amenable to using the latest appliances because she pursued interests outside the home, unlike the conventional

“true housewife.” According to the report, the “balanced homemaker” type was overrepresented among the readers of Woman’s Home Companion. She was increasing in number because of the greater difficulty of shifting household work to servants and the new impetus to work outside the home. The ultimate conclusion of the report was upbeat for appliance manufacturers, quoting a young housewife of the ideal type: “It’s nice to be modern—it’s like running a factory in which you have all the latest machinery.”72

On February 2, 1944, Dichter became a citizen of the U.S., and he felt a certain satisfaction and a feeling of belonging, because he had always felt inferior, or like an outsider, both growing up in Austria and while studying in France. Even among Jews, his red hair was always a source of insecurity and a marker of his outsider status.73 He dreamed of selling his house in the Jewish enclave of Forest Hills, Queens, and starting a rural commune, a sort of laboratory of cooperative living—something he would actually pursue later in life. The anthropologist Margaret Mead was intrigued by Dichter’s

72 This report was famously described by Betty Friedan in a chapter called “The Sexual Sell” from her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. Dichter permitted Friedan to read his reports and interview him, and although Friedan describes Dichter in great detail, he remains unnamed, referred to only as “the manipulator.” Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1963), 206-32. 73 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 48-9.

143 planned book on the psychology of everyday living, and she encouraged him to publish in academic journals in order to establish his authority in the U.S. He did publish some quasi-academic articles, such as a 1944 article that introduced his qualitative method of motivational research to sociologists.74

But the pragmatic and entrepreneurial Dichter was never really drawn to a career in academia.75 He was more interested in publishing in trade journals and popular magazines, and he was very pleased to publish an article on smoking in the magazine

Coronet, in which he emphasized the connection between infantile thumb-sucking and cigarette smoking.76 He also published an article in Look magazine, and he was interviewed by journalists from the New Yorker and Life, giving him the opportunity to cultivate his public persona as a marketing savant. These outside jobs and blatant efforts at personal publicity caused some friction with his colleagues at CBS, which Dichter initially dismissed as mere jealousy. But he continued to fantasize about starting his own firm: “I would like to be my own boss and do what I want and not constantly worry about other people,” he wrote in his diary.77

Dichter raised his profile in the marketing profession through a series of articles called “Studies in Television” that appeared in 1945 in the advertising journal Tide. He collaborated with Oscar Katz, his colleague in the CBS research department, to examine the new medium that could revolutionize the world of marketing. With Dichter on its research staff, CBS had become more attuned to the qualitative aspects of market research. Network executives had become concerned with not just how many were

74 Ernest Dichter, “Psychodramatic Research Project on Commodities as Intersocial Media,” Sociometry 7.4 (November 1944): 432. 75 Kreuzer, “THE SECRET FREUDIAN,” 23. 76 Ernest Dichter, “Why People Smoke,” Coronet Magazine, August 1944. 77 Box 161, folder “Diary, 1943-1944,” Dichter Hagley.

144 listening, but also who was listening, and why.78 Dichter and Katz saw television as an entirely new kind of visual medium with the potential to educate and entertain in a way that neither radio nor the movies could. They found that respondents felt that television would be useful in showing them how to do practical tasks that required some skill, and they suggested that advertisers take advantage of this desire with “how-to-do” commercials. The essential spontaneity of television—its illusion of immediacy—could also work to the advantage of commercial sponsors of quiz shows and other formats that could exploit the “live” aspect of television. The “audience participation” show worked well for this reason, exploiting the “magic” quality of television to transport viewers to the scene of action.79

But producers and advertisers needed to be aware, Dichter and Katz warned, that television, unlike radio, was not looked upon as a “background activity” that housewives could engage in while doing other work. Some women were finding time for daytime television, but they could not maintain their standing as the “sacrificing” and “harassed” housewife if they spent too much time staring at a glowing screen.80 To avoid instilling feelings of guilt over neglected housework, the researchers recommended programs and commercials that could assist housewives in shopping and household chores.81 For

78 Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 1,” Tide, February 15, 1945. 79 Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 2,” Tide, March 1, 1945; Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 6,” Tide, May 15, 1945. 80 John Crosby, “The Girls Feel Guilty About It,” New York Herald Tribune, September 8, 1950. 81 Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 4,” Tide, April 1, 1945. Advertisers and television network executives recognized early on that television, unlike radio, could distract housewives from their domestic labor duties because it required closer attention. For this reason, TV scheduling was discretely divided to accommodate different viewers at different times of the day, leaving programs requiring greater attention for the early-morning and evening hours. Daytime programs such as NBC’s Today and Home could be more easily watched in a state of distraction. These programs borrowed heavily from the format of mass magazines, which seamlessly integrated commercial messages with housekeeping tips so that housewives could be educated as consumers while being assured that their time spent watching TV was indeed part of their work. See Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 75-98.

145 scripted, serial dramas, the researchers recommended a blunt manner of storytelling, because mass audiences “are not subtle.”82 Ultimately, Dichter and Katz saw television as an ideal medium for commercial advertising, coming very close to the actual “buying- selling” situation through the combination of sight, sound, and motion. Respondents in their study appreciated the power of television to develop fresh interest in new, unfamiliar products by demonstrating their practical use. Television, the researchers believed, could change consumer buying habits and even create new markets.83

Despite the positive publicity of the television studies, Dichter was never fully committed to his position at CBS, and his penchant for self promotion and extracurricular contract work did not please his superiors. He was forced to constantly defend has qualitative methods against the criticisms of the statistical researchers, or “nose counters,” as he disparagingly called them. He became frustrated by the “worship of percentages” that Lazarsfeld had warned him about, and he was convinced that “going into depth” with a small sample was a better method of market research than tabulating the responses from thousands of “misinterpreted” questionnaires as though they were the

“infallible truth.” His speculative, even whimsical interpretations were met with resistance by his strictly empirical colleagues. As part of the war effort, Dichter had been analyzing the propaganda of Adolf Hilter’s speeches, and in another project for CBS he drew an analogy between the structure of daytime radio serials and fascism. Such psychoanalytic leaps of faith became intolerable for his boss, Frank Stanton, and after being “fired” and then working for a year as a “paid consultant,” he finally left CBS to establish his own firm in 1946.84

82 Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 5,” Tide, April 15, 1945. 83 Ernest Dichter and Oscar Katz, “Studies in Television: No. 7,” Tide, June 1, 1945. 84 Dicther, Getting Motivated, 45-6.

146 Dichter’s association with Lazarsfeld is significant in terms of the model the latter established for building institutions and doing commercial work for paying clients. But it never occurred to Lazarsfeld to “commercialize” his practice beyond what was necessary to sustain his research.85 Where Lazarsfeld’s socialist background translated into a commitment to developing a scientific methodology to interpret social stratification,

Dichter’s childhood poverty produced an absolute rejection of austerity and a total embrace of the affluent society. “We have to learn to accept the morality of the good life,” Dichter later wrote with the fervor of an evangelical, capitalistic hedonist. “We must use the modern techniques of motivational thinking and social science to make people constructively discontented by chasing them out of the false paradise of knowledgeless animal happiness into the real paradise of change and progress.”86

Lazarsfeld’s political background and academic training provided him with the intellectual perspective to analyze social stratification in a way that was useful to marketers, and Dichter’s desire to preach the moral goodness of personal indulgence—a reaction to what he perceived to be repressive, puritanical austerity—motivated his own desire to probe the consumer unconscious in the service of business.

Dichter Builds an Independent Commercial Consulting Firm

An early brochure for Dichter’s new independent consulting firm, which he established in 1946 as the Institute for Research in Mass Motivations, explained his method of “motivational research.”87 This technique, he claimed, would provide clients

85 Paul Neurath, letter to Dr. David Sills, February 27, 1979, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 86 Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 263-4. 87 “When You Want to Know ‘Why’ and ‘What to Do About It’: the services offered and the use of the services offered by THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN MASS MOTIVATIONS, Inc.,” proof for

147 with insights into the “real” reasons why people “buy or do not buy,” and it suggested techniques for the “practical application” of these findings. Dichter claimed that his method could work around the “rationalizations” that subjects would provide in response to direct questioning, a mask for the fundamental psychology that motivated their consumer behavior. Dichter assured potential clients that his method “undresses” the

“rational answer” through indirect questioning and a consideration of the total context of consumers’ shopping experiences. Suggesting an almost supernatural, psychic ability to divine consumers’ motivations, Dichter promised that his organization’s research method would discover “what goes on in the mind of the reader while he reads the ad” and whether it could bring him closer to the “mental rehearsal” of purchasing and using the product.” Dichter promised that his experienced research staff would produce a report that would indicate the advertising appeals that would be “most effective in arousing the human motivations.”

Dichter’s instructions to his large corps of depth interviewers described the basic elements of this method.88 Interviewers were to record responses verbatim; they were never to summarize because the respondent’s own wording, manner of expression, and degree of enthusiasm or boredom were important indicators of their unconscious motivations. Each interviewer’s sample of respondents was to represent varying income levels, occupations, religions, and national backgrounds in proportion to a particular population. Dichter believed that intellectual judgments and opinions were not the true bases of consumer behavior, and that motivations existed at a “subconscious or very

brochure, n.d. (ca. 1944-49, box 213, folder 30, Dichter Hagley. 88 “The Depth Interview in Motivational Research: General Information for Interviewers,” n.d.; “Seventeen Suggestions for Effective Depth Interviewing,” Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., n.d., box 213, folder 26, Dichter Hagley.

148 dimly conscious” level in feelings, emotions, and sensory impressions.

Interviewers were instructed to use a technique of modern psychotherapy called

“probing,” a method of tracing an opinion or judgment back to an original, “forgotten” reaction or experience. “When I was a child, all the first mentions of fur I remember had to do with ermine,” said one respondent in a sample interview. “I remember that it looked velvety and soft. I never thought you bought them. Just if you were a kind or a queen or a princess you got them.” The goal of the depth interview, fashioned after the psychoanalytic method, was to “win the confidence” of the respondent or order to elicit uninhibited answers. “A good analyst,” Dichter advised, “talks little and avoids voicing any opinions or making judgments.” It was a delicate procedure, because interviewers were required to imperceptibly direct their subjects into the desired areas of conversation, but at the same time they were to never give the impression that a certain answer was expected from the respondent. Interviewers were instructed to encourage respondents

“ramble on” about their feelings and associations related to a given product or brand, and to seek clues to “underlying” motivations.

Dichter made aggressive appeals for his practice right from the start, and like

Lazarsfeld, he was a promiscuous presence in the trade journals and business magazines.

Lazarsfeld’s seminal article in summer 1935 issue of National Marketing Review, “The

Art of asking WHY in Marketing Research,” had ignited business interest in the practice of motivational research with its condemnation of the use of “stereotyped” questionnaires.89 In a 1947 article for the Harvard Business Review, Dichter explained that his psychoanalytic method of motivational research was more than just “depth”

89 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Art of Asking WHY in Marketing Research: Three Principles Underlying the Formulation of Questionnaires,” National Marketing Review, Vol. 1, No.1 (Summer, 1935), 26-38.

149 interviewing. It also included laboratory experiments, field tests, “psycho-panels,” and other methods designed to produce “practical findings” for the pragmatic businessman.90

In a 1948 article for Advertising & Selling, Dichter distinguished his method from two extremes of marketing: the “medicine-man” approach which relied entirely on intuition and guesswork, and the “naïve empirical stage”: the quantitative, statistical approach to market research that prevailed in the U.S.91 Guesswork was still quite common in advertising, Dichter said, because of vanity, or the desire of the advertiser to talk about his product rather than to the customer, and to advertise in spaces he liked rather than those that were liked by potential customers. Executives would trust their hunches and make decisions in conference rooms rather than in field investigations, and they were obsessed with the technical aspects of their products. “No one ever wants a product because of its technical qualities alone,” Dichter protested. “He wants it because of what it is going to do for him.” As an example, Dichter looked at two ads for the same thing, one with the headline “Comfortable summer bungalow,” the other proclaiming

“Holiday from troubles.” The first ad failed, reaching only twenty percent of potential buyers, because it talked about the object rather than the buyer; the second ad succeeded, reaching more than eighty percent of potential buyers, because it addressed psychological motivations, and offered a solution for readers’ frustrations.

As an independent consultant, Dichter drew upon his experiences working under

Lazarsfeld and for Frank Stanton at CBS, but increasingly he aimed to distinguish his method from the more quantitative and statistical kind of market and media research that

90 Ernest Dichter, “Psychology in Market Research,” Harvard Business Review 25 (Summer 1947): 432- 43. 91 Ernest Dichter, “These Are the Real Reasons Why People Buy Goods,” Advertising & Selling, July 1948.

150 they practiced. He was critical of the “Program Analyzer” that they had developed as directors of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Office of Radio Research, which began at

Princeton in 1937 and moved to Columbia in 1939. The Program Analyzer was a mechanical device that recorded the “likes” and “dislikes” of a panel of listeners or viewers, somewhat like a polygraph though directed by the conscious will of the participants. Subjects responded to the content of a program in real time by pushing buttons to indicate their responses—positive, negative, or neutral—which were charted on a line graph corresponding to the sequential segments of the program. These listener sessions were always supplemented by interviews with the subjects, who were encouraged to elaborate on their responses.92

In contrast to this kind of empirical research, Dichter argued that his method of

“depth” interviewing, as a kind of “indirect associative questioning,” could go much deeper in analyzing subjective responses to dramatic and commercial programming. It was a way for the social scientist to “enter the respondent’s personal universe of changing concepts.”93 The Program Analyzer, like other devices and methods for the empirical measurement of audience responses, could show what respondents liked or disliked, but it could not determine whether a program had produced the “desired effect” in terms of consumer motivation. This kind of insight, Dichter argued, could only be achieved through depth interviews and other methods of motivational research, such as “content analysis,” a profile of the psychological gratifications offered by a particular program.

Serial radio dramas, or “soap operas,” for example, were seen by many viewers as

92 Paul Lazarsfeld, “The Testing of Radio Programs: The Program Analyzer,” ca. 1942, PFL Vienna, B- 0169, T/UIIIb, Zu-25, “The Program Analyzer.” 93 Ernest Dichter, “Motivational Research – The Key to Opinions Commercial and Public,” speech before the Greek Productivity Centre, Athens, Greece, December 13, 1964, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley.

151 “guides for living,” despite their romantic and fantastical storylines. Such knowledge could be useful to radio producers and advertising professionals. This was, for Dichter, a practical application of the science of psychology toward the end of “greater individual and democratic success.”94

Market Research and the Cold War

Dichter’s consulting firm had a practical value for his clients, but he saw himself as part businessman, part ideological crusader. As the outlines of the Cold War conflict took shape in the wake of the Second World War, Dichter defended market research as a commercial practice that was instrumental to American democracy. He alluded to the emerging threat of totalitarianism, which encompassed both Nazism and Soviet-style communism, and its apparent opposite, free-market capitalism. Indeed, Dichter had studied Nazi propaganda while working for CBS,95 and like many of his fellow émigrés, including Lazarsfeld, he applied the methods of psychological analysis to commercial communications in the American context.

In the 1940s, “arguably the high-water mark of Freudianism in America,” according to historian Benjamin Alpers, psychological explanations for social and political phenomena had great legitimacy.96 Psychological critiques from fellow émigrés like Bruno Bettelheim—who received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of

Vienna in 1938 under Karl Bühler—characterized the emerging discourse on

94 Ernest Dichter, “Radio and Television Audience Research,” Business Psychology, chapter 8, n.d., box 131, folder 4, Dichter Hagley. 95 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 45-6. 96 Benjamin L. Alpers, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 267.

152 totalitarianism.97 Bettelheim, a Social Democrat and secular Jew from Vienna who fled to the U.S. in 1939, employed a Freudian analysis to interpret the social psychology of

Nazi concentration camps established for political prisoners. Bettelheim’s influential theory of totalitarianism, first published in 1943, posited that Nazi repression, rather than signaling the fragility of the regime, was the psychological basis for its particular kind of social stability.98 Though the circumstances of the camps were extraordinary, they provided a microcosm to analyze a method of political repression that operated through the annihilation of individuality. Stripped of their agency, the prisoners were reduced to a childlike state of immediacy, unable to comprehend time, plan for the future, or defer simple sensual gratifications for deeper, more meaningful satisfactions. Bettelheim’s critique could be applied to Germany as a whole as well as to other national contexts: if individuality was the main casualty of the Nazi system of oppression, conformity and the mass mind became the principal threats to democracy.

Although he rarely expressed an explicit politics, Dichter believed that the market researcher, as an agent of capitalism, could also contribute to democratic progress and freedom. In this sense, Dichter differed from his less sanguine and more pragmatic colleague Lazarsfeld, whose work had more to do with the science of decision-making, either in voting or in consumer behavior. Although Dichter was not particularly political, he may have had ideological allies in his fellow Viennese ex-patriots Joseph Schumpeter and, to a lesser degree, Friedrich Hayek. With Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 97 Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 63. 98 Bruno Bettelheim, “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38 (October 1943): 417-452. Bettelheim based his analysis on his own experience in the Dachau and Buchenwald camps, where he was held for roughly a year, from 1938- 1939. During this time, Bettelheim resolved to observe and document—by memory—the psychological transformation of himself and his fellow prisoners. He personally questioned about 1,500 prisoners and engaged two other inmates to assist him with his analysis.

153 originally published in 1942, Schumpeter introduced the idea of the “creative destruction” to refer to the power of capitalism to obliterate old, irrational institutions and modes of industry as it created new ways of producing wealth. In a similar vein, Dichter would later celebrate marketers’ ability to use social science and motivational techniques to inspire “constructive discontent” in consumers so that they could become “active” and

“modern” citizens.99

Hayek, with The Road to Serfdom—published in 1944 and in a condensed, popularized form in Readers’ Digest in 1945—argued that economic planning of any sort would ultimately lead to totalitarianism.100 This classically liberal view, typical of the

“Austrian” school of economics, idealized free-market capitalism (though not strictly laissez-faire) as the epitome of freedom and individualism. The Austrian tradition was established in the middle years of the nineteenth century by Carl Menger, one of the developers of the theory of “marginal utility,” which elaborated the functioning of the price mechanism as a central element in a market-oriented economy. One of Menger’s most devoted followers was Ludwig von Mises, who was in turn an important mentor to

Hayek. At the London School of Economics in the early 1930s, Hayek became the chief ideological opponent of John Maynard Keynes and his associated economists at

Cambridge. But with the publication of Keynes’s General Theory of Employment,

Interest, and Money in 1936, which advocated a strong government role in maintaining aggregate demand to stave off or ameliorate depressions, Hayek’s free-market views fell out of favor, and he was threatened with irrelevancy. But he had enthusiastic supporters in the U.S., including Walter Lippmann, whose 1937 book The Good Society articulated a

99 Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 17, 21. 100For a discussion of the theories of totalitarianism articulated by Bettelheim, Schumpeter, and Hayek, see Alpers, Dictators, especially chapter 9.

154 sharp critique of economic planning, which he saw as a slippery slope to totalitarian control. Hayek amplified this view in The Road to Serfdom, which was originally directed at socialists in Great Britain, but the book became an unexpected hit in the U.S.

It was fueled by the abridgment in Reader’s Digest, which was then the most widely distributed magazine in America with a circulation of over eight million. Hayek became something of an overnight celebrity and a star on the lecture circuit, and many conservatives, free-market advocates, and anti-New Deal business interests adopted

Hayek’s argument that economic planning set an inevitable course for fascism.101

Although Dichter was just as enthusiastic as Hayek was about the progressive, liberating possibilities of capitalism, he recognized that economic planning was indeed integral to its success. Lazarsfeld, too, dispelled the false notion that non-socialist countries did not engage in large-scale planning, pointing to General Electric and General

Motors as prominent, large-scale corporate planners.102 The market research services that they offered their clients promised to help them understand the psychology of their consumers so that they could more scientifically plan the marketing of their products.

Media Studies by Lazarsfeld’s Bureau in the Postwar Years

In the postwar years, Cold War anxieties combined with a government-endorsed,

Keynesian push for mass consumption to set the new priorities for marketers and their research consultants.103 But while Dichter was eager to step into the ideological fray, the 101This discussion is drawn from Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012). 102Jane Hauser and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Sociological Aspects of Planning: A progress report on a case- study,” [Social Science Council] 2, no. 1 (1963): 82-88 [BASR reprint A-374], PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers Iva, Mappe 2/2. 103On the “reconversion” of the wartime economy to the postwar consumer economy, see Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), especially chapter 3.

155 work of Lazarsfeld and his Bureau of Applied Social Research was generally more sober and academic. The Bureau broadened its mission beyond radio to consider the role of other mass media as vehicles for commerce and as venues for transmitting American culture. A series of studies in the late 1940s compared the relative effectiveness of newspaper and radio advertisements in reaching different socioeconomic groups. A small

1946 study on radio and print versions of a detergent ad found that respondents were attracted to illustrations and pictures in print advertisements, but they generally did not take the time to read ads with too much copy. “I got the whole story from the pictures— it takes less time that way,” said one respondent.104

The Bureau conducted a larger study in 1948 that was based on “intensive, qualitative” interviews with 100 New Jersey women representing the “upper three- fourths” of the community in terms of education and income. Subjects were given both

“retrospective” interviews, in which they recalled advertisements previously read in newspapers and heard on the radio, and “immediate” interviews, in which they responded directly to advertisements presented by the interviewer. Unlike Dichter’s approach, the

BASR interviewers made no attempt to interpret the unconscious motivations of respondents, and the author of the report explicitly stated that its findings were based on

“conscious” responses.105

104Jeannette Green, “Psychological Analysis of One Newspaper Synthetic Detergent Advertisement and One Radio Synthetic Detergent Commercial,” February 1946, box 115, BASR Archive. Respondents liked illustrations for their instructive capacity, and because they could convey more information on the various uses of a particular product than was possible in a radio ad. Many respondents also believed that the claims made in newspaper ads were more reliable and authoritative because “they can’t say too much in print that can be challenged or they will be sued.” However, some preferred radio advertisements because of the pleasing, trustworthy voice of the announcer, and because they were more concise than print advertisements. “The radio ad is short and sweet and told you everything,” according to one subject. 105Arthur Kornhauser, “Psychological Responses to Newspaper and Radio Advertisements,” January 1948, box 115, BASR Archive. Respondents generally had better recall of radio advertisements, but they focused their “active attention” on newspaper ads. Radio ads, unlike print ads, did not compete

156 A much larger study conducted in 1949 continued this examination of radio versus print ads for “low-cost, frequently purchased” household items such as foods, soaps, drugs, and cosmetics.106 The study was based on a sample of 702 qualitative interviews with “white housewives” at all socioeconomic levels in the suburban Oranges communities of New Jersey. Interviewers sought “spontaneous” responses rather than direct responses to specific questions, and, like the earlier study, subjects responded both

“retrospectively” to ads they recalled and “immediately” to ads presented to them. The study confirmed many findings of the previous study: women had better recall of the presentation in radio ads, but they had more “buying interest” in the product featured in newspaper ads, which evoked a “rich” range of associations. Women had much greater exposure to radio ads by virtue of repetition over several hours: they spent, on average, more than three hours listening to the radio each day versus less than an hour reading the newspaper. Radio-listening decreased and newspaper-reading increased among higher- educated respondents, who preferred to choose whichever advertisements interested them, sometimes rereading or clipping them. These women rejected being subjected to the repetitive jingles, rhymes, and aggressive appeals that were common in radio ads. “I prefer newspapers because as a rule the radio overemphasizes and uses superlatives,” said

with other adjacent ads for attention, but they were subject to ambient distractions in the listening environment, which was often a working environment. Subjects offered their passive attention to the radio, but they were more likely to focus their active attention on newspaper ads. Some respondents resented listening to “compulsory” radio ads, which they viewed skeptically, versus the “freedom of choice”they had in viewing newspaper ads, which were considered to be more trustworthy and “realistic.” Women could also re-read and clip newspaper ads, with the intent to buy, but ephemeral radio ads did not provide this opportunity. Radio ads, however, elicited stronger feelings than print ads —they both attracted and repelled listeners—while respondents had neutral feelings toward print ads. “The human voice makes it more real and therefore builds up more repulsion on my part,” said one respondent. “I don’t want to believe and since the voice makes it more real, I feel the need to repel it more strongly and I either don’t listen or reject everything they say.” 106Leo Srole and Jeanette Green, “Psychological Impact of Newspaper and Radio Advertisements,” February 1949, box 115, BASR Archive.

157 one respondent. “Too dramatic presentation of the product makes me doubt their entire truthfulness. I prefer the calmer, more factual advertisements.”

Radio ads elicited much stronger feelings than newspaper ads, but higher- educated women had a much greater propensity to dislike them: relative to women who lacked a high school diploma, college-educated women were three times more likely to dislike “high-pressure” radio ads. “They kept hammering on one word over and over until it drove me almost crazy,” said one respondent reacting to a radio ad. “They seemed to be talking down to us—as though they were trying to impress a child. It makes me antagonistic toward the product.” But many lower-educated women preferred radio advertising, which was often accompanied by music in way that was “pleasant” to take,

“like sugar-coating on a pill,” according to one respondent. What lower-educated women regarded as humor, higher-educated women responded to with disdain. Most respondents found the “factual” content in newspaper ads to be more credible than the claims of radio ads, but women of low education—who tended to base their judgments on the voice, delivery, “sincerity,” and personality of the announcer—were more inclined to believe radio ads with a “personal touch.” Many respondents saw the simple fact that a product was advertised as a proof of its quality and reliability because, they reasoned tautologically: if it were no good it would not sell, and if it did not sell it could not be advertised. Many women also believed that the claims of advertisers were subject to the oversight of government regulators looking for “false claims,” particularly if put down in the “black and white” of newspaper print.

158 Dichter’s New Consulting Firm Establishes Its Unique Qualitative Method

The lack education and critical reading skills prevalent among the lower classes could also impair listeners’ capacity to interpret more serious subject matter over the radio.107 Lazarsfeld, who was from his youth a deeply committed Social Democrat sensitive to class stratification,108 described a mode of media consumption and a hierarchy of tastes that defined the social classes. Dichter, in contrast, was a free-market enthusiast, and he tended to divide groups into psychological rather than economic categories, which were interpreted by advertisers as market segments. He established his method in the early studies completed by his Institute.

In a 1947 study for the Personal Finance Company, for example, Dichter divided groups of borrowers into three psychological types: “guilty,” “casual,” and “rational” borrowers.109 These categories were direct corollaries to the Freudian division of the subject: guilty borrowers were governed primarily by the superego, which incorporated social norms and prohibitions into the psyche; casual borrowers were dominated by the id, which represented basic human drives and desires; and rational borrowers operated on the level of the ego, the conscious, calculating part of the subject. Guilty borrowers composed the best potential market for the company, in Dichter’s view, but they ought to be approached with care because they were full of self-loathing for having to take out a loan, and they were liable to redirect this feeling of disdain toward the loan providers.

Casual borrowers, who rebelled against their strict upbringing by developing a cavalier

107Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Hans Speier, August 24, 1950, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. 108See David E. Morrison, The Search for a Method: Focus Groups and the Development of Mass Communication Research (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998). See also chapter 1. 109Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Research Study for the Personal Finance Company,” November 1947, box 2, folder, “Research Reports, 46A-46.2,” Dichter Hagley.

159 attitude towards indebtedness, were the company’s second-best prospects. One casual borrower, a twenty-eight-year old teacher, noted that his family believed in budgeting and planning for the future, but he rejected this attitude because it “takes the joy out of everything.” “I guess we live too high, but what the hell, it’s fun,” he said, speculating that he may have picked up his fatalistic attitude toward the future while serving in the army. “You only live once.” Dichter’s so-called “rational” borrowers were the weakest prospects for the loan company, because they tended to borrow from banks instead.

Dichter advised great care in approaching the touchy subject of loans with prospects. He recommended a particular emphasis on the “Personal” in customer service, so that loan seekers would know that they were not just “a card in a big file.” Dichter advised that the company’s advertisements should not suggest that anyone can get a loan, but that you—the one reading or hearing the ad—can meet the requirements. Customers should be encouraged to view the collateral they offer as valuable assets that may be “put to work” in securing a loan, not as objects to pawn. Money, in general, was a very touchy subject, because it was closely related to status and indicative of a person’s “whole pattern of living.” One’s personal wealth was, moreover, a signifier of salvation, “proof of a man’s success or failure in life.” The loan officer was not just dealing with sums of money and repayment conditions, but with a man’s pride. Seeking loans from finance companies was a source of shame for many borrowers, and Dichter compared the relationship to a man’s contact with a girl “of loose morals”: he would make use of the opportunity when there were not other viable alternatives, but he would be ashamed of it when it was all over.

Dichter had a predilection for “discovering” counterintuitive psychological

160 motivations for consumer behavior. In an effort to build his reputation as a marketing guru who could discern “hidden” meanings, Dichter would often publicize these findings through the trade press. Although the findings that he reported were based on real studies, he would often exaggerate one particular finding that was counterintuitive. He often emphasized this kind of “discovery,” even if it was more of a speculative interpretation or only one of many findings.

In an oft-cited 1948 study for American Airlines, for example, Dichter found that the fear of flying stemmed from anxiety over “post-mortem ridicule,” because many respondents felt that flying was unnecessary, frivolous, and even silly.110 “I’m not afraid of dying any more than any good Christian man is,” said one middle-aged subject, “but I want to die naturally, in my own bed and with my loved ones around me when the day comes, not all smashed up so they have to bring me back in a cigar box.” Flying was seen by many as tempting fate, pushing the boundaries of man’s biological limitations.

“Man wasn’t meant to fly,” said a retired fireman. “If he had been we’d have been given wings. It’s unnatural, against the laws of nature—gravity and all those things.” The proper antidote to this backwards, conservative attitude, Dichter recommended to his client, was to stress that the progressive man in the modern world was not meant to stay in one spot, and flying was a utilitarian aid to that kind of progress. Air travelers should be encouraged to feel “progressive and alive,” “self-confident and courageous,” and not

“passive, cowardly, an escapist, afraid of progress.” They should also be reassured that they could put their trust and confidence in the airline, and that flying was progressive transportation that would lend them social prestige for their modern attitudes.

110Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Study of American Airlines” February 1948, box 3, folder “58A- 58B,” Dichter Hagley.

161 Cultural Values and Consumer Attitudes

The manifestation of culture in consumer behavior was a common theme in the reports on market studies conducted by Dichter and Lazarsfeld. Consumer practices are meaningful social acts embedded in American cultural norms, and consumers’ resistance to change is something that advertisers have constantly striven to overcome. Lazarsfeld justified his own work—and the work of his colleagues in public opinion and market research—by noting that it would produce a cultural record that would have tremendous value to future historians. “The pollster as a contemporary historian thus takes on considerable importance,” Lazarsfeld said to his fellow pollsters in 1950. “What he considers worthy of a survey will, in later years, influence the range of possible historical inquiries.” Social research could transform contemporary sentiments and opinions into facts for the historian. He pointed to David Riesman’s recently-published Lonely Crowd as an excellent example of the use of cultural data in history to diagnose a contemporary political problem. He thought that public opinion could be a kind of communal psychoanalysis, and that it could serve social ends by studying such sentiments as class identification and cultural anxieties.111

A 1949 BASR study for a New York men’s clothing retailer, based on in-store observation and twenty-four interviews in several northeastern cities, examined the role of culture and social structure on the “basic motivations” that guided male style and dress behavior.112 The study was more qualitative and speculative than the typical study

111Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Obligations of the 1950 Pollster to the 1984 Historian,” Public Opinion Quarterly 14, no. 4 (Winter 1950-51): 617-38. 112Babette Kass and J. Mayone Stycos, “A Conceptual Analysis of Motivation in Men’s Clothing Behavior: Volume 1,” presented to Robbin, Barber & Baar (New York) by the Advertising and Marketing Division, BASR, October 1949, box 116, BASR Archive.

162 conducted at Lazarsfeld’s Bureau. It was almost Dichter-like, relying on psychoanalytic

“depth” interviews to produce several consumer typologies. The authors of the report described the small sample of depth interviews as an “economical compromise” between a thorough psychological analysis of one individual and a representative sampling of a larger population. Larger quantitative surveys were useful, the authors maintained, but they operated entirely on the level of consciousness, and could not reveal unconscious motivations. The smaller sample was justified, in this case, because each individual was viewed as a “microcosm” representing the environmental influences of family, culture, and society.

The report highlighted four “cultural determinants” that defined conservatism in the American man’s behavior in dress: the Puritan Legacy, Sex Differentiation in a

Competitive Society, Ascetic Capitalism, and the Anglo-Saxon Concept of Dress. These cultural factors conspired to produce a general condition of “Brummelphobia,” or the fear of dressing conspicuously. The “puritan tinge,” which enforced a severe form of dress, was still evident in some sections of the country, and an ascetic form of capitalism attributed to Benjamin Franklin exalted thrift and simplicity and spurned frivolousness in dress. The “drab unobtrusiveness” of men’s clothing was, furthermore, seen as a kind of protection against female competition in the labor market, because women’s ostentation served to “disfunctionalize” their role in the workforce relative to the “stripped for action” man. Native Anglo-Saxons of high status also had a sense of noblesse oblige and sought to define themselves through asceticism against the more “colorful” styles of

Mediterranean immigrants of the lower classes. Certain professions, moreover, seemed to encourage a general disregard, or at least disinterest, for proper dress: the disheveled

163 professor in tattered tweeds was, by then, a well-established cliché. There was, finally, a fear that flamboyant dressing would mark one as a “sissy.”113

And yet, despite these cultural imperatives toward conservatism, the study found a

“contradictory tendency” in American culture that rejected conformity and exalted individualism—the democratic right of everyone to do as he or she pleases within the bounds of civil society. This was in accord with the ideology of “free enterprise,” which encouraged risk-taking and entrepreneurial activity. The most “clothes-aware” men were presumed to be businessmen and salesmen, because their jobs required them to make a positive impression in a short period of time. At the far end of this spectrum was the

“Clothes Reveler,” who risked exposing a deficit in his ego-structure through an excessive concern for his manner of dress.

Clothing projected a public persona that signified profession and class; it was a way to articulate a social identity. But even clothing that was confined to the domestic sphere could signify a class association. A 1958 BASR study for the National

Association of Shirt, Pajama and Sportswear Manufacturers revealed that both white- collar and blue-collar respondents believed that the wearing of pajamas was mainly restricted to men in the middle and upper classes who were professionals or businessmen of some kind.114 Pajama-wearers tended to view non-wearers as rugged, non-conformist individualists, at best, and as lazy, careless slobs, at worst. “He’s a drifter,” said one wearer of the typical non-wearer, “not careful about his clothes or his manners.” Wearers

113“Well, I’ll tell you, men’s fashions change slowly because they don’t think about it much, and they don’t sit around talking about it all the time the way women do—not unless they’re pansies they don’t,” said one respondent. “Of course, they do.....but then, they’re actually women in men’s clothes after all.” 114Yole G. Sills, “Manufacturers, Retailers and Consumers: An Exploratory Study of the Men’s Pajama Industry,” report prepared for the National Association of Shirt, Pajama and Sportswear Manufacturers, Janyart 1958, box 125, BASR Archive.

164 tended to view non-wearers as having a lower status. “There is a class thing involved...he just doesn’t know any better,” said one wearer. “The better class person would tend to know better and wear pajamas.” Non-wearers tended to agree that pajama-wearing men were probably better educated, wealthier, and from higher-status families. But some had a markedly negative view of the pajama-wearing man as an “idiot” or a “sissy.” One respondent imagined such a man as middle-class and “sort of compulsive,” while another saw him as an “old fuddy-duddy, conservative, stick-in-the-mud type of man.” The authors of the Bureau report suggested that the study could be useful to its client for its presentation of an “inventory of comments” that could help advertising copy writers to relate to the real experiences of consumers.

Two Approaches to Betty Crocker: Lazarsfeld’s Bureau and Dichter’s Institute

The authors of these more speculative studies, who employed depth interviews and attempted to define several consumer typologies, departed from the more statistical, scientific method that was usually practiced by the sociologists employed at Lazarsfeld’s

Bureau. More typically, Lazarsfeld and his BASR colleagues used the methods and machines of quantitative sociology. A series of 1946 studies for General Mills, for example employed a range of market research strategies that characterized the Bureau’s approach.115 The studies examined a radio program, “The General Mills Hour,” which included serial dramas interspersed with commercials for General Mills products and a segment featuring the company’s trade character, the cheery, helpful homemaker, Betty

Crocker. The study sampled a representative group of 267 women living in Syracuse,

115Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The General Mills Hour: A Report on Program Analyzer Tests of Three Sample Programs,” BASR, May 1946, box 115, BASR Archive.

165 New York, who were recruited through a house-to-house canvass and enticed to participate by the promise of a food package at the conclusion of the test. The subjects recorded their responses to the radio program by means of the Lazarsfeld-Stanton

Program Analyzer. While listening to a radio program in groups of twenty, subjects were asked to push a red button to indicate “dislike,” or a green button to indicate “like, or refrain from pushing either button if they felt indifferent. The results were recorded second-by-second on a tape synchronized with the program, and then averaged and graphed in relation to the segments of the program. Subjects were categorized according to social categories like education and income level, represented by different lines on the graph, so that researchers could determine which parts of the program were most appealing to various market segments. After listening to the programs, subjects filled out questionnaires and participated in a one-hour discussion period, which was recorded verbatim. Researchers used “focused” interviews to determine the psychological motivations that underlay subjects’ responses.116

The test showed that the Betty Crocker segment was liked as well or better than the serials, but the women with more education preferred the instructive segment, while the women with less education were fonder of the serials. The Betty Crocker personality was viewed as more than just a vehicle for recipes; respondents also saw her as a kind of philosopher who dispensed advice on problems common to the homemaker. Though many subjects saw Betty Crocker as “just an advertiser” who always recommended

General Mills products, some respondents were not sure whether she was an advertiser or

“part of the stories.” Some resented her “greater education and training,” discrediting her

116Marjorie Fiske and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Columbia Office of Radio Research,” Hollywood Quarterly 1, no. 1 (October 1945): 51-9.

166 as a “career women” who did not really understand the problems of homemakers. For this reason, Lazarsfeld recommended that the image of Betty Crocker should be given further dimensions and a truer personality that was filled out with the mundane details of her daily life and personal history. Such details would flesh out the character as a “real person” who could be trusted as an adviser.

There was considerable confusion among respondents as to whether Betty

Crocker was a real person. In another BASR study, about half of the subjects—319 women in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—believed that she was merely a trade name adopted to “personalize” the General Mills “experimental kitchen” and products like Gold Medal

Flour, and they understood that she was merely an actor reading a script. But the other half of the sample believed that she was a genuine “food specialist” trained in the General

Mills testing kitchen.117 Another BASR study in 1950, which was based on Program

Analyzer tests and interviews with 352 Syracuse women, sought to ascertain how audiences would respond to a television program featuring an actress portraying Betty

Crocker. The study found that respondents had established in their minds an “audio- visual” perception or idealized concept of Betty Crocker derived from years of exposure to the “folksy kitchen advisor” through radio and print media. When presented with the televisual image of Betty Crocker, many respondents knew, on an intellectual level, that she was merely an actress portraying a character, but they attempted to push this notion

“deep in the back of their minds.” But their warm regard for the personification they had could be thwarted by the actor’s portrayal, which threatened to contradict their mental image and thus come off as “unpleasant.” The study also found that young, educated

117Charles Y. Glock and Jeanette Green, “Program Analyzer Tests of Six Betty Crocker Programs,” BASR, n.d., box 115, BASR Archive.

167 respondents, who were “imbued with the sophistication bugaboo against advertising,” were more critical of commercial representations than older, less educated women.118

The very different methodologies employed by Dichter and Lazarsfeld are evident in their respective approaches to the same subject. Dichter’s Institute also conducted a study in 1953 on General Mills’s Betty Crocker character, based on 200 depth interviews with women, mostly housewives, from the Midwest, West, and Northeast regions of the

U.S.119 To avoid prompting rationalized answers from respondents, interviewers were instructed by Dichter to not mention the exact purpose of the study. They were to probe the specific subject of Betty Crocker only when it was brought up by the respondent after directed questioning. The study found that eighty-five percent of respondents “attributed realism” to Betty Crocker. Forty-six percent related to her as a real person who was either a housewife, a dietician, a home economist, or a “career woman” who specialized in cooking, and another thirty-nine percent saw her as a role played by an actor “in a realistic fashion.”

The Institute’s report suggested that women tended to project their own self- image, characteristics, and needs onto the Betty Crocker character, who functioned as a bridge between themselves and a large, “impersonal” organization—yet she was not entirely a creature of General Mills. Absent a trade character, a large company would find it difficult to establish a personal connection with consumers.120 “I think she is a real

118Kingsley Davis, “Evaluation of the Proposed Betty Crocker Television Program,” conducted for General Mills, Inc., October 1950, box 119, BASR Archive. 119“A Psychological Research Study on the Effectiveness of Betty Crocker in Promoting General Mills Products,” submitted to General Mills, Inc. by Ernest Dichter, Institute for Research in Mass Motivations, Inc., May 1953, box 8, folder “Acc. 2407, 158B-158C,” Dichter Hagley. 120While Dow Chemical Company, makers of Saran Wrap, was generally believed to be a hygienic company, one respondent in an Institute study complained that the company seemed “impersonal” and “non-human. “It makes no contact on a person-to-person basis.” “A Motivational Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Saran Wrap,” submitted to Dow Chemical Company by IMR, October 1955, Signatur-Nr. 715 (IMR 560C), Dichter Vienna. Another Institute study from 1955

168 person and is quite genuine and that is why I put a great deal of confidence in her,” said one respondent, a “balanced” homemaker, according to Dichter’s typology. “Anyway, if she is a trade name or not, I like to feel she is real.” Respondents in this category would readily admit that there might not be a real Betty Crocker, but the character seemed real because her interests were similar enough to her own. Housewives of the “homebody” type, on the other hand, were most likely to believe in the existence of a real Betty

Crocker. The “career” woman, meanwhile, was the most sophisticated type, who viewed

Betty Crocker as merely a trade name assumed by a leading home economist employed by the General Mills testing kitchen.121

According to Dichter’s report, the modern woman had an emotional need for the

Betty Crocker character, who filled a vacuum left by the absence of the “Grandma ideal” that had guided women of earlier generations. She was a figure admired for projecting dignity, importance, intelligence, and creativity on the role of the homemaker, which was important because twentieth-century women had opportunities available to them outside the home. Many women felt apologetic about their role as housewives, Dichter noted, even rejecting the term itself as derogatory. For this reason, Betty Crocker was a

considered the viability of Duncan Hines, a popular restaurant reviewer, as an endorser of cake mixes and other products. While Betty Crocker appealed to a “feminine-homebody type,” Duncan Hines was more attractive to a “modern,” “emancipated” type of housewife and the “career woman” who was intellectually curious and had interests “beyond the range of the range.” These women refused to “submerge their personalities” in the kitchen, and they saw Duncan Hines as a sophisticated “ally” who could help them to get more satisfaction from cooking. They believed in him as an arbiter of taste who could help them move up in the social scale, from the lower-middle class to the upper-middle class. The college-educated woman was inclined to reject the “housewife” association of Betty Crocker and Ann Pillsbury in favor of the more “sophisticated” Duncan Hines. “A Motivational Research Study on the Personality of Duncan Hines as an Endorser of Cake Mix and Other Products,” submitted to Hines- Park Company by IMR, October 1955, Signatur-Nr. 659 (IMR 528C), Dichter Vienna. 121In her chapter on “The Sexual Sell” in The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan does a lengthy critique of Dichter’s practice of motivational research and his reduction of women to consumer types. However, she does give credit to “the manipulators” (Dichter is unnamed, but clearly identifiable) for discovering that “housewives have complex needs which home-and-family, love-and-children, cannot fill.” Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963).

169 welcome example of how a housewife could achieve success and recognition through homemaking activities. “Here is an intelligent and successful career woman and what does she do?” said one respondent. “She cooks and plans meals as I do.” This trust and admiration translated into sales from women who followed Betty Crocker’s advice to use

Gold Medal Flour and other General Mills products—though most respondents had only a vague notion that she was sponsored by the company. There was a risk, however, that women could come to resent Betty Crocker for her too-perfect character and flawless cooking. They also feared that the value of their culinary accomplishments would be diminished and instead attributed to a pre-packaged Betty Crocker mix. For this reason,

Dichter advised that Betty Crocker recipes should, in some way, allow for the creativity and originality of the homemaker. This might be as simple as adding an egg—one of his most frequently cited insights.

Dichter’s report also compared Betty Crocker to some other trade characters, such as Aunt Jenny and Aunt Jemima, who were perceived as less threatening because they were aunts, who were friendly advisers, and not mothers, who could be commanders. In a bluntly unflattering way, Dichter compared Aunt Jemima to another trade character,

Elsie the Cow, who also had certain “humorous” and “unreal” qualities. Aunt Jemima was patterned along the stereotype of the “Negro Mammy,” according to the report:

“She’s fat, funny, perhaps a little lazy, a wonderful cook, sunny, and loving. She has certain elements of the unperturbed, docile, singing child.” She brought with her the connotation of “relaxed” and “enjoyable” homemaking because she represented the Old

South. She was an “escape” for the tired housewife, essentially a slave who would lighten the burden of her household chores by offering a “ready” mix for easy

170 preparation. “That Negro image for me stands for quality. The quality of the old South,” said one respondent. “I don’t quite know why, but I too would enjoy being cared for by a

Southern mammy and to live the gracious life in a white pillared house.”

Ultimately, Dichter determined that this image was “psychologically appropriate” because it suggested abundance, pleasure, happiness, and the “traditional quality” of being served in “the grand manner.”122 The political implications of such racialized sentiments were beside the point for Dichter: he sought to discover and describe the cultural connotations—including associated fears, prejudices, and bigotry—of corporate brands and trade characters. This knowledge, along with insight into consumer motivations, could be used by his clients as they saw fit, and Dichter withheld judgment.

The “Personality” of the Brand

Examining brand’s “personality”—which was not necessarily associated with a trade character like Betty Crocker—was a staple of Dichter’s special consulting services.

A 1947 study for the brewers of Narragansett, a New England beer borrowing its name from an American Indian tribe, found that the name was “heavily loaded” with previous associations that might interfere with the company’s desired brand connotation.123

Dichter found that, while consumers liked to express their individuality through their consumer choices—especially in personalized categories such as beer and cigarettes— they also had a psychological need for social sanction of their uncertain tastes.

Narragansett, according to Dichter, was not sufficiently known to give the consumer the

122“The Use of Symbolism in Commercial Communications,” Motivations 3, no. 2 (June 1958), box 151, folder 39, Dichter Hagley. 123Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Study of the Personality of Narragansett,” December 1947, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 47A-47.1A,” Dichter Hagley.

171 satisfied feeling that he was acting “in good taste” by choosing it. Dichter noted that, while consumers were generally poor judges of taste, they had a need to express themselves on the subject. It was not that the particular taste made the brand favored, but rather: the “brand makes the taste liked.” Because the flavor of Narragansett was not sufficiently distinct to stand out much from the competition, Dichter advised that, through the vehicle of advertising, the brewers should provide the consumer with a “clear and vivid vocabulary” with which to “rationally” express himself. This vocabulary could include such phrases as “thirst-quencher” and “the cold beer,” coupled with an origin story about Narragansett that stressed its New England heritage and “old-fashioned” brewing technique that was more like the work of an artist than that of an industrialist.

“The more closely woven this aura becomes,” Dichter advised, “the more readily acceptable it will make the specific claims about Narragansett’s quality.”124 Technical claims about a product were insufficient, according to Dichter. In order to arouse the emotions of the consuming public, they needed a product story, a vocabulary of distinction, and a feeling of social acceptability.125

The automobile was perhaps the most socially significant of all consumer goods.

Education in the prestige hierarchy of the various makes and models of cars began at an early age, as children compared cars owned by their own family with the cars of their friends’ families. This was not “idle play,” according to Dichter, but a definite indicator of future attitudes toward cars. The car classification system ingrained in consumers

124The value of such an image, infused with a sense of heritage, was also found in a 1951 BASR study that affirmed the value of a slogan for Old Reading Beer, “Traditionally Pennsylvania Dutch.” “A Preliminary Appraisal of the Old Reading Beer Slogan, ‘Traditionally Pennsylvania Dutch,’” prepared for J.D. Tarcher & Company, August 1951, box 120, BASR Archive. 125Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological View of Advertising Effectiveness,” The Journal of Marketing, July 1949.

172 developed from a combination of prejudice and memories.

In a 1950 study for the advertising agency of the automobile manufacturer Nash, based on sixty-nine depth interviews, Dichter divided the automobile market into two categories: conventional, which included the cars of General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford; and non-conventional, which included Studebaker, Hudson, Packard, Kaiser, and all foreign-made cars.126 These categories corresponded with two types of buyers:

Conservative and Independent. Conservative buyers needed social acceptance, but

Independent buyers wanted to express their individuality. Nash, however, was something of an “in-between” car, though its odd, oval shape made it an unlikely choice for

Conservative buyers, who required social sanction for their consumer choices. Buying a

Nash car was different from buying a Chevrolet, for example, because the owner exposed himself as someone who did not necessarily do the “widely approved” thing that had social reassurance. Some Nash owners admitted insecurity in their consumer choice.127

Many potential Nash buyers of the Conservative bent were held back by a fear of doing something that appeared foolish, but the car was a potential avenue of self-expression for the Independent buyer. Somewhat vaguely—his recommendations were often the weakest part of his studies—Dichter advised Nash’s advertising agents to fashion ads that produced “positive ego-involvement” for both types of buyers and induced a “mental rehearsal” of the purchase.

Dichter’s blunt bifurcation of consumer groups and products on the basis of

126Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Research Survey on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Nash Cars,” submitted to Geyer, Newell & Ganger, Inc., April 1950, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 51C,” Dichter Hagley. 127“What I don’t like about my Nash is that my friends make fun of it all the time,” said one respondent. “They say it looks like a football. […] If I could afford it, I would like an Oldsmobile or a Buick. [...] With the Nash, you have to apologize too much for it, looking funny.”

173 psychology—in contrast to the economic or social categories analyzed by Lazarsfeld— was a common trope in his early reports. A 1950 study for the advertising agency employed by the distillers of Lord Calvert whiskey, based on depth interviews with 162 men and three women, distinguished between “whiskey-secure” consumers, who were confident in their judgment in spirits, and “whiskey-insecure” types, who were not.128

Insecure types were particularly concerned with how their whiskey would reflect on their status and rank in the eyes of their peers, and they needed a vocabulary culled from ad copy to defend their choice.129 According to the report, most respondents—about three- quarters—were very poor judges of the quality of whiskey; these consumers relied on convenient rationalizations and the repetition of advertising claims for their opinions. A twenty-eight-year-old “Negro Taxi-driver,” for example, drank “Calvert’s” whiskey because it was 90-proof, a “better type of whiskey than the ordinary type that is just cooked.” Because consumers chose brands of liquor based on the imagined changes the spirit would produce within themselves, Dichter recommended advertising that promised dramatic changes in mood and status. Lord Calvert’s “Man of Distinction” slogan was a powerful form of such advertising, particularly for consumers who were insecure in their social position. “Whiskey is purchased on the basis of what he thinks the group expects or wants,” Dichter found, “rather than purely according to his own personal preference.”

And yet the potential customer wanted to be flattered through advertising, which explicitly called out to “you.” However, if ads were too explicit in calling out to you, 128Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Survey of the Sales and Advertising Problems of LORD CALVERT Whiskey,” submitted to Geyer, Newell & Ganger, Inc., April 1950, box 5, folder ““Research Report, 95C,” Dichter Hagley. 129Different groups of consumers could be reached by directed appeals in in the right kind of media. One respondent, the wife of a sales manager at a clothing firm, reported that she was anxiously planning a dinner party with a “big executive” and his wife, who owned a Cadillac. Worried about how her choice of spirits would reflect on her status, she bought a bottle of Peter Dawson scotch, presumed to be very good because it was advertised in the New Yorker.

174 they ran the risk of being rejected, because consumers were more likely to identify with a product through the creation of a desirable scene in which they wanted to participate.130

The status hierarchy of branded consumer products extended to the commonest commodities, such as soft drinks. Dichter directed forty depth interviews for a 1951 study on the “sales and advertising” problems of Pepsi-Cola, vis-à-vis its main rival,

Coca-Cola.131 He found that Pepsi—partly because of its larger size, which indicated a lack of potency—was inferior in social value to Coke. Because soft drinks were guilt- inducing, sinful self-indulgence in the minds of consumers, any utilitarian criteria for brand preference were “irrelevant,” according to Dichter. Sucking on a bottle of sweet soda fulfilled an infantile oral need, and it was addictive like “dope,” a nickname for cola in the South. Owing to its larger size, Pepsi was a greater source of shame in this regard, because it was seen as sacrificing quality for the “indiscriminate and childish” desire for greater quantity. “I would say that a person that drinks Coca Cola is on a higher plane than a person that drinks Pepsi Cola,” said one respondent. “I personally prefer quality to quantity and do not think to highly of persons who are more concerned with quantity than quality.” Pepsi was seen as less glamorous and sophisticated, and more “proletarian” than Coke, which had an “aura of ‘class’” built up through advertising, according to one respondent. The packaging was a key element in Coca-Cola’s superiority: it came in a

“dignified, beautifully fashioned” green-glass bottle that invited the grip of the thirsty consumer. This was complemented by the silver-and-red cap that bore the brand name,

“Coca-Cola,’ in a “refined” script. The Pepsi bottle, twice the size, was “clumsy” in

130“The Use of Symbolism in Commercial Communications,” Motivations 3, no. 2 (June 1958), box 151, folder 39, Dichter Hagley. 131Ernest Dichter, “Progress Report on a Psychological Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Pepsi Cola,” submitted to The Biow Company, April 1951, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 107B- 108C,” Dichter Hagley.

175 comparison.

Packaging lent meaning to products in subtle ways that were not always consciously apprehended by consumers. In the postwar era of self-service in retail, the role of the package as a selling device that encapsulated the personality of the product became increasingly important. Dichter advised that packages should “speak,” as though to one person; they should offer the consumer a focus of interest to invite the gaze and curious hand of the shopper. Packages had to affect a dialogue with consumers that had

“all the drama and vitality of a living relationship.” Master designers like the German

émigré Walter Landor132 could lend prestige and “status-value” to products like whiskey through their evocative designs. According to Dichter, images on mass-market packages ought to be seductive, tension-producing invitations—an illustration of a cake on a cake mix, for example, could reveal its “true personality” of indulgence and abundance to the point that it “bleeds off” the box on both edges. Cake was an indulgence, so an image that bled off the side of the package was appropriate; ice cream was also an indulgence, so a cylindrical package with no definite edge suggested infinite abundance. But the illusion of infinity on packages for other products, such as baked beans and margarine, was inappropriate. Instead, consumers wanted an indication that the beans were homemade—not mass-produced—and they wanted reassurance that the margarine was

“pure” and “natural.” The manufacturer also needed to consider the latent needs of consumers, such as the housewife’s desire for creativity in baking and cooking, in designing the package. Dichter suggested that a packet of something extra, like a vial of jelly, should be included in the package of a cake mix so that the housewife was not

132Landor is the subject of chapter five.

176 completely excluded from the industrial process.

A package could also be designed to invite “manipulatory pleasure,” such as the flip-top package for Marlboro cigarettes; or it could be designed for oral pleasure, like the beer bottle, which might suggest a breast, according to Dichter. Paradoxically, the ideal package would lead the consumer to the point where it was no longer necessary, disappearing to reveal the essence of the product apart from the substance of the package.

A packaging material like cellophane might help marketers serve this function through its transparency, but it also could create a sense of artificiality that could contradict the desired association of certain products such as bread. According to a 1947 study by

Dichter, cellophane wrapping was a reminder of impersonal, factory-made products, but consumers’ desired connotations of bread related to such things as family life, fireplaces, and mother. On the other hand, the wrapping proved that the bread had been untouched, assuring consumers that they were getting their bread in a “virginal” state. Some respondents alluded to a latent racial prejudice: they felt that cellophane was only suitable for dark breads, like whole wheat or pumpernickel, but would expose the shameful

“nakedness” of a white bread.133

133“How to Design a Psychologically Effective Package, Part IV: A summary of the Main Findings of Three Motivation Research Studies on Modern Packaging Conducted by the Institute for Research in Mass Motivations for the Paraffined Carton Research Council,” March 1955, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 103.3A-103.4C(1),” Dichter Hagley; Ernest Dichter, “The Man in the Package,” brochure published by the Paraffined Carton Research Council, 1957, box 171, folder 60, Dichter Hagley; Ernest Dichter, “Motivational Research Can Uncover Hidden Wants of Consumer Pertaining to Packaging of Products,” Food & Drug Packaging, box 171; “The Package – The Modern Salesman,” report submitted to Paraffined Carton Research Council, Chicago, Illinois, by the Institute for Motivational Research, August 1956, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 103.2C-103.2E”; Ernest Dichter, “What Makes an Effective Package? Part II: The Package – A Bridge or Barrier to the Product,” May 1954, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 103.2C-103.2E”; Ernest Dichter, “Exploring Consumer Behavior,” Industrial Design, April 1966; Ernest Dichter, “An Exploratory Psychological Study of Consumer Reactions to Cellophane and Wax Paper Wrapped Bread,” December 1947, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 43C-43.1C,” Dichter Hagley.

177 Sexual Anxieties and Consumer Products

Dichter’s psychoanalytic interviews often exposed such unconscious associations, based in sexual desires or prohibitions, racial prejudices, gender anxieties, and other fears and neuroses that could affect consumer motivations. A 1951 study on tea drinking, for example, found that the beverage was insufficiently masculine in the minds of consumers.134 Similarly, A 1954 study for the manufacturer of filtered cigarette holders found that consumers’ willingness to adopt a holder was blocked by the product’s psycho-sexual connotations.135 The report came in the wake of the “cancer scare” that was prompted by the widely-publicized reports by the American Cancer Society and the

American Medical Association on the deleterious health effects of smoking. Filtered cigarette holders were one method by which smokers might reduce their health risks, along with filtered cigarettes and “cutting back” to an imagined “magic number”: twelve cigarettes a day. But the use of holders was rejected by most smokers as a conspicuous, socially-aggressive act that begged social judgment. “Smokers are more concerned about what others think of them than they are about the dangers to their health,” the report concluded. Smokers saw cigarette holders as too effeminate for men and too “daring” for most women—appropriate only for a “femme-fatale” type whose sexual insecurity was compensated by an ostentatious sexuality. Because of this problematic “sexual hybrid” personality of the cigarette holder, Dichter’s Institute recommended marketing two separate holders: one appropriately masculine one for men, and another for women.

Such sexual connotations were present in the most mundane consumer products.

134Ernest Dichter, “How to Make More People Drink Tea: A Psychological Research Study,” April 1951, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 102A-102F,” Dichter Hagley. 135“Cigarette Smoking Attitudes Today and Its Significance to Zeus Cigarette Holders” report submitted to Zeus Corporation, August 1954, box 16, folder “Acc. 2407, 438C – 440.1A,” Dichter Hagley.

178 A 1949 study on the marketing of Hexol, a household cleaning agent, revealed that an everyday consumer product carried myriad psychological associations.136 For example,

Dichter found an association between the notion of cleanliness and “Mother’s approval” of a responsible child, a notion that could be exploited through advertising. Consumers purchased cleaning products like Hexol and Lysol not on the basis of their chemical properties, Dichter found, but for the gratifying feeling of reassurance in the virtue of cleanliness that was conveyed through packaging and advertising. Many women read product labels very carefully, seeking confidence in the “germ-killing” function of the product. Dichter advised that Hexol should be distinguished through the color and imagery of its packaging, which could suggest “power” in such a way to distinguish it from competitors.137 A personified package would also encourage brand loyalty and relieve the beleaguered housewife’s “misery of choice.” A nurse pictured on the Hexol package was a positive image, according to Dichter, which inspired consumers’ confidence in the product. A product’s affective properties could be designed to produce desirable reactions, such as a strong odor, like “hospitals,” that signified a powerful cleaner. “I wouldn’t think it was clean if it smelled like flowers,” said one respondent, “it wouldn’t have any strength at all.” Maids wanted a pungent product to serve as a tangible symbol to their mistresses that they had done their job, though many housewives liked the “woodsy, pine” odor of Hexol, which, they believed, produced a “cooling” effect in their homes on hot summer days.

136Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Research Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Hexol,” April 1949, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 38C-39,” Dichter Hagley. 137Dichter found that many women used household cleaning as a way to relieve pent-up aggression. “When life gets annoying and nothing seems to go right, I find it helps me to do a complete housecleaning,” said one subject. “I can wade right in and shove the furniture around, and wring out the cloths twice as hard as necessary, and somehow when I finish up, I’m not so mad at the world.”

179 Dichter also reported that the product served functions beyond household cleaning: many women used it for douching, despite doctors’ warnings that such aggressive cleansing was not necessary and possibly harmful. Dichter posited that Hexol, when used as a douche, served much the same function that it did in the bathroom: women sought to “clean up” natural functions about which they harbored feelings of

“indecency and guilt.” “Someone was telling me the other day that the vaginal tract is self-cleansing,” said one respondent. “Just the same I don’t feel really clean unless I take regular douches as a routine thing. I begin to feel self-conscious if I don’t, as if I shouldn’t go out in public.” Because Dichter saw douching as “self-punishment to relieve anxiety feelings,” he noted that advertising copy appeals that touted the strength of the product for bathroom cleaning were also appropriate as allusions to this private function.

Many of Dichter’s early studies quite explicitly addressed the issue of female sexuality as expressed in relation to common consumer products. A study for the advertising agency responsible for developing a campaign for Palmolive Soap, based on ninety-five depth interviews with women aged twelve to fifty years, revealed the prevalence of an obsessive concern for the value of “purity,” particularly among adolescent girls.138 Bathing, according to Dichter, was a kind of expurgation, but it was also a psychological battlefield in a conflict between a desire for moral purity and an irrepressible sexual awakening. The color of a soap was deeply significant in this regard: a white soap conveyed a proof of purity, whiled an off-white or colored soap evoked

138Ernest Dichter, “The Adolescent Soap Market: Development of Soap Attitudes in Young Women and Girls with Specific Reference to Palmolive Soap,” submitted to Ted Bates Company, Inc., n.d., box 5, folder, “Research Reports, 93-93D,” Dichter Hagley.

180 different connotations.139 “The first thing that I like about Ivory and not about other soaps is its clean, white appearance,” said one respondent. “I slightly dislike Palmolive because it’s green, and Camay because it’s sort of off white—it’s yellowish and that to me doesn’t give the appearance of cleanliness.” Another subject found the green color of

Palmolive to be “masculine” relative to soaps like Ivory, which promised purity, and

Lux, which came in a glamorous package decorated with illustrations of flowers that were “definitely feminine.” A brick-shaped soap had masculine connotations, whereas an ovoid-shaped, strongly-scented soap had distinctly feminine connotations.140

For advertisers, it was crucial that their messages were not “wrong” in some fundamental way, and Dichter promised to reveal the “true” meaning of a product and its promotions through his psychoanalytic investigations. In 1952, Dichter was commissioned by an advertising agency to do a study on the marketing of Raleigh

Cigarettes, which were known for offering “premiums,” or coupons, with each pack.141

The coupons could be collected by regular smokers and redeemed for various household consumer goods. This sort of accounting mechanism, by which a smoker could rationalize his habit as a contribution to a discounted purchase, appealed to a certain type

139This principle applied to other products as well, including bedsheets. Dichter’s studies revealed an “emotional resistance” to pink, nylon bedsheets, which were associated with immorality. Ernest Dichter, “How to Exploit Untapped Opportunities for Tricot,” speech before the Tricot Institute of America, Inc., New York Hilton Hotel, August 27, 1963, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley. However, certain modern, synthetic fabrics lacked the power to “titillate the senses” like natural fibers such as silk. Ernest Dichter, “Love that Fiber!” American Fabrics, Summer 1962. 140“The Package – The Modern Salesman,” report submitted to Paraffined Carton Research Council, Chicago, Illinois, by the Institute for Motivational Research, August 1956, box 6, folder “Research Reports, 103.2C-103.2E,” Dichter Hagley. Dichter also studied the meaning of shampooing for women, finding that it was a special, festive occasion that called for an emphasis on luxury, not economy. An advertising campaign for Helene Curtis shampoo that asked consumers, “Why Pay a Dollar?” departed from this feeling and was thus “dangerously wrong” from a psychological perspective. Ernest Dichter, memo to James Witherell of the Russel M. Seeds Co. on Helene Curtis Shampoo, n.d., box 5, folder “Research Reports, 100C-100.1F,” Dichter Hagley. 141Ernest Dichter, “A Psychological Study of Eight Raleigh Cigarette Advertisements,” report submitted to Mr. James Witherell, Russel M. Seeds Company, October 1952, box 6, folder,“Research Reports, 104A- 104F,” Dichter Hagley.

181 of person. However, Dichter believed that it was incongruous with the activity of smoking, which was widely understood as a slightly sinful activity and a luxury for which most people did not want to “atone.” What is more, the image of coupon-collector was not considered to be part of an attractive personality. “The premium business is very degrading—only people like housewives use it,” said one respondent. “Anybody who smokes a Raleigh would probably be a person with a weakness for...trying to get something for nothing,” said another. Respondents did not want to have to justify their habit, and they rejected a test ad that alluded to the premiums by proclaiming, “It Makes

Sense to Smoke Raleigh!” Instead, Dichter advised the use of advertising that centered on the concept of fun rather than guilt: “People do not want to be reminded of their wastefulness—they feel they have a right to waste money in smoke.” If the company were to continue offering premiums, Dichter recommended that they be promoted as a

“gift,” not as a means of atonement for a filthy habit.142 The most successful ad tested, according to Dichter, featured the slogan, “Go ahead—light it,” which alluded to the sinful and possibly sexual nature of smoking, and instilled in subjects a feeling of anticipation for the gratification of the smoking act.

Dichter, who often alluded to Freudian psychoanalytic insights, did not shy away from exploring the latent sexual psychology at work in the world of commodities. He knew that such titillating findings, whatever their scientific credibility, brought attention to his methods—and more business along with it. In both his focus on sexuality and in his qualitative methodology he had a contemporary in Alfred Kinsey. Dichter frequently

142The sales technique of tying purchases to premiums was widely used in another field: children’s cereals. Some resented the practice as a gimmick, and dismissed the prizes as worthless junk, but others enjoyed the game. “A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna.

182 compared his psychoanalytic “depth” interviews to the method used by Kinsey in his studies on human sexuality, which was receiving much attention in the period.143 Indeed,

Dichter’s focus on the sexuality inherent in the consumer’s relationship to commodities had a corollary in Kinsey’s revelations about the potential commodification of sex.

Specifically, Kinsey’s finding that young, middle-class white men were more likely to fantasize about sex—rather than acting it out like their working-class peers—revealed a new niche market to Hugh Hefner, who established the bachelor lifestyle magazine

Playboy, which featured soft-core pornography, to fill it.144 Similarly, a 1951 Institute study for the publishers of the men’s magazine True revealed the degree to which it served as a cherished male sanctuary in an increasingly feminized world.145 True offered the male reader “masculine reassurance and gratifications and aids him in his fight for security.” It offered a refuge for the man who felt “threatened” by modern culture. In articles about sports, guns, automobiles, and the Old West, the magazine glorified the

“aggressive, daring, outspoken and free male” who was characterized by a “lustful sexuality and strong natural instincts.” The editorial voice of True was terse and “rough”:

“This is the way they would like to talk,” the report concluded.

Motivational Research Becomes a Cultural Phenomenon

By the early 1950s, the new method of “motivational” market research practiced

143Dichter’s method was explained thusly in a report commissioned by a cigarette vending machine company: “It is basically the same kind of psychological depth interview used by Dr. Kinsey, but commercially applied to special problems.” “A Presentation to the Philip Morris Co. Concerning the Value and Prestige of ‘Round the Clock’ Advertising on the Rowe Diplomat Cigarette Vending Machine,” ca. 1949, box 2, folder “Research Reports, 54A-54D,” Dichter Hagley. 144James Gilbert, Men in the Middle: Searching for Masculinity in the 1950s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 101-2. 145“Why People Read True: A Psychological Research Study,” report submitted to Fawcett Publications by Ernest Dichter, Inc., 1951, Signatur-Nr. 138 (IMR 108C), Dichter Vienna.

183 by Dichter, Lazarsfeld, and others began to receive attention in the trade, business, and popular press. An article in a 1953 market research newsletter observed that the new method incorporated psychology, sociology, and anthropology in order to delve into the

“emotional forces” of mass consumer markets toward the end of discovering better sales appeals.146 Some large advertising agencies, such as Leo Burnett and McCann-Erickson, were setting up their own motivational research departments, while others were employing consultants like Dichter. Motivational research, the article posited, could be an excellent method to reach certain elusive urban market segments such as the Negro,

Italian, Polish, and Jewish “cultural” groups. “To have positive emotional appeal,” the article stated, “ads must recognize how these groups see themselves and reflect their aspirations and desires for security.” A number of specialists in motivational research were mentioned in the article, including Burleigh Gardner and James Vicary, but the

“well-known” consultant Dichter was noted for the “psycho-panel” of consumers— representing a cross-section of American society—that he regularly employed at his research headquarters in suburban New York. Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social

Research was noted for the “consumer attitude” surveys it conducted for commercial clients as part of its studies on opinion formation, and Lazarsfeld’s famous study on the role of “personal influence” in consumer decisions was cited as a groundbreaking work of motivational research.

The Wall Street Journal took notice of new methods in market research in a 1954 article that acknowledged a boom in the field following World War II, and an explosion since 1952 sufficient to make the practice controversial.147 Dichter’s Institute for

146“What Makes People Buy?” Distribution Report, Vol. 10, No. 2, January 20, 1953, box 151, folder 18, Dichter Hagley. 147Thomas E. McCarthy, “Psyche & Sales: Research Helps Industry Probe ‘Buyer Motivations,’” The Wall

184 Research in Mass Motivations was featured as one of the most prominent among about eighty firms professing a specialization in “motivation” studies. Dichter, who typically charged between $6,500 and $19,500 for a complete study of a given product, helped a

“West Coast brewer” understand the associations evoked by beer ads featuring its “low- calorie” appeals, which turned out to be the opposite of what it desired. The ads conjured negative notions of “deprivation” and unhappiness, rather than the positive associations pleasure, enjoyment, and refreshment that could be associated with a “less filling” beer.

Motivational researchers claimed to have improved upon the method of market research by getting beyond the rationalized, “logical-sounding” responses consumers offered on questionnaires to explain their behavior. The new method, drawing on samples from 150 to 850 respondents, employed techniques like the psychoanalytic “depth” interview and word-association tests to reveal unconscious motivations. Some motivation researchers were located at universities, like Lazarsfeld at Columbia, but many worked as consultants, like Dichter, or on the staff of advertising agencies, like Herta Herzog.

Beyond the esoteric world of the business and trade press, the practice of motivational research (frequently abbreviated as “MR”) began to attract notice, with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, in general-interest magazines and the in the media of popular culture. Vance Packard, who would become famous with his scathing 1957 book on MR, The Hidden Persuaders, was introduced to the subject while working as a writer for the general-interest American Magazine.148 The Saturday Review called MR the

“hottest trend on Madison Avenue” in 1954; it was a new method that had arisen in the

Street Journal, September 13, 1954. 148Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, 1957). He was commissioned by Readers’ Digest in 1953 to write an article on the uses of MR, but the piece was ultimately canceled when the magazine began to carry advertising. Daniel Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 104-5.

185 battle for the discretionary dollars of the increasingly incredulous consumer. “The fatter the advertising budget,” observed the magazine, “the greater the probability that Freud helped write the copy.” (Though he never studied under Freud, Dichter’s Viennese origin was a sufficient association in the public mind.) Unlike most social scientists, Dichter classified consumers not by income but by “character,” and his consumer panels revealed whether each member of the family was “secure or insecure, resigned or ambitious, an escapist or a realist.”149 The mass-circulation magazine Pageant observed in 1956 that advertising agencies were hailing MR as a dynamic new research tool, and Dichter was profiled as one of the leading practitioners, head of the “largest and oldest” psychological research organization. Some market researchers, far from viewing MR as part of a scheme to manipulate consumers, defended it as empowering purchasers through advertising that was based on their basic attitudes rather than the vague intuition of advertising “Big Shots.”150

Dichter was adept at promoting himself and his consulting business through convention speeches, articles, and columns that appeared regularly in trade periodicals.

He promoted himself as an “observer of the scene of human endeavor in everyday life” who could give advertisers special insight into human behavior.151 In a 1951 speech before a meeting of the the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Dichter called ad agencies “laboratories in psychology” in which the modern conflicts of man—between individualism and the mass mind, rationality and irrationality, idealism and commercialism—could be made “operable” in the selling of goods and services.152 The

149Lydia Strong, “They’re Selling Your Unconscious,” The Saturday Review, November 13, 1954. 150Harry Henderson, “Why You Buy,” Pageant, January 1956. 151“Dr. Ernest Dichter takes a look at this year’s average consumer,” Tide, December 1952. 152 “Ready mixes, frozen meats, and semi-finished products of all kinds are all correct psychological answers to this conflict between individuality and mass mind,” stated Dichter. “They permit people to

186 American consumer was beginning to rebel against “efficient-assembly-line” merchandise, Dichter argued, and “creative” market research could help advertisers craft appeals that projected onto mass products the idea of individuality and creativity.153

Rather than conform, more Americans were trying to keep up with what Dichter called the “inner Joneses,” or individual, subjective standards of success that could be encouraged through new, psychological marketing strategies. Moreover, the “Puritan complex” in American culture was “on its way out,” according to Dichter, as more

Americans recognized, with the help of a nascent consumer consciousness encouraged by advertising, that pleasure and indulgence were not necessarily sinful.154

Dichter deftly promoted himself, but he also encouraged a feeling of purpose among marketing professionals by articulating a kind of progressive capitalism. He saw the social scientist as an agent of economic progress who, in concert with the “media man,” could work to shake people from their natural conservatism and inertia in order to prepare them for the dramatic changes and consumer choices that defined modern living.155 In a 1954 speech at the Advertising and Sales Promotion Executive Conference,

express their creativeness, yet to enjoy the advantages of ready-made mass products.” Ernest Dichter, “Case Histories in the Study of Human Motivation and Their Relation to Advertising Themes,” Advertising Age, June 11, 1951. 153Ernest Dichter, “What this ad business needs is...CREATIVE RESEARCH,” Printers’ Ink, June 4, 1954. 154Ernest Dichter, “What Are the Real Reasons People Buy Today?” Sales Management, February 1, 1955. An example of this trend was the long-running, highly successful “I dreamed...” series of ads for Maidenform bras, which projected an exotic, erotic aura on a venerable, utilitarian undergarment. “A Motivational Pilot Study on Maidenform Bras,” report for Norman, Craig & Kummel, Inc., January 1958, box 42, folder “Acc. 2407, 959A-959D,” Dichter Hagley. A respondent in an earlier study expressed the same desire that advertising should present the bra as “feminine” and “mysterious,” as opposed to “those dreadful things where they make it sound like a medical thing.” “A Psychological Research Study of the Most Appropriate Characterization of the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Bras,’” report submitted to the Hollywood-Maxwell Company by the Institute for Research in Mass Motivations, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 498 (IMR 418C), Dichter Vienna. 155Ernest Dichter, “Is Your Advertising Talking Yesterday’s Language,” speech before the 44th spring meeting of the Association of National Advertisers, March 19, 1953, box 162, folder 22, Dichter Hagley.

187 Dichter described the scientific method he had developed in nearly 500 studies as

“psycho-economics,” an approach that bridged the rational world of economics with the irrational world of psychology in the field of commerce. “While we may regret the mercenary nature of our modern world,” Dichter said in an intellectual defense of his practice, “it represents an interesting subject worthy of rational investigation.” Because

American advertising had shifted from “product-mindedness” to “people-mindedness,”

Dichter argued, it therefore needed a better knowledge of human nature and psychological motivations. Dichter promised to help advertising professionals understand human motivations so that they might offer the satisfaction of unconscious desires through the material medium of consumer goods.156

In April of 1954, Dichter moved the headquarters of his Institute from Montrose,

New York to a large 1913 fieldstone mansion, often referred to as the “castle,” on a wooded bluff six-hundred feet above the Hudson River. The new complex was in

Croton-on-Hudson, just north of New York City, but it was accessible only by a bumpy, winding, “eerie” country road.157 Martin Mayer, in his profile of the advertising industry,

Madison Avenue, U.S.A., observed that the “semifortified appearance” of the castle was the perfect setting for a “mad genius,” which was just the kind of image Dichter wanted to project.158 The secluded location only contributed to the mystery and allure of

Dichter’s method. By 1955, Dichter had become “prominently identified” with MR, and the Institute employed a permanent staff of 44, including a corps of social scientists, and

156Ernest Dichter, “How Motivational Research Can Help Advertising,” address at the eleventh annual Advertising and Sales Promotion Executive Conference, October 15, 1954, box 134, folder 12, Dichter Hagley. 157“Ernest Dichter of Croton: ‘a doctor for ailing products,’” Printers’ Ink, June 26, 1959; Pamela Rothon, “A Conversation with Dr. Ernest Dichter,” The American Way [inflight magazine published by American Airlines], September 1970, box 162, folder 49, Dichter Hagley. 158Martin Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (New York: Harper, 1958), 235.

188 it offered a variety of research and consulting services for marketers. It also had a field staff of 350 “psychologically-trained” interviewers—mainly clinical psychologists or graduate students—in 55 major American markets, and it had offices in Chicago, Los

Angeles, and San Francisco. Dichter made use of his suburban location by maintaining a

“Consumer Motivational Panel” composed of more than 100 local families who recorded their purchases in journals and regularly participated in interviews and laboratory tests, allowing the Institute to track changing consumer tastes and habits.159

By the mid-1950s, business interest in motivation research was at its height. A

1956 feature article in Henry Luce’s business magazine Fortune examined the state of the field and profiled some of its most prominent practitioners, including Dichter, Lazarsfeld, and Herta Herzog, among others.160 MR, which promised to reveal the reasons why people buy, was based partly in the social sciences but was partly “straight out of Freud,” according to the author. MR would become controversial among the public for what critics saw as consumer manipulation through the exploitation of fears and neuroses, but it was also controversial within the marketing industry. The practice was not universally embraced by advertising men: many saw MR as a threat to the special creative function that was the province of their profession. Lazarsfeld was dismissive of the “bravado” of much of MR, which made it into more of a spectacle than a genuine social science. This was fine if it was simply used as a way to stimulate ideas for advertising copywriters,

159“Institute Develops Croton Test Center,” Croton-Harmon News, January 13, 1955; “?...?...?...” IMR brochure, n.d., box 213, folder 30, Dichter Hagley; Joseph W. Newman, Motivation Research and Marketing Management (Boston: Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, Division of Research, 1957). The Institute began to win contracts for major studies with large advertisers and their agencies, and it even instituted an annual contract, for between $6,000 and $15,000, under which it would serve as the motivation analysis arm of an ad agency’s research department. “How the Institute for Research in Mass Motivation serves agencies,” Tide, March 12, 1955. 160Perrin Stryker, “Motivation Research,” Fortune, June 1956.

189 Lazarsfeld said, but “from the point of view of progress in knowledge” it could not replace “detailed statistical tests.”161

But the role of motivational research in the trade of marketing and advertising could no longer be ignored. Some 500 books and articles had already been written on the subject, and at least 82 commercial organizations and 187 social scientists were available for MR consultation. The practice had developed its own psychoanalytic methods, a specialized vocabulary, and it was already producing a number of famous cases. Philip

Morris, for example, successfully “flipped” the gender of its Marlboro brand of filtered cigarettes, which had been considered a mild cigarette favored by women before an aggressive re-branding campaign in 1955. MR practitioner Louis Cheskin’s Chicago- based Color Research Institute found that a bold, red-topped package would be most appealing to men, and Philip Morris’s ad agency, Leo Burnett, drew on the insights of

MR in its unorthodox campaign for Marlboro that featured tattooed, overtly masculine men engaged in manly hobbies. MR was most commonly used in consumer categories— such as cigarettes, soap, and liquor—in which the differences between products in terms of quality, price, and performance were minimal. For these kinds of products, much could be left to the imagination of marketers. Dichter also sought out clients engaged in the manufacture and marketing of products associated with psychological anxieties, suggesting that his method of motivational research was the best way to understand the

161Paul Lazarsfeld, “Progress and Fad in Motivation Research,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Seminar on Social Science for Industry—Motivation, held in San Francisco by Stanford Research Institute, March 23, 1955, p. 22. Other market researchers used different methods to study the motivations of their subjects. Eugene Gilbert, for example, who made studies for clients such as Seventeen magazine, focused on the teenage market—a new concept in the postwar years which Gilbert claimed to have discovered. Gilbert employed a national network of some five thousand high-school and college students to conduct his surveys on the principle that teenaged respondents would be more likely to provide genuine responses to their peers. Dwight Macdonald, “Profiles: A Caste, A Culture, A Market,” New Yorker, November 22 and 29, 1958.

190 consumers of such products. Dichter argued that the problem of “pre-menstrual tension,” for example, could not be adequately explored in any manner other than MR.162

The Peak of Dichter’s Influence

By 1955, Dichter’s Institute had completed some 500 studies for many of the country’s largest corporations and advertising agencies, including Ted Bates, Ogilvy, Leo

Burnett, and Young & Rubicam.163 Dichter’s success and rising fame made him the antagonist of another émigré, the “ex-German statistician” Alfred Politz, whose own consulting firm firm specialized in quantitative methods of market research. Annually,

Dichter grossed about $750,000 from about thirty clients—far behind Politz’s gross of

$2.5 million from a small group of eleven big customers, but still a challenge to his business. Politz, the “complete empiricist” who spoke in a German-accented “pedantic

English,” according to the journalist Martin Mayer,164 charged that Dichter was practicing a “pseudo science” that lacked the validation of statistical proofs. Dichter, in turn, criticized traditional market research for accepting rationalized responses at face value.

But Herta Herzog, an “eminent M.R. authority” at the advertising agency McCann-

Erickson (and Lazarsfeld’s ex-wife, by this time), sought to dialectically synthesize these approaches. Unlike Dichter, Herzog maintained that MR was a only supplement to, and not a replacement for, conventional, statistical market research.165

162“A Creative Problem Analysis and Proposal for a Motivational Research Study to determine The Sales and Advertising Problems of Tablets for Decreasing Pre-Menstrual Tension,” report submitted to Russel M. Seeds Company, Inc., July 1957, box 40, folder “Acc. 2407, 918A-919C,” Dichter Hagley. 163Ernest Dichter, The Third Dimension: The Depth Penetration of an Advertising Medium (Croton-on- Hudson, New York: Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., 1955), Signatur-Nr. 4487 (IMR 440), Dichter Vienna. 164Mayer, Madison Avenue, 253-4. 165Herzog developed a systematic, hybrid kind of MR that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods and proceeded sequentially through several stages. First, she used conventional “nose- counting” research methods to identify the consumer groups most likely to compose the market for a

191 However, Dichter would progressively soften his resistance to statistical methods as his research staff and range of services grew.166 Dichter began to offer consulting services in several stages: first, a short “creative memorandum” on the general outlines of a marketing problem, costing a client about $1,000; then, a series of about thirty “test” interviews ($1,500 to $3,000) to form a hypothesis on the subject; followed by a pilot study ($3,500 to $7,500) that would include recommendations; and, finally, a full study costing roughly $15,000 that would cover depth interviews, projective tests, and often packaging and advertising tests on as many as 1,200 subjects. The Institute even developed a “Living Laboratory,” in which a team of psychologists observed the daily use of products in “realistic” situations like the home and the supermarket. The results could be used by package designers seeking to understand the actual relationships between consumers and products, so that they could create packages that would be

“successful at the point of sale.”167 Dichter’s Institute used other motivational techniques like “projective” tests in which subjects would, for example, fill in a dialogue balloon for a cartoon character examining a particular make of automobile. The idea was to produce responses that were not the rationalized, conscious ideas of the subject, but rather the unconscious, suggestive notions that were the products of commercial culture and

client’s products. Then, she used MR methods like depth interviews and projective tests to analyze between three- and four-hundred respondents representing the targeted group. She tabulated the frequency of their responses, which served as the basis for a “structured” questionnaire which was distributed to a larger sample, from between 1,200 to 3,000 persons, designed to determine the statistical relevance of a particular finding from MR. Finally, she measured the relative “drawing power” of several test ads presented to a cross-section of consumers in an effort to gauge the applicability of the findings. Perrin Stryker, “Motivation Research,” Fortune, June 1956. 166For example, the Institute offered a service that would measure “Motivating Response Patterns” (MRP), which promised television advertisers a way to evaluate not just their cost per thousand viewers, but precisely the cost per thousand responses. “MRP combines the creative insight and practical applications of qualitative research with the measurement and validation of quantitative research,” boasted an Institute brochure. “MRP-MOTIVATING RESPONSE PATTERNS” IMR Bulletin No. 4, n.d., box 213, folder 30, Dichter Hagley. 167“INTEGRATED PACKAGE RESEARCH” IMR Bulletin No. 6, n.d. box 213, folder 30, Dichter Hagley.

192 society.168

By 1957—the year Vance Packard published The Hidden Persuaders, which featured a critical account of Dichter’s practice—the Institute was reaching the peak of its influence and, indeed, notoriety. Packard’s book was harshly critical of the social value of MR, but as a testament to Dichter’s effectiveness it was not unflattering, and it only helped his business. Dichter even wrote a personal letter to Packard to thank him for making the whole world “motivation research conscious.”169 “I must, and I want to, thank him,” Dichter later wrote of Packard in his memoir. “Not only did he help me in my success, but he reinforced my conviction that what we need is more methods of persuasion rather than fewer.”170 A 1957 feature in the advertising trade publication

Sponsor noted that Dichter was mentioned on fifty pages in the book, three times as often as any other MR practitioner. Dichter rejected the notion that he was engaged in imposing the will of corporations on consumers; instead, he insisted that his business was the tailoring of the product and its advertising to the “real” wants of the consumer.171

Dichter proudly reported in a speech before the Advertising Federation of

America that businessmen, who had theretofore only trusted market research based on very large samples, were finally coming around to believe that his “motivational” research could be an important basis for creative sales and advertising campaigns.172

Lazarsfeld took notice of his former student’s rising fame, and he requested a transcript of the speech given by Dichter. “I wish we could some day get together for a more

168Mayer, Madison Avenue, 237. 169Daniel Horowitz, Vance Packard, 162. Chapter 3 examines the relationship between Packard and Dichter in greater detail. 170Dichter, Getting Motivated, 85. 171Bill Miksch, “Inside Dr. Dichter,” Sponsor, August 3, 1957, 33-6, 57. 172Ernest Dichter, “A Credo for Modern Research and Advertising,” speech before the Advertising Federation of America, June 11, 1957, box 162, folder 14, Dichter Hagley.

193 leisurely discussion of the scientific principles involved in our work,” Dichter wrote in his reply, implying that he had become a peer of his former teacher.173

Dichter had, by 1955, dropped the “Mass” from the name of his organization— perhaps to avoid an association with communism or totalitarianism, or perhaps to recognize the greater segmentation of consumer markets—rechristening it as the

“Institute for Motivational Research.” A slick promotional brochure promised the curious businessman that the “latest techniques of the social sciences” would be employed to address and resolve his particular marketing problem.174 The brochure promised potential clients that an Institute study would produce findings that would be translated into a practical “how to” guide—a “Blueprint for Action”—for “making your sales efforts more effective.” It boasted that the Institute had done more than 700 research studies in the past two decades (before Dichter had even founded the Institute, in fact) involving

200,000 individual consumer case histories. Dichter had operations in Canada, Mexico, and Europe, and he employed a full-time staff of sixty—including a team of psychologists, sociologists, and statisticians—and a corps of 1,000 trained interviewers, mostly clinical psychologists, who had access to urban, suburban, and rural areas throughout the U.S. The Institute’s Family Motivation Panel, which did long-term testing and follow-up interviews to identify consumer trends, had grown to 250 families in the

Croton area.175

173Ernest Dichter, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, June 25, 1957, box 157, folder 6, Paul Felix Lazarsfeld Collection (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York). 174In addition to depth interviews, the Institute used projective tests, “psychometric” ad and package testing, and statistical validation. It also administered clinical testing facilities, such as the “Motivational Theater,” in which consumers would “act out their feelings” toward products and services. “An Introduction to The Institute for Motivational Research,” promotional brochure, IMR Bulletin No. 1, July 9, 1957, box 40, folder, “Acc. 2407, 923A-924A,” Dichter Hagley; David Bennet, “Getting the Id to Go Shopping,” Public Culture 17 (2005): 1-25. 175Once a month, a drawing was held, and one of the families won an evening in New York, complete with paid babysitter, dinner at a fancy restaurant, and tickets for a Broadway show. Dichter even bought time

194 From Mass Persuasion to Person-to-Person Influence

Although the clients of Dichter and Lazarsfeld typically employed MR to gain insight into the techniques of mass persuasion through the media, they were also keenly interested in the idea of person-to-person influence. Lazarsfeld had articulated this concept most completely in his 1955 book with Elihu Katz, appropriately titled Personal

Influence.176 But Lazarsfeld had been developing the idea for years. In a 1945 article in the advertising trade journal Printers’ Ink, he identified the so-called “opinion leaders” who have an “activating effect” in nudging their immediate, local audience toward a particular mindset. Opinion leaders—who composed about twenty percent of the population—were more gregarious and consumed much more media then their peers.

Contrary to the general assumption, they came from all classes; they were not drawn exclusively from the ranks of the “higher-bracketed” citizens.177 Lazarsfeld reported that each community was dominated by these “influentials,” who understood themselves as such; they saw it as their obligation to stay well-informed. In purchasing decisions, personal influence could be considerably more “potent” than advertising in the mass media, according to Lazarsfeld. He informed broadcasters of a “two-step” flow of communication, whereby the content of the mass media was translated through the secondary medium of opinion leaders.178

on a local radio station to ingratiate himself with the local community. Mayer, Madison Avenue, 237. 176Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955). 177Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Who influences whom—it’s the same for politics and advertising,” Printers’ Ink, June 8, 1945, 32-3; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Political Behavior and Public Opinion” in Berezson Behavioral Sciences Today (Basic Books, 1963), 179. 178Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Magazine Research: Problems and Techniques,” Magazine World, June 15, 1946, 16-7, 22-3; “Summary of Mr. Lazarsfeld’s Speech to the American Marketing Association,” December 27, 1952; “Summary of Remarks by Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” Broadcasters’ Convention, Quebec, March 25, 1957. PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I, Mappe 1/2.

195 Despite the dominance of marketing in the mass media in the 1950s, there were still many consumer fields in which the intimacy of personal relations was still essential to salesmanship. This dynamic was often revealed in market research studies. Although the cosmetics manufacturer Revlon was greatly helped by its sponsorship of the televised quiz show The $64,000 Question, a 1955 study by Dichter’s Institute revealed the key role played by its department-store “demonstrators” in engaging consumers on an individualized basis to sell products. Many consumers resisted the “mass typing” of their buying habits and appreciated the personal attention of the Revlon representatives and their apparent dedication to presenting only the “facts” of the product. Customers resisted a “canned” approach to salesmanship, and appreciated demonstrators’ attention to their individual needs and problems.179

Another study for the Prudential Life Insurance Company emphasized the subtlety of person-to-person customer relations, and it examined the essential role played by the agent in navigating the sensitive psychological territory of death and finances.180 It was a delicate commercial encounter, and agents had to consider the pride of the male buyer, 179The demonstrators, who usually worked on commission, considered themselves experts not only in cosmetics application but also in customer relations and consumer psychology. They saw themselves as cosmetics professionals, and they resented the company for instituting sales competitions for prizes that sullied the collegial atmosphere and squashed employee solidarity. The demonstrators got deeply involved in the intimate details of their customers’ lives, from health anxieties to fears of spousal infidelity. “I try to study and keep myself up-to-date and how to adapt what I know to my patrons, not only materially, but psychologically,” reported one demonstrator. “A Motivational Research Study of the Problems and Potentialities of the Revlon Demonstrators,” report submitted to Revlon, Inc. by IMR, November 1955, Signatur-Nr. 807 (IMR 683C), Dichter Vienna. 180More than the particulars of the policy, and even more than the reputation of the company, trust in the agent himself was found to be the most important factor in making the sale. No matter what their education level, respondents had little facility in judging the difference between life insurance policy options on the basis of their relative merits. Instead, respondents tended to base their decisions on other emotional and intangible factors, accepting value of their chosen policy on the basis of their trust in the agent and their confidence in the company. “Understanding and Selling More Effectively to the Potential Prudential Life Insurance Buyer: Volume I,” report submitted to Prudential Insurance Company of America by IMR, July 1960, Signatur-Nr. 1312 (IMR 953C Vol I), Dichter Vienna; “Understanding and Selling More Effectively to the Potential Prudential Life Insurance Buyer, Volume II,” report submitted to Prudential Insurance Company of America by IMR, July 1960, Signatur-Nr. 1313 (IMR 953C Vol II), Dichter Vienna.

196 who needed to believe that buying the policy was his decision, as the family breadwinner, and not his wife’s. “He will feel that he will have to prove to the insurance agent as well as his wife that he is the boss,” noted the report. Institutional advertising was important mainly for “breaking the ice” for the agent, and for gaining the confidence of the prospective client by proving that the company was big enough to pay for large, colorful, national ads in mass publications. The Institute posited that, from the perspective of the buyer, life insurance was a “subtle, magical kind of phenomenon”: by having insurance, the buyer felt that it was less likely to be actually used. In this way, he was, in a way,

“cheating” death by making a material benefit one of its conditions, thus discouraging

Death by removing its temptation. In this scenario, life insurance served as a kind of talisman against death. Further, buyers believed that a “big powerful” company like

Prudential would not let a policy-holder “win” by dying, and so it would, somehow, keep him alive. Although consumers had grown to trust large institutions like banks and insurance companies in the postwar years, they still recognized that they acted in their own self-interest.181

Dichter’s Personality Takes Precedence Over His Craft

By the late 1950s, as Dichter’s business and fame were peaking, his eccentric public persona began to eclipse the substantive work of his Institute. His reach and influence had spread to the point where he had nine satellite offices in the U.S. and overseas, and he brought in more than a million dollars worth of business a year, but the

181The creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guaranteed deposits, did much to put trust in the banking system. “The law protects the depositor,” said one respondent in a 1958 study. “It’s good for everybody this way.” “A Motivational Research Study for Society for Savings and Society National Banks, Volume I,” report submitted to Society for Savings by IMR, November 1958, Signatur- Nr. 1282 (IMR 938C), Dichter Vienna.

197 dominance of his persona tended to overshadow his business. He was a “short, rather stout man” with a “large head resting on a folded double chin, short neck, freckled skin and disappearing reddish hair,” according to the contemporary journalist Martin Mayer.

But this odd-looking man with “only a trace” of an accent and an “aggressively colloquial style” was, somehow, “a great salesman without any of the conventional salesman’s attributes.”182

In a 1959 profile in the cheeky “Talk of the Town” section of The New Yorker,

Dichter was described as “an exuberant, thin-lipped chap, with large ears and a small mouth, who talked almost without interruption for two hours” at a press luncheon. He had “practically cornered the motivational market,” according to the article, but its glib tone mocked Dichter’s flamboyant efforts to publicize himself.183 He was controversial, too, not only in the public realm but also in the world of advertising, where he had a

“infuriated some ad men” with a “smashing kind of personal publicity” that “aroused more storms, ire and conviction than any other market researcher,” according to a profile in the advertising trade magazine, Printers’ Ink. And yet, it was this kind of provocation that could be useful to advertising creatives: he did for ad men what “some writers claim a reading of James Joyce does in dealing with language,” according to the article. He opened things up, breaking up “old enclosed ways of looking at things.” He could be of tremendous use, his advocates maintained, so long as his clients knew “how to use him.”184 He was “widely regarded in the trade as the greatest copy idea man of our times” who knew how to get copywriters “out of the old ruts,” according to Mayer. But what he knew best was how to promote himself: “What everyone agrees on is that

182Mayer, Madison Avenue, 241. 183“Meaningful Patterns,” The New Yorker, January 3, 1959, 17-19. 184“Ernest Dichter of Croton: ‘a doctor for ailing products,’” Printers’ Ink, June 26, 1959.

198 Dichter is a born promoter of Dichter and Dichter’s clients.”185

This tendency to self-promotion would make Dichter a central target in the debates over mass culture that raged in the 1950s. While Dichter was pegged as a manipulator of the masses, several members of Lazarsfeld’s corps of researchers, including C. Wright Mills, became some of the most influential critics of mass culture in this debate. This is the subject of the next chapter. 185Mayer, Madison Avenue, 242.

199 Chapter 3: The Origins of the Postwar Mass Culture and Mass Society Debates in Commercial Market Research

In the fall of 1957, the advertising industry began to mount a defense against a perceived attack on its integrity and social value. The magazine journalist Vance Packard had recently published a book called The Hidden Persuaders, which was an exposé on the allegedly manipulative practice of “motivational research” in consumer marketing.1

The book became a best-seller, and the admen of New York’s Madison Avenue took offense. Programmers at the American Marketing Association (AMA), a trade group, decided to stage a debate between Packard and a representative of their industry. John

Shepherd, program committee chairman for the AMA, called on advertising executive

Walter Weir to confront Packard onstage at an AMA chapter meeting in New York on

October 17.2 Shepherd encouraged Weir to use humor in his defense, something he was known for in the industry. “I don’t think you need to be serious at all,” wrote Shepherd.

“In fact if you wanted to pan the book or motivation research or even research itself from a top creative writer’s standpoint, that would be perfectly all right.”3

Weir did not disappoint in his mission to defrock Packard. He called Packard’s book “malicious” for imparting to advertising “many callously powerful schemes and tactics” that it was not, in fact, capable of executing. Weir noted the news of the recession that had hit businesses hard that fall and suggested that, if the so-called “hidden persuaders” were as good as Packard implied they were, “they’d better start persuading

1 Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, 1957). 2 John E. Shepherd, letter to Walter Weir, September 17, 1957, box 19, folder “Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ 1957 Oct 17,” Walter Weir Papers (John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina) [hereafter, “Weir Papers”]. 3 John E. Shepherd, letter to Walter Weir, September 25, 1957, box 19, folder “Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ 1957 Oct 17,” Weir Papers.

200 us in the right direction soon.” Weir concluded with a particularly caustic insult, calling the book “a Packard trying to pass itself off as an Edsel,” referring to the soon-to-be- defunct automaker and the recent launch of Ford Motor Company’s new car, which was already on its way to becoming a notorious flop.4 The New York Times referred to Weir’s assault, which occurred before a crowd of more than 500, as an “oral slugging match.”5

A fellow ad executive wrote Weir to express his delight: “You sure tore the pants off

Vance,” he exclaimed.6

Madison Avenue increasingly came under fire from the public and from government officials who were alarmed at is apparent capacity to manipulate human behavior. The ad business generally defended its actions as necessary to create and sustain a mass market. Business leaders wanted to ignore the cries for reform from “self- styled intellectuals” like Packard who believed that that “persuading” itself was a threat to individual freedom, but they had to acknowledge the public’s growing disenchantment with advertising. Packard’s best-selling book could not be dismissed by professional marketers. In 1959, the advertising trade publication Printers’ Ink lamented the past several years when members of the profession had “coiled and cringed” at each successive attack of their business.7 One advertising agent bristled at what he called

Packard’s “deceptively appealing fabrication” that admen were merely cynical manipulators of consumers’ subconscious minds, while noting that advertising had simply replaced the personal salesman in the massive, modern industrial machine.8

4 Walter Weir, “Talk,” A.M.A. Meeting, New York, October 17, 1957, box 19, folder “Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ 1957 Oct 17,” Weir Papers. 5 “Marketing Men Debate Ways to Make Consumer Buy,” New York Times, October 18, 1957. 6 Martin S. Fliesler, letter to Walter Weir, October 31, 1957, box 19, folder “Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ 1957 Oct 17,” Weir Papers. 7 “Ex-BBDO man avenges browbeaten image,” Printers’ Ink, February 6, 1959, 39-41. 8 Fred Wittner, “Telling the Public about our business,” Advertising Agency Magazine, April 25, 1958, 24.

201 The advertising men were protecting their own interests, but they were also engaged in a battle over values that made the problem of mass culture and the manipulative power of Madison Avenue a great national concern, for both intellectuals and the public. Cold War paranoia and fears of totalitarianism, famously fictionalized by

English author George Orwell in his popular 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-four, pervaded the culture. Political and academic discourse in the social sciences was framed by works such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s Vital Center (1949) and Hannah Arendt’s

Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which collapsed German Nazism and Soviet communism into the broad concept of totalitarianism, the ever-present threat to individuality.9 The theoretical works of émigrés like Arendt and Bruno Bettelheim, who wrote an iconic memoir about his time in the Buchenwald concentration camp, highlighted the precariousness of the individual in modern life. Such intellectual contributions fed pervasive political anxieties which, along with rising popular interest in psychology and psychoanalysis, heightened worries over manipulation—that the celebrated autonomy that had characterized a nineteenth-century American ideal might be slipping away.10

Fear of the mass bled from the arena of politics into the cultural sphere. A new regime of marketing surveys, sociological studies, and public opinion polls purported to produce scientific knowledge of the “mass mind,” which tended to suppress the views and experiences of minorities.11 The new medium of television broadcast moving images 9 On fears of totalitarianism in the U.S. during this period, see Benjamin L. Alpers, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 10 On the cultural implications of psychoanalysis in the U.S. in the postwar years, see Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 276- 84. 11 See Sarah E. Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).

202 along with sound, facilitating a national culture and a mass market for advertisers.

Widespread concern over the plague of juvenile delinquency was associated with the pernicious effects of mass culture on youth. A perceived crisis of masculinity—provoked by the bureaucratization of labor in the large organization or corporation, the domestication of life in the suburbs, the specter of “Momism,” and the feminizing tendency of mass consumption—also fueled popular anxieties about mass culture.12 At the same time, the new concept of “life-style” seemed to suggest that class differences could be effaced in an all-encompassing middle-class society in which differences were free expressions of taste, not fundamental economic facts.13

These cultural changes were concurrent with a new economic order that placed mass consumption at the center of the American economy. British economist John

Maynard Keynes’s theory of aggregate demand, articulated in his General Theory of

Employment, Interest and Money in 1936, gained traction among policy experts in the

U.S. in the later years of the Depression, paving the way for the postwar mass consumption society that would present a serious challenge to the Protestant value of thrift.14 Keynesian theory was affirmed in government policy that had the support of organized labor, consecrating mass consumption as an essential component of sustained

12 On the crisis of masculinity, see James Gilbert, Men in the Middle: Searching for Masculinity in the 1950s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); on the crisis of juvenile delinquency, see James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America's Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 13 Roland Marchand, “Visions of Classlessness, Quests for Dominion: American Popular Culture, 1945- 1960,” in Reshaping America: Society and Institutions, 1945-1960, eds. Robert H. Bremmer and Gary W. Reichard (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982). 14 In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt finally agreed to a huge infusion of $7 billion into the U.S. economy, and the concept of deficit spending as an economic stimulus became acceptable, even though it challenged the old American equation of thrift and virtue. Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 230; Robert M. Collins, The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 4-9.

203 economic prosperity that was necessary to stave off depression.15 Cultural elitists and

Marxist critics, meanwhile, bristled at the vulgar cultural products and debased distractions that had come to characterize this high-consuming, mass society.16

These concerns were crystallized in a number of popular books and essays by sociologists, journalists, and intellectual cultural critics, many of whom were involved with or inspired by commercial market research, the culture of business, and the style of social criticism practiced by European émigrés. The Viennese social psychologist Paul F.

Lazarsfeld was at the center of a cohort of émigré intellectuals and native researchers who were at once subject, object, and inspiration for many of these critiques. Lazarsfeld also employed many of his fellow refugee market researchers, some of whom would become prominent in the field—including Hans Zeisel and Herta Herzog, Lazarsfeld’s second wife. But among his Viennese colleagues, perhaps the most prominent in the contemporary popular mind was Ernest Dichter, a psychological consultant to marketers who probed the unconscious of consumer subjects in an effort to reveal their unknown motivations. Dichter was not a critic of mass culture, but rather a celebrant, and he entered into the public consciousness as the principal target of Vance Packard’s popular book, The Hidden Persuaders. Lazarsfeld’s mass media and social research organizations, as centers for cosmopolitan refugees who pioneered communications studies, were instrumental in producing some of the most prominent mass culture critics in the postwar U.S. However, in the figure of Dichter, Lazarsfeld’s cohort included

15 On the policies of government, labor, and business that encouraged mass consumption in this period, see Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003). 16 The most comprehensive contemporary compilation of mass culture criticism from this period is Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White, eds. Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957).

204 someone reviled by such critics but enthusiastically embraced by American business leaders.

Lazarsfeld’s Research Centers as Incubators of Mass Culture Criticism

Lazarsfeld, who first came to the U.S. in 1933 on a Rockefeller fellowship, made a name for himself in the advertising and marketing trade press as a market researcher who combined qualitative and quantitative techniques to reveal consumers’ psychological motivations.17 Recommended by his friend and mentor Robert Lynd, the Columbia

University sociologist and co-author (with his wife, Helen) of the landmark 1929 study

Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, Lazarsfeld was invited by CBS executive Frank Stanton and Princeton professor Hadley Cantril to direct a Rockefeller- funded project to examine the powerful mass medium of radio, which he began in 1937.

The project, known officially as the Office of Radio Research (but often referred to as the

“radio research project”), was first associated with Princeton, but later moved to

Columbia University in 1939; it would become the Bureau of Applied Social Research

(BASR) in 1944 as its mission was broadened. Lazarsfeld’s research institutes, which he began in Vienna and continued in the U.S., were always associated with universities but took private contracts from governments, foundations, and businesses, for which they performed market research.18

Part of the mandate of the original Office of Radio Research was to investigate

17 “Doctor in America,” Tide, November 1934, 58-62. 18 For a detailed account of Lazarsfeld’s early years in the U.S., see Chapter 1. On Lazarsfeld’s biography, see David E. Morrison, The Search for a Method: Focus Groups and the Development of Mass Communication Research (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998). See also Lazarsfeld’s memoir, “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir,” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, eds. Donald Fleming, and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).

205 radio’s potential for raising the aesthetic taste of the American mass audience. Toward this end, Lazarsfeld employed several refugee social researchers who would become prominent critics of mass culture and the mass society.19 His corps of researchers included his fellow émigrés Theodor W. Adorno and Leo Lowenthal of Max

Horkheimer’s Institut für Sozialforschung, which was also exiled at Columbia University.

This was the so-called “Frankfurt School” of Critical Theory which would inspire other mass-culture critics on the left like Dwight Macdonald. “Their earlier economic criticism of capitalistic society has been transformed into a moral and cultural criticism of the large scale industrial society,” observed the skeptical sociologist Edward Shils in a 1957 review of one of the most important contemporary anthologies of mass culture criticism,

Bernard Rosenberg and David White’s Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America.20 He was referring to Marxist Critical Theorists including Adorno, Lowenthal, and Horkheimer as well as other leftists, like the former Trotskyite Macdonald, who had come under their influence and engaged in the critique of the “merchants of kitsch” who were exploiting

19 [Robert Merton, probably], “Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Office of Radio Research,” June 15, 1947, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archive (Institut für Soziologie, Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria) [hereafter, “PFL Vienna”]. Soon after arriving in the U.S., Lazarsfeld had noted the “bad reputation” of American motion pictures in his native central Europe. At least among intellectuals, American pictures were regarded contemptuously for their relentless optimism and lack of concern for social issues or the problems of the poor. Paul Lazarsfeld, “Market Studies in Foreign Markets Covered by American Foreign Trade,” memorandum to Mr. Givens, January 24, 1934, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappe 17, Bio-1, Biographie 1933-1946 (Briefe und Memos, 1932-1946), Mappe 1/3. 20 The volume included an essay in which Adorno asserted that the “majority” of television shows aimed to produce “the very smugness, intellectual passivity, and gullibility” that he associated with totalitarian creeds. T. W. Adorno, “Television and the Patterns of Mass Culture” in in Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, eds. Rosenberg, Bernard and David Manning White (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957). Originally published in Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 8, 1954, 213-35. In the same volume, Bernard Rosenberg concurred with the Frankfurt School critique, arguing that the mass media presented a threat to man’s autonomy, and that mass culture could, at its worst, “cretinize our taste,” “brutalize our senses,” and pave the way to totalitarianism. Bernard Rosenberg, “Mass Culture in America” in Rosenberg and White. Even Lazarsfeld and his Columbia associate Robert Merton recognized that economic power functioned less through direct exploitation and more through “psychological exploitation” disseminated through propaganda in the media, which functioned to render mass publics “conformative” to the economic status quo. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, “Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action” in Rosenberg and White.

206 the “emotional needs” of the masses. The Frankfurt scholars fused Hegelian Marxism, psychoanalysis, and “aesthetic repugnance for industrial society,” according to Shils, and they developed their anti-capitalistic critique of mass culture while exiled in the United

States. Having fled from Nazism in Europe, Shils contended that the Horkheimer group was deeply interested in what caused it, and how an ostensibly democratic society like the U.S. could fall into totalitarianism through the insidious ideological power of the base products of the mass culture industry.21

Indicative of their effort to promote a critical sociology, Lazarsfeld and his

Columbia colleague Robert Merton invited C. Wright Mills—the maverick Texan sociologist and critic of mass society—to work at their Bureau in 1944. Mills would later go on to base much of his 1951 book White Collar—a seminal text of the mid-century critique of mass society—on research done at the Bureau. Another key text of the mass culture and mass society debate, sociologist David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd, was also inspired by the work of Lazarsfeld’s Bureau. Riesman was particularly influenced by the cultural and historical analysis of Lowenthal. While Ernest Dichter drifted from the core of Lazarsfeld’s circle and entered the sphere of private business consulting, he too became a key figure in the mass culture debate at mid-century. However, Dichter was not himself a critic of mass culture, but rather the object of Vance Packard’s popularized mass culture criticism. This émigré market researcher found himself in the position of defending mass consumption and the quotidian pleasures that characterized the American consumer culture.

21 Edward Shils, “Daydreams and Nightmares: Reflections on the Criticism of Mass Culture,” review of Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, eds. Bernard Rosenberg and David White, and The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart, The Sewanee Review 65 (October-December 1957): 587-608. Shils was critical of the Institute’s over-reliance on content analyses and its reluctance to investigate the actual producers of popular culture.

207 That Lazarsfeld’s research organizations bridged the worlds of social science, mass media, business, and critical theory was, at least to some extent, a conscious effort.

Lazarsfeld had been a committed Social Democrat in Vienna, and while his politics were muted in his work in the U.S., he never abandoned the notion that sociology could serve a critical social function. He hired Adorno partly as a favor to Max Horkheimer, whose

Institute of Social Research had sponsored some of Lazarsfeld’s work,22 but also because of a genuine desire to develop a “convergence of European theory and American empiricism.”23 While this experiment was, for the most part, a failure, it did not deter

Lazarsfeld from attempts to incorporate critical research into his program. This was the explicit aim of a special collaborative issue of Horkheimer’s journal, Studies in

Philosophy of Social Science, published in 1941, in which Horkheimer thanked

Lazarsfeld for translating the abstract categories of critical theory into the “concrete desiderata” of social research.24 Lazarsfeld, in turn, defined his brand of applied,

“administrative” research in contrast to “critical” research, which considered not only the concrete research problem but also the broader social and historical context, including such things as the business world’s attempts to manipulate the masses.25

Merging Social Research and Business through Media Studies

In his study of “mass behavior,”26 Lazarsfeld consistently made efforts to merge

22 Morrison, Search, 69. 23 Lazarsfeld, “An Episode,” 322. 24 Max Horkheimer, “Preface,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941): 1. 25 Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, “Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941): 9. 26 Such as it was characterized in a hearing before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. “Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, First Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 62, Investigation of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States,” April 6 and 7, 1955 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office).

208 business and sociology, and to engage the purveyors of mass media and its critics. He felt that it was ironic that the corporate interests engaged in the media of mass communication were so sensitive to criticism of their industry, while, at the same time, they consistently defended the right of free speech.27 Lazarsfeld’s Bureau at Columbia relied on media companies like CBS to provide data and funds for media studies, but the situation produced a conflict of interest: academics feared being cut off from such resources if the media executives found their conclusions unflattering, or if private foundations funding their work found their critical mode of inquiry too radical in the tense years of the Cold War. American liberals, Lazarsfeld observed, had shifted their attention from social and economic problems to the pernicious influence of the mass media in the postwar years.

Lazarsfeld acknowledged that the broad popular accessibility of the mass media had produced an unprecedented challenge: “Never before in history have we been faced with the problem of disseminating some kind of culture so far down into the educational depths of the country,” he noted in a private letter in 1948. Leftists felt “gypped,” according to Lazarsfeld, because hard-won progressive reforms such as higher wages, public education, and increased leisure time were being squandered by the crassness of the mass media of television, movies, pulp novels, and comic books. He even advocated for the creation of an oversight board of experts—artists and social scientists—to review and judge the quality of broadcast content. But Lazarsfeld also argued that, while the

27 The Rockefeller Foundation officer John Marshall, one of Lazarsfeld’s chief sponsors, agreed that criticism was remarkably absent in the management of mass media. He lamented that American mass culture “more or less sterilizes the general intelligence,” a situation that could, perhaps, be ameliorated by an academic intervention. John Marshall, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, September 29, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976 (mixed Dates), Mappe 4/6; John Marshall, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, October 27, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976 (mixed Dates), Mappe 6/6.

209 mass communications industry should be attentive to such criticism in an effort to raise standards higher than what was necessary for commercial solvency, liberals should also understand the potential value of the popular arts. Specifically, Lazarsfeld pointed to the educational value of comics and the literary merit of short stories in mass magazines.

The very notion of “bad taste” was itself a very upper-class idea that meant something very different—usually a moral judgment—to the non-critical lay person. Lazarsfeld reminded fellow academic elites that, while the well-educated were certain that everyone hated commercials, in fact many viewers found them interesting and entertaining.28

Lazarsfeld also acknowledged the bias against and ignorance toward business in the profession of sociology, a shortcoming he hoped to ameliorate. He regretted sociologists’ neglect of the social research conducted by industries and marketers, and he lamented their skepticism towards university-based research institutes like his own

Bureau at Columbia. To demonstrate the possibility of fruitful collaboration between business and academia, Lazarsfeld pointed to the market research studies he had done which revealed the distinctly different consumer tastes and media preferences of various social strata—an important finding derived from empirical research funded by business.

As a tenacious methodologist and an trenchant empiricist, Lazarsfeld found it regrettable that the abundance of data available on purchasing decisions—which existed because of their high value in the market society of the U.S.—was ignored by sociologists. He pointed to some exceptions, however, such as the popular writing of economist John

28 Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Frank Stanton, July 31, 1948, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I, Mappe 1/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Patricia Kendal, October 8, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Role of Criticism in the Management of Mass Media,” Journalism Quarterly 25, no. 2 (June 1948): 115-26; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Why Is So Little Known About the Effects of Television on Children and What Can Be Done?” Public Opinion Quarterly 19 (Fall 1955): 243-51; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “A Researcher Looks at Television,” Public Opinion Quarterly 24 (Spring 1960): 24-31.

210 Kenneth Galbraith and the empirical research of the behavioral economist George

Katona, who investigated the cultural elements of buying and saving. The method of motivational research held promise for social researchers, and Lazarsfeld credited the practice with the discovery that new motivations might be replacing the “Puritan” ethic that had been prevalent in the American system of values. But he criticized the nonacademic drift and tendency of motivational research to rely on small samples, which belied its shaky methodology—likely an allusion to Dichter’s lucrative business—a great sin for Lazarsfeld. Business, for its part, was stymied by a culture of conservatism; it was slow to recognize changing social values that it could benefit from, and it was irrationally resistant to progressive reforms and government regulations.29

Lazarsfeld’s willingness to engage business was not without its professional risks, and he did sometimes alienate his more committed colleagues on the left, including

Adorno, Horkheimer, Mills, and even his mentor, chief sponsor, and Columbia colleague

Robert Lynd. The progressive Lynd chided Lazarsfeld for his commercial contract work

—which was, he felt, an abnegation of the proper role of the social scientist—despite the consistent financial support it provided for empirical research at Columbia.30 Lazarsfeld referred to his “friendly battle” with Lynd over what kind of intellectual work was most necessary, while Lynd worried that Lazarsfeld’s commercial ties would inevitably impair his value judgments.31 Lynd had an idealistic view of his protégé Lazarsfeld as a

29 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Sociological Reflections on Business: Consumers and Managers,” in Social Science Research on Business: Product and Potential, ed. Robert A. Dahl et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959); also published as Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Reflections on Business,” The American Journal of Sociology 65, no. 1 (July 1959): 1-31. 30 Mark C. Smith, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate Over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918-1941 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 153; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Patricia Kendal, October 8, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2. 31 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Stoughton Lynd, October 6, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2; Robert Lynd, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 24, 1951, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2.

211 politically-motivated socialist scholar who was forced by circumstance to take commercial contracts. Lazarsfeld offered an ironic compliment to his highly-driven

American mentor of “old colonial Anglo-Saxon stock” by referring to him as “inner- directed for the other person.”32 But Lynd would ultimately be let down when

Lazarsfeld’s interest in methodology and the problem of decision-making proved to be more durable than his desire to advance the progressive cause.33

Horkheimer shared Lynd’s skepticism, declining an invitation to incorporate his

Institute into Lazarsfeld’s Bureau, saying that he did not want to be accountable to big business or “mass-culture publicity.”34 Horkhemier’s rebuff was particularly acute given that Lazarsfeld had helped the Institute of Social Research to secure a critical grant from the American Jewish Committee. The grant made possible the Studies in Prejudice series and even supported Horkheimer’s theoretical treatise with Adorno, The Dialectic of

Enlightenment, which contained the now-famous essay on the “culture industry.”35

Lazarsfeld’s conflict with Adorno is legendary,36 and Lazarsfeld grew increasingly resentful of Adorno over the years. Lazarsfeld regretfully noted that Adorno resorted to invectives against the practice of empirical social research, reducing the approach to a fetish object, the antithesis of his method of Critical Theory.37

32 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Robert Staughton Lynd,” The American Sociologist 6 (August 1971): 266. 33 Seymour Martin Lipset, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld at Columbia: A Great Methodologist and Teacher” in Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976): La sociologie de Vienne à New York, eds. Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1998), 255-70. 34 Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, from the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 90. 35 Thomas Wheatland, “Not-Such-Odd Couples: Paul Lazarsfeld and the Horkheimer Circle on Morningside Heights” in Exile, Science, and Bildung: The Contested Legacies of German Emigre Intellectuals, eds. Kettler, David and Gerhard Lauer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 180. 36 See, for example, David E. Morrison, “Kulture and Culture: The Case of Theodor W. Adorno and Paul Lazarsfeld,” Social Research 45 (1978: Summer) : 331-55. I discuss this episode in depth in Chapter 1. 37 P. F. Lazarsfeld, “Sociology” in The Human Sciences, n.d., PFL Vienna, Box, Rote Mappe, Papers Va, Mappe 2/2.

212 Mass Culture Critics at Henry Luce’s Fortune

Lazarsfeld introduced intellectuals and social researchers to the commercial world of business, stimulating an enterprise of mass culture criticism. At the same time, the legendary purveyor of mass culture Henry Luce, through his Fortune magazine, introduced businessmen to the world of intellectuals—several of whom were associated with, or influenced by, Lazarsfeld. Luce, the publisher of the newsweekly Time and later the mass magazine Life, launched the monthly, lavishly-illustrated, dollar-an-issue

Fortune in February 1930, just as the financial foundations of American capitalism had collapsed and the antagonism between management and labor was on the rise. The magazine was intended to document the “saga” of American business, but as the extent of the depression became clearer, the critical voices within the magazine became louder.

Luce was more interested in finding good writers with Ivy League edification than he was in hiring reporters with experience covering business. He brought on writers like

Archibald MacLeish and Dwight Macdonald, contrarians whose willingness to submit to the Fortune house idiom eroded over time. Though many of Luce’s writers, including

Macdonald, were radicalized in the 1930s, the kind of criticism that made it to publication generally advocated a better or “new” capitalism—with better wages and conditions for workers—rather than an explicit rhetoric of anti-capitalism. Luce generally endorsed this critical journalism, and even supported some early New Deal reforms, but he could not tolerate the Trotskyist approach that Macdonald introduced in a

1936 profile of the mammoth U.S. Steel corporation. Inspired by both Marxist radicalism and the social criticism of Robert and Helen Lynd’s Middletown, Macdonald, consciously

213 or unconsciously, sabotaged his career as a business journalist at Fortune but launched his career as a social critic.38

Though the critical edge of Fortune waned in the later thirties and into the war years, it was revived, ironically, in the context of the Cold War. The staunchly

Republican, anti-communist Luce demanded an explicit declaration of Fortune’s fealty to free enterprise in 1948. But precisely because of the elevated stakes, and so that the communist alternative was robbed of any claim to legitimacy, capitalism was held to a much higher standard. The same issue that announced Fortune’s allegiance to capitalism also introduced Daniel Bell’s new Labor department. Bell, who would gain prominence as a cultural critic with books like The End of Ideology in 1960 and The Cultural

Contradictions of Capitalism in 1976,39 was a socialist intellectual and labor organizer who would later join Lazarsfeld in the sociology department at Columbia. Bell presented a sympathetic view of union politics and organization, and he lent legitimacy to its claims against management. But despite his leftist allegiances, he had a conservative view of mass culture and mass consumption, which he developed in his time at Fortune.

Luce’s business magazine also employed William Whyte, whose reporting on corporate and suburban consumer culture became the substance of his 1956 book The

Organization Man, a widely-read critique of the bureaucratization and conformity endemic to American business.40 Lazarsfeld, in his effort to develop the field of

“business sociology,” became interested in the kind of journalism found in Luce’s

38 Michael Wrezin, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight Macdonald (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Robert Vanderlan, Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas Inside Henry Luce’s Media Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). 39 Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960); The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1976). 40 William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956).

214 Fortune.41 He cited Whyte’s studies of close-knit, status-conscious suburban communities where “horizontal” patterns of influence characterized the purchase of consumer goods. Lazarsfeld pointed to Whyte’s studies as further evidence for his theory that the personal influence of “opinion leaders” produced a “two-step” flow of communications: the so-called “limited effects” paradigm.42 “These are people who, because they are more gregarious and outgoing, influence the activities of other people around them,” Lazarsfeld noted in reference to the “opinion leaders” at a convention of broadcasters in 1957. “[T]hey have an effect on their buying, their voting, and their general level of information.”43 The media of communication were limited in their power to influence the masses, because their messages were mediated on a second level through interpersonal bonds. That is, media did not act on individualized consciousnesses, but entered a social sphere of communication that could augment the message.

Luce’s business publication nurtured the development of what historian Robert

Vanderlan calls a “perceptive strain of criticism” that emerged “from within the mass culture edifice.”44 In some ways, the magazine manifested Lazarsfeld’s desire to incorporate social criticism and the business of mass communications. Ironically, the business magazine Fortune was a more critical venue than Luce’s newsweekly, Time. A a

1949 study by Lazarsfeld’s research bureau found that readers of Time perceived the magazine as having a pro-business, anti-labor editorial bias—despite its liberal veneer.

41 Paul Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Messers. Dahl and Haire, November 7, 1958. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 2/2. 42 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Who Are the Marketing Leaders?” Tide, May 9, 1958, 53-7. For a trenchant critique of the “limited effects” paradigm and its influence in media studies and sociology, see Todd Gitlin, “Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm,” Theory and Society 6, no. 2 (September 1978): 205-53. 43 “Summary of Remarks by Paul F. Lazarsfeld,” Broadcasters’ Convention, Quebec, March 25, 1957, PFL Vienna, Box PFL-Rote Mappen: PFL ancillary/NSF Memos/miscelle scientific I/miscelle scientific II, folder “Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I [Mappe 1/2].” 44 Vanderlan, 261-2.

215 Time’s political bent was “capitalistic,” but its editors were “smart enough to know that the future of capitalism has to be tied in with a certain amount of liberal expression,” according to one respondent.45 At Fortune, Whyte, Macdonald, and Bell, willingly or begrudgingly, engaged the world of business not as celebrants but as critics, developing an “expository form” of writing, as Bell later described it to his colleague Lazarsfeld.46

They were ultimately compelled to address the issue of mass culture and the mass society as a product of modern American enterprise.

C. Wright Mills, the Decatur Study, and Personal Influence

Between their respective tenures at Fortune, Macdonald and Bell traveled in the same circle of non-communist, leftist writers and editors of “little magazines” like

Partisan Review, The New Leader, and Macdonald’s Politics. Theses were the journals of the New York intellectual community, which also included the exiled intellectuals at

Columbia: the “Frankfurt School” scholars and Lazarsfeld’s band of mass media analysts and social researchers. Bell was instrumental in forwarding the career of C. Wright

Mills, a young sociologist at the University of Maryland who had been writing for The

New Leader. Bell introduced Mills to Macdonald, and the two became fast friends— though their mutual capacity to alienate colleagues would eventually lead to a falling out.47 Bell also supported Mills for a position in the sociology department at Columbia,

45 Robert K. Merton, “An Inventory of Ideas for the Editors (Based on Qualitative Analysis of Intensive Interviews),” October 1949, box 4, Bureau of Applied Social Research Archive (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York) [hereafter, BASR Archive]. 46 Daniel Bell, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, n.d., PFL Vienna, Box, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966- 1976 (mixed Dates), Mappe 3/6. 47 Indeed, it was Mills—who shared Macdonald’s political passion and his “contrarian sensibility”—who suggested the title for Macdonald’s journal, Politics. The journal was broad in its conception of the political, and its contributors paid keen attention to the politics of mass cultural forms such as movies, magazines, books, and radio. Vanderlan, 147-8.

216 facilitated at first through Lazarsfeld’s Bureau, where Mills would begin working part- time in 1944 and full-time in 1945.48

Though Mills worried that he might be perceived as “selling out” at Lazarsfeld’s

Bureau of Applied Social Research, he nevertheless became engaged in the work. As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Mills had studied under the German

émigré sociologist Hans H. Gerth (himself a student of Karl Mannheim), who introduced him to the more structural approach that was typical of the Continental style of sociology.

But Mills was also was interested in the empirical techniques used at Lazarsfeld’s

Bureau, which, he believed, could produced a better understanding of social stratification.49 Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton, the associate director of the Bureau, promptly sent Mills on a research trip to Decatur, Illinois. He was to conduct a study funded by a magazine publisher concerning the limits of media influence and the role of personal influence and “opinion leaders” in affecting individuals’ decisions. Lazarsfeld had discovered the importance of such “horizontal” influence in an earlier study, published as The People’s Choice, which examined the decision-making process of voters in the 1940 presidential election. He wanted to employ a method of “snowball sampling” to trace chains of influence by interviewing opinion leaders and their followers.50

The famously maverick scholar Mills, however, did not perfectly carry out the prescribed quantitative methodology. This angered Lazarsfeld, whose mounting

48 Irving Louis Horowitz, C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 77. 49 Daniel Geary, “C. Wright Mills and American Social Science” in American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 141-7. 50 Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research” in Organizing for Social Research, eds. Burkhart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa (Cambridge, Mass: Schenckman Publishing Company, 1982), 44-5; David L. Sills, “Stanton, Lazarsfeld, and Merton —Pioneers in Communication Research” in American Communication Research—The Remembered History, eds. Everette E. Dennis and Ellen Wartella (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996), 110.

217 frustration would eventually lead to a falling out and to Mills’s dismissal from the

Bureau. But Mills was successful in persuading Lazarsfeld to establish a Labor Research

Division, which Mills led while staying on in the sociology department at Columbia. He coexisted incongruously with Lazarsfeld, who observed Mills’s unorthodox style with a

“mixture of respect, envy, resignation and interest.” Lazarsfeld admired Mills for well articulating a “position of a modern leftist” that their ideological allies like Lynd had failed to produce, but he found their respective styles so drastically different that it appeared to him a “mere historical accident” that they had ended up in the same department.51 Their conflict was even fictionalized in a 1959 novel called False Coin by

Mill’s friend Harvey Swados.52

Mills ended up using the interviews from the Decatur study, along with material from another BASR study on “Everyday Life in America,” as the basis for his broad analysis of bureaucracy and social organization in the American middle classes, published in 1951 as White Collar.53 The book was grand in its ambitions, tracing a great cultural and economic transformation from nineteenth-century individual craftsmanship to mid-twentieth-century corporate organization, but Mills’s polemical prose and shaky methodology did not win universal praise among sociologists.54 Lazarsfeld was not

51 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to C. Wright Mills, November 2, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976, mixed dates, Mappe 1/6. Lazarsfeld could not deny the popular impact of Mills’s book White Collar, and he uncritically referred to its findings in some published writings. See, for example, Allen H. Barton and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Some Functions of Qualitative Analysis in Social Research” in Sociologica, ed. Max Horkheimer (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlangsanstalt, 1955); Geary, “C. Wright Mills,” 147. 52 Horowitz, C. Wright Mills, 228. The character modeled on Lazarsfeld, Victor Vollbauch, is described as “a leading figure in a new kind of sociology apparently more interested in finding out new ways of measuring human behavior than in coming to conclusions about it.” Harvey Swados, False Coin (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959), 8. 53 C. Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); Geary, “C. Wright Mills,” 151. 54 Irving Louis Horowitz, C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 227- 53.

218 impressed with the book, which he found to be historical and impressionistic; in his mind, it was a bastardization of the Bureau-sponsored Decatur study that had spawned it.55

The early reviews were mixed, despite the great impact the book would come to have. Writing in the American Journal of Sociology, David Riesman complimented Mills on “grappling resourcefully with the big questions of our day,” but he felt that Mills went much too far in his critique of the insipidness of the mass media and the banality of the lives of white-collared people. He felt that Mills’s picture of modern industrial society was as gloomy as George Orwell’s in 1984, but that the job of the sociologist, as opposed to the novelist, was to explain and not dramatize. By flattening out the “ethnic coloring” of his white-collar subjects, Riesman noted, Mills had further created a more “wan and celluloidal” picture than was warranted.56 Dwight Macdonald, writing in the Partisan

Review, was not nearly so polite, presenting more of an extended insult than a review. He found the book “boring to the point of unreadability,” overly apocalyptic, cluttered with meaningless facts, and simply “no good.” Mills was not a thinker but rather a propagandist. “I wish he hadn’t done it,” Macdonald bluntly concluded.57 Nevertheless,

White Collar would become a classic of mid-century American sociology, establishing

Mills as an important social critic, and Lazarsfeld would later reluctantly cite it positively

55 John H. Summers, “Perpetual Revelations: C. Wright Mills and Paul Lazarsfeld,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 608 (November 2006): 25-40. 56 David Riesman, “White Collar: The American Middle Classes by C. Wright Mills” [book review], American Journal of Sociology 57 (March 1952): 513-15. Riesman later complained to Robert Merton that Mills had “distorted” the interviews to suit his ideology and argument, seeing “white collars where there were blue collars, ethnic-colored collars, all sorts of collars.” David Riesman, letter to Robert K. Merton, March 29, 1976, box 187, folder “David Riesman, PFL Festshrift,” Robert K. Merton Papers, 1928-2003 (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York) [hereafter, “RKM”]. Nevertheless, Mills made the interviews from the Decatur and “Everyday Life” studies available to Nathan Glazer, Riesman’s collaborator and co-author of The Lonely Crowd, who worked at the Bureau alongside Mills. According to Glazer, Mills taught him the newer techniques of survey social research, which he then imparted to Riesman. Geary, “C. Wright Mills,” 153 and note #71, p. 327; Robert Genter, Late Modernism: Art, Culture, and Politics in Cold War America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 75. 57 Dwight Macdonald, “Abstractio ad Absurdum,” Partisan Review 19 (January-February 1952): 110-14.

219 for popularizing an idea of social stratification.58

Lazarsfeld was ultimately able to salvage the material from the Decatur study.

His analysis was published in 1955 as Personal Influence, which was truer to his original intentions for the project. Historian Jean Converse called it “a dogged effort by the

Bureau to wrest social theory from market research.”59 The book, co-authored by Elihu

Katz, emphasized the limits on the effective power of the mass media, the messages of which were “refracted” by the “personal environment of the ultimate consumer.”60 It was a seminal work that established this “limited effects” paradigm in communications studies; indeed, the sociologist and historian Todd Gitlin called it the “founding document of an entire field of inquiry.” The study was a response to the “hypodermic” model of media studies, prevalent in the 1920s, which presumed a crude stimulus-response mechanism that ignored the social context in which messages were received and interpreted. But critics like Mills and Gitlin believed that the “administrative” approach to research became so entwined with its corporate and government backers that it was effectively neutered, incapable of executing a real social criticism. This approach may have eased Lazarsfeld’s way in the American social science scene—relative to the critical theorists in Horkheimer’s circle, for example—but it tarnished his standing among more radical scholars.61

58 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “A Sociologist Looks at Historians” in Public Opinion and Historians: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Melvin Small (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), 56. 59 Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 292. 60 Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955), 7. 61 See Todd Gitlin, “Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm,” Theory and Society 6, no. 2 (September 1978): 205-53. Historian Neil Verma has a different view of the effect of Lazarsfeld’s style of research, which, he contends, did little to interrogate the producers of messages in the media of mass communications. He argues that Lazarsfeld’s empirical method reduced the listener to the passive position of a mere “container of opinions and allegiances.” Neil Verma, Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012),

220 By the time Personal Influence appeared, Mills’s relationship with Lazarsfeld was broken beyond repair, and neither made much effort to conceal his contempt for the other.

The purist Mills was horrified that Daniel Bell had gone to work for a “capitalist” Luce publication, Fortune, and he famously eviscerated the quantitative sociology practiced by

Lazarsfeld as “abstracted empiricism” in The Sociological Imagination, published in

1959.62 Mills believed that Lazarsfeld’s empirical method lacked the proper historical and structural framework through which to interpret its results, and that it could not address theoretical problems such as class and status consciousness. Empiricists could say nothing about society unless it had been through the “fine little mill” of “The

Statistical Ritual,” which manipulated infinite facts as its raw materials. Lazarsfeld, whom Mills placed “among the more sophisticated” of the empirical practitioners, was still more interested in the philosophy of science than in the study of society itself.

Because the empirical studies were so expensive, they usually had to be sponsored by some corporation or institution—certainly this was the case at the BASR. The inherent interests of the client would, argued Mills, inevitably taint the study, and the researchers would necessarily assume the politics of their bureaucratic “chieftans.” Not only did this require the codification of procedures and the use of “technicians,” but—most problematically for Mills—it destroyed the practice of social science as an “autonomous” enterprise.

Yet Mills’s principled opposition to Lazarsfeld’s willingness to take commercial contracts for market research was not without its practical downsides, and it revealed his insensitivity to Lazarsfeld’s background. In Vienna, Lazarsfeld ran his research center,

122. 62 C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959). The following discussion is drawn mainly from chapters 3 and 5.

221 the Österreichische Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle, with a university affiliation but without university funding, partly because his Jewish heritage precluded full status at the university.63 And while Mills dismissed Lazarsfeld as an employee of the sensational pulp magazine True Story—indeed, Macfadden, the publisher of the magazine, had financed the Decatur study—Mills’s refusal to take commercial work sometimes put him in awkward position. “Do you know anywhere I can get two or three thousand dollars for this summer and fall in order to continue my work,” wrote a desperate Mills to Lazarsfeld in 1959, after having been denied grants from government, foundations, and the university.64

Leo Lowenthal and The Lonely Crowd

Mills was not alone in his distaste for Lazarsfeld’s strict adherence to quantitative, empirical sociology, nor in his resentment towards Lazarsfeld’s willingness to perform

“administrative” research for commercial interests. Although Lazarsfeld’s institutional competence provided a venue for critical sociology and financing for the analytical investigation of mass society and culture, his quantitative methods and funding schemes were anathema to many leftist social researchers. Lazarsfeld admitted that the survey method’s attempt to “atomize the social world” was “deplored” by some sociologists.65

Lazarsfeld’s conflict with Mills was much like his ambivalent relationship with

63 David E. Morrison, “Paul Lazarsfeld 1901-1976: A Tribute,” Redaktionelles, 7-9. 64 C. Wright Mills, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, May 6, 1959, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 35, Correspondences 1933-1965, Mappe 2/3. Jonathan Sterne has pointed out the irony that Mills’s practice of “critical” sociology was only made possible by the tiresome “administrative” work—the empirical research—he did under Lazarsfeld’s direction at the Bureau. See Jonathan Sterne, “C. Wright Mills, the Bureau for Applied Social Research, and the Meaning of Critical Scholarship,” Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies 5, no. 1 (February 2005): 65-94. 65 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “A Sociologist Looks at Historians” in Public Opinion and Historians: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Melvin Small (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), 47.

222 the Frankfurt School critical theorists such as Adorno.66 Lazarsfeld would later refer to the work of Jürgen Habermas as “stimulating” but written in “horrible existentialistic

German,” and he observed that Habermas’s association with Horkheimer’s group made him “a kind of German Wright Mills.”67 The mass culture critic and Frankfurt School scholar Leo Lowenthal also chaffed at Lazarsfeld’s method, which in 1950 he called a kind of “applied asceticism” that “refuses to enter the sphere of meaning.” Like Mills,

Lowenthal lamented social science’s obsession with “horizontal segments,” its failure to consider historical situations, and its capacity to be exploited for commercial purposes as a tool with which to “prepare reluctant customers for enthusiastic spending.”68 However, he did respect Lazarsfeld, whom he called the “most outstanding sociologist of communication in this country,” and the feeling of respect was mutual. But while

Lazarsfeld employed more typical sociological methods in his work on human subjects,

Lowenthal approached sociological research “humanistically” by studying literature and textual documents as primary sources that bore the symbols and values that gave

“cohesion” to social groups.69

Lowenthal was speaking from his experience working on Lazarsfeld’s radio research project, where, despite his later methodological protestations, he was able to produce a highly influential essay, “Biographies in Popular Magazines.” The essay was published in 1944 in one of several volumes documenting the work of Lazarsfeld’s Office

66 See Chapter 1 for a detailed discussion of this conflict. 67 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. G. Lindt Gollin, February 23, 1967, PFL Vienna, Box, Blaue Mappen 36, folder “36: Correspondence 1966-1968 [Mappe 2/2] A. Etzioni/24.1.1967-Henry H. Wiggins/18.11.1968.” 68 Leo Lowenthal, “Historical Perspectives of Popular Culture,” American Journal of Sociology 55 (1950): 323-32. 69 Leo Lowenthal, Literature, Popular Culture, and Society (Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books, 1961), xi, xxiv; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Leo Lowenthal, December 7, 1951, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2.

223 of Radio Research, and it was later revised as “The Triumph of Mass Idols” in a collection of Lowenthal’s essays.70 In the original essay, Lowenthal performed a historical survey of biographical profiles published in mass-circulation magazines, drawing a distinction between “idols of production,” which prevailed in the nineteenth century through the First World War, and “idols of consumption,” which had become prevalent since.71 While the former character type was productive and industrious, the latter was more commonly involved in the sphere of leisure time, entertainment, and consumption. The production idol exalted “outwardly bound energies and actions” and celebrated “initiative and enterprise,” whereas the consumption idol appeared to stand for a “phantasmagoria of world-wide social security” and seemed to encourage the societal disintegration into an “amorphous crowd of consumers.” Lowenthal lamented this new trend in mass culture, which discarded the previously valued “spontaneous personality” in favor of a “command psychology” that conceived of individuals not as responsible agents but as mere bearers of “certain useful or not so useful character traits.” The new mass man seemed condemned to a life of continuous adjustment to the world and to other people by exhibiting “amiable and sociable qualities and by repressing all other traits.”

70 Leo Lowenthal, “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Frank N. Stanton, eds (New York: Essential Books, 1944); republished in Lowenthal, Literature, Popular Culture, and Society. 71 Other commentators had previously noted a shift in national values that had come with the growing cultural emphasis on consumption. The journalist Samuel Strauss, for example, argued in 1924 that a new ethic of “Consumptionism” was threatening to replace a respect for the continuity of life with an obsession over the merely new and improved. William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 266-8. Historian Roland Marchand has noted that the discourse of advertising in the interwar years included a number of parables that functioned to usher consumers into the modern age. One of these was the parable of the “First Impression,” which held that, in an increasingly mobile and impersonal society, encounters with strangers were ever more frequent and consequential, and so superficial appearances could be critical to success. Advertisers, of course, had just the product to help nervous consumers cope with the harsh judgment of their peers in a world where personality had become more important than character. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 208-17.

224 Ultimately, the education of mass culture produced not an autonomous individual, but the perfect consumer.

The essay was later cited by Mills in White Collar, and by Macdonald, but its influence is perhaps most clear in David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd, a project begun in

1947 as a study of mass communication, public opinion, and apathy. The book was first published in 1950 and popularized in an abridged paperback edition in 1953.72 The widely-read book made Riesman famous as a public intellectual, landing him on the cover of Luce’s Time magazine in 1954. In both contemporary and historical accounts,

Riesman’s book has often been paired with William H. Whyte’s Organization Man.73

Both books were popular and influential sociological texts on postwar, middle-class culture that were more respected outside the field of sociology than within the discipline, and both seemed to address a central cultural problem of the 1950s: conformity.

Like Lowenthal, Riesman defined several character typologies, or “directions,” that prevailed in different historical epochs. The first was “tradition-direction,” which prevailed in the pre-capitalist era; followed by “inner-direction,” which embodied the values of self-reliance, individualism, and industriousness that characterized early capitalism; and finally “other-direction,” which had become dominant by the middle- twentieth century and was characterized by a tendency to accommodate the presentation

72 David Riesman, with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953); Genter, Late Modernism, 75. Riesman’s collaborator Nathan Glazer was at the time working as an editor for Anchor Books, which was modeled on the British Penguin series as a paperback publisher of “serious” books; at the time, paperbacks were generally marketed to a mass audience. Glazer edited The Lonely Crowd for length and clarity, and the resulting paperback edition was the popular version read by millions of college students and by the general public. Nathan Glazer, “From Socialism to Sociology” in Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies, eds. Bennett M. Berger and Reinhard Bendix (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 190-209. 73 See, for example, the preface to Seymour Martin Lipset and Leo Lowenthal, eds., Culture and Social Character: The Work of David Riesman Reviewed (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961).

225 of self to one’s social environment. Despite the author’s protestations—and probably owing something to the suggestive title—the book became known mainly as a as a critique of social conformity and the mass society. Riesman spent years after the book’s publication attempting futilely to correct a common misreading that The Lonely Crowd was a document of historical decline, and that its authors were nostalgic for the inner- directed society which had been superseded by an other-directed society.74

Riesman applied his critique of the changing American character to a a number of cultural objects, and it may have been that readers took his somewhat ironic tone for a genuine longing for the past.75 But relative to his contemporary social critics, Riesman had a much more sympathetic view of popular culture and its potential, noting in another essay that cultural rebels like the “hot rodders” were refusing to accept Detroit’s image and instead crafting their own.76 He was skeptical of the paranoid paradigm of media manipulation, and he was critical of accounts that failed to consider public’s reception of media messages. Indeed, Riesman credited Lazarsfeld’s research on the limited effects of mass media messages, which privileged the second-order, person-to-person mediation over the absolute power of political and commercial propaganda to shape public opinion.77 Riesman’s collaborator, Nathan Glazer, had worked with C. Wright Mills at

74 Gilbert, Men in the Middle, 47-8. Gilbert argues, convincingly, that Riesman’s critique specifically concerned a crisis of masculinity and addressed the problem of how to remain an individual, or “be a man,” in an “increasingly feminized world of mass culture, consumption, and conformity” (46); Genter, Late Modernism, 81-4. 75 He reviewed, for example, a film, Executive Suite, which had a mood of “nostalgic reverie” for the nineteenth-century company town, home of “paternalistic order, domestic virtue, and productive work.” Eric Larrabee and David Riesman, “Company-Town Pastoral: The Role of Business in ‘Executive Suite,’” in Rosenberg and White, 325-37 76 David Riesman, “Listening to Popular Music” in Rosenberg and White, 359-71. Riesman even organized a Center for the Study of Leisure at the University of Chicago, and in 1954, he proposed a federal “Office of Recreation” that would serve the Keynesian function of encouraging consumption. See David Steigerwald, “David Riesman on the Frontiers of Consumption” in A Destiny of Choice? New Directions in Consumer History, eds. David Blanke and David Steigerwald (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013), 83-97. 77 David Riesman [with the collaboration of Nathan Glazer], “The Lonely Crowd: A Reconsideration in

226 Lazarsfeld’s Bureau, coding interviews for the project that would become White Collar.78

Riesman’s categories in The Lonely Crowd were roughly parallel to Lowenthal’s idols of “production” and “consumption,” and Riesman did indeed reference Lowenthal’s essay in the text of the book. But another émigré Frankfurt School scholar, Erich Fromm, who had psychoanalyzed Riesman, is usually cited as his most significant influence, and

Riesman quite explicitly acknowledged the importance of Fromm’s work.79 Specifically,

Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, which gained a wide readership in the U.S., also documented a history of changing psychological character types to account for the rise of fascism and totalitarianism. But for Fromm the capacity to diminish the individual’s will was not exclusive to dictatorial polities: through the creation of the “pseudo-self,” individuality could be effaced in capitalist societies.80 Fromm took this concept further in

Man for Himself, in which he described the “marketing orientation” of the

1960” in Culture and Social Character: The Work of David Riesman Reviewed, eds. Seymour Martin Lipset and Leo Lowenthal (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), 452-3; Genter, Late Modernism, 85-6. 78 Riesman knew of Glazer from his column on the practice of sociology, “Study of Man,” which he wrote for Clement Greenberg’s journal Commentary. He also knew of Glazer’s connection to Paul Lazarsfeld’s research bureau at Columbia, which intrigued him. Glazer himself was the son of immigrant Jews, ensconced in the socialist-intellectual milieu of New York, reading and writing for little magazines like Partisan Review, The New International, and Politics. He “religiously” attended lectures at Columbia by Frankfurt School scholars Max Horkheimer and Leo Lowenthal, and he remembered being “deeply impressed” by Lowenthal’s intellect. Glazer also worked briefly for Horkheimer while he was doing studies on anti-Semitism for the American Jewish Committee. All the while, Glazer was sporadically working on a Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia, attending lectures by Mills, Lazarsfeld, and Robert Merton. He described his path to sociology as a way to pursue politics “through academic means.” Glazer, “From Socialism to Sociology,” and David Riesman, “Becoming an Academic Man” in Authors of Their Own Lives, 190-209; 22-65. 79 Riesman recalled that Fromm often acted more as a teacher than as an analyst during their sessions, instilling in him a deep interest in the social sciences. Riesman occasionally read Fromm’s manuscripts and sometimes helped the émigré scholar with his English writing. Riesman was also very much influenced by Fromm’s work in the 1930s on the Institute of Social Research’s Studien über Autorität und Familie (“Studies on Authority and the Family”), as well as the “Studies in Prejudice” series that included The Authoritarian Personality. Genter, Late Modernism, 76-77; David Riesman, “Becoming an Academic Man” in Authors of Their Own Lives, 45-46; Riesman, “The Lonely Crowd: A Reconsideration in 1960,” 434. 80 Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1941). On the impact of Fromm, see Alpers, Dictators, especially chapter 4.

227 “nonproductive” middle class, which encouraged the experience of the self as a commodity. This concept is echoed in Riesman’s description of the “other-directed” character type, which was motivated less by an internal “gyroscope” and more by the demands of peer groups, adopting those characteristics which proved to have the greatest saleability.81

Despite the clear influence of Fromm in establishing psychological character types, Riesman, in a private letter, was explicit about the particular influence of

Lowenthal’s essay as a “jumping off place” in crafting the argument of The Lonely

Crowd, which analyzed particular products of mass culture and was specifically situated in the American context.82 The respect and intellectual admiration was mutual. In 1961,

Lowenthal, along with Seymour Martin Lipset, edited a collection of essays, both critical and admiring, concerning Riesman’s most famous work. Lowenthal acknowledged that

Riesman’s method had drawn criticism within the discipline of sociology, but he appreciated Riesman’s attempt to address “universal trends” in the age of industrialization and mass society. Lowenthal complimented Riesman by placing his work in the category of European, and particularly German, “cultural sciences.”83 Lipset, a student and then colleague of Lazarsfeld at Columbia and at the Bureau, was more

81 Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (New York: Rinehart, 1947); Genter, Later Modernism, 79. On the work of European émigrés who influenced The Lonely Crowd, see also Daniel Horowitz, Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Lazarsfeld was also influenced by Fromm, who was his friend and colleague. He admired Fromm’s innovative use of psychological typologies in social research, which they had used while working together on the study of authority in European families. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Sociology of Empirical Social Research,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 6 (December 1962): 759. 82 David Riesman, letter to Robert K. Merton, June 14, 1976, box 187, folder “David Riesman, PFL Festshrift,” RKM. 83 Leo Lowenthal, “Humanistic Perspectives of The Lonely Crowd,” in Culture and Social Character: The Work of David Riesman Reviewed, eds. Seymour Martin Lipset and Leo Lowenthal (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), 27-41.

228 critical of Riesman’s argument, claiming that the traits of the “other-directed” man had, to a considerable extent, always been part of the American character, while the values of achievement and individualism persisted.84

Riesman later acknowledged his debt to “Lazarsfeld and his circle at the Bureau,” whose study of mass media and the patterns of personal influence was “formative” in the work that led to The Lonely Crowd.85 Riesman expressed his “profound admiration” for

Lazarsfeld’s work in a 1954 letter in which he, along with his colleagues at the University of Chicago, tried to convince Lazarsfeld to leave Columbia for their department.86

Alluding to the Frankfurt School mass culture critics in a 1950 essay, Riesman also made reference to the group of “[g]ifted Europeans” who were horrified by the “vulgarization of taste” brought on by industrialization. This was a position he respected, though

Riesman was more amenable to the liberating possibilities of popular culture.87

Dwight Macdonald and Middlebrow Culture

Dwight Macdonald was also influenced by the Frankfurt School mass culture critics who worked on Lazarsfeld’s radio research project. Specifically, he cited

84 Seymour Martin Lipset, “A Changing American Character?” in Culture and Social Character, 136-71. 85 David Riesman, “Ethical and Practical Dilemmas of Fieldwork in Academic Settings: A Personal Memoir,” in Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, eds. Robert K. Merton, et al. (New York: The Free Press, 1979), 211-2 86 David Riesman , letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, March 5, 1954, PFL Vienna, Box, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 2/2. Riesman also boasted that he had helped to persuade Lazarsfeld’s fellow Viennese market researcher Hans Zeisel to come to Chicago. Zeisel was a close friend of Lazarsfeld, a collaborator in the Austrian Social Democratic youth movement as well as the “most active” member in the creation of the Forschungsstelle at the University of Vienna. Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “No Dates III.” 87 David Riesman, “Listening to Popular Music,” American Quarterly 2 (1950): 359-71. Among Riesman’s émigré friends was Hannah Arendt, to whom he was introduced by Daniel Bell. Riesman began a correspondence with Arendt in the 1940s, and he read early drafts of her major work, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Genter, Late Modernism, 74.

229 Lowenthal’s essay on popular biographies and Adorno’s essay “On Popular Music,”88 which he called “brilliant.”89 Macdonald was much less inclined than Riesman, however, to admit the positive attributes of popular culture. When, in 1953, he revised an essay on the subject that he had written for his journal Politics, he changed the title from “A

Theory of Popular Culture” to “Theory of Mass Culture” to emphasize the pejorative connotations of mass and excise the potentially positive content of popular.90 Macdonald willfully read Riesman’s analysis in the most negative possible light, concluding that the mass man was a “solitary atom, uniform with all and undifferentiated from thousands and millions of other atoms who make up ‘the lonely crowd,’ as David Riesman well calls

American society.”

In this famous essay, Macdonald articulated his basic hierarchy of culture. He emphasized the insidiousness of mass culture, which, he felt, was a better description than “popular” culture, because it was produced solely as an article of mass consumption,

“like chewing gum.” Macdonald explicitly placed blame on business enterprise for debasing the culture by exploiting the profitable market of the “newly awakened masses.”

The industry exploited new technologies to more easily distribute vulgarized cultural products through the mass media of movies, radio, and television. They produced kitsch in the form of cheap books, periodicals, and music. Macdonald differentiated Mass

Culture from Folk Art, which was a spontaneous expression of the people from below.

Mass Culture, on the other hand, was imposed “from above,” “fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen,” and its audiences were composed of “passive consumers” whose only choice was whether to buy or not buy. Macdonald argued that Mass Culture was an

88 T. W. Adorno, “On Popular Music,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941). 89 Dwight Macdonald, “A Theory of Mass Culture,” Diogenes 3 (Summer, 1953): 1-17. 90 Wrezin, Rebel, 287.

230 “instrument of political domination” that revealed capitalism as an exploitative class society, but he expressed his elitism by warning that it threatened the preserve of High

Culture by virtue of its “sheer pervasiveness.” It was also a revolutionary force, “[l]ike nineteenth-century capitalism,” that broke down barriers of class, taste, and tradition, producing a “homogenized culture” that destroyed all distinction and value discrimination. It was thus “very, very democratic,” but in a negative sense.

By this time of the essay’s publication, Macdonald was on the staff of The New

Yorker, and he was progressively shedding his radical politics and carving out a niche as a critic of culture.91 Macdonald had warned of a “tepid, flaccid Middlebrow Culture” in his

1953 essay on mass culture, but he further developed this idea when he once again revised the essay under the new title “Masscult & Midcult,” originally published in the

Spring 1960 issue of Partisan Review and republished in a 1962 collection of essays called Against the American Grain.92 Macdonald truncated “Mass Culture” to simply

“Masscult,” since “it really isn’t a culture at all” but was, rather, a mere parody of High

Culture.93 Aside from the name change, Macdonald’s appraisal of Masscult was roughly the same as in the earlier essay, but he expressed new scorn for middlebrow culture, which he called “Midcult.” “Midcult” was a greater threat to High Culture precisely because of its pretensions to be High Culture despite having most of the essential qualities of Masscult.

91 Wrezin, Rebel, 279. 92 Dwight Macdonald, “Masscult & Midcult” in Against the American Grain (New York: Random house, 1962). 93 Macdonald, “Masscult,” 3.

231 Ernest Dichter: Friend of Business, Philosopher of Hedonism

Macdonald’s relentless cultural criticism was clearly influenced by the Frankfurt

School critical theorists working on Lazarsfeld’s radio research project. If Macdonald represented an extreme American interpreter of the antagonism to mass culture cultivated by this cohort of émigré social researchers, another of Lazarsfeld’s colleagues, the

Viennese psychologist Ernest Dichter, represented the opposite: the absolute celebration of popular, consumer culture. Dichter fully embraced the entrepreneurial opportunities of market research in the postwar consumer economy. In the same collection of essays from

Lazarsfeld’s Office of Radio Research that included Lowenthal’s influential “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” there appeared a starkly different article by Dichter, “On the

Psychology of Radio Commercials.”94 In his essay, Dichter pointed out that one of the problems with radio commercials was that, unlike advertisements in mass magazines, they were not seen by the public as an “art substitute” that could elevate their “taste”; instead, they were commonly seen as loud, cheap, and dull. At the time, Dichter was working as a consultant for an advertising agency, and his aim was to understand the psychological “barriers” that listeners erected against advertisers’ invitations to “being sold.” His psychological investigations were designed to help marketers devise methods to break such barriers. Dichter, who became the most famous practitioner of

“motivational” research, was only interested in social or aesthetic criticism to the extent that it could aid marketers.

Dichter was one of the more qualitatively-inclined market researchers affiliated with the project who came from the same circle of Viennese social psychologists that

94 Ernest Dichter, “On the Psychology of Radio Commercials” in Radio Research, 1942-1943, eds Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton (New York: Essential Books, 1944).

232 produced Lazarsfeld. Like Lazarsfeld, he had studied under Charlotte Bühler at the

University of Vienna. Dichter also took a statistics course taught by Lazarsfeld and worked for his research institute, or Forschungsstelle, conducting studies of Viennese milk drinking habits. Though Lazarsfeld had pioneered the practice of motivational research financed through commercial contracts, he resented Dichter’s derivative and, in his view, bastardized use of the method for profit, rather than for the pursuit of knowledge. Lazarsfeld’s methodological innovation had gotten away from him in the case of Dichter and another former student of his—and his ex-wife—Herta Herzog, whose commercial success he viewed with some skepticism.95 Referring to one of his own early articles on motivational research published in the U.S., Lazarsfeld noted derisively that it “unfortunately then became the basis for Dichter’s operation when he came to this country.”96

In his early years in the U.S., Dichter occasionally worked for Lazarsfeld’s project and sometimes took patients for analysis. He also consulted for an advertising agency and a market research firm, and for several years worked as a researcher for Frank

Stanton at CBS, a position he secured with the help of Lazarsfeld.97 “The only thing I do not like about it is the close contact with Lazarsfeld,” Dichter wrote about getting the work at CBS, indicating the anxiety induced by Lazarsfeld’s methodological demands.

The position also introduced him to Leo Lowenthal, whom he found annoyingly unassimilated yet potentially useful for his connection with Horkheimer’s Institute of

95 Paul Lazarsfeld, “Progress and Fad in Motivation Research,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Seminar on Social Science for Industry—Motivation, held in San Francisco by Stanford Research Institute, March 23, 1955. 96 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Peter Rossi, May 12, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. 97 Ernest Dichter, Getting Motivated: The Secret Behind Individual Motivations by the Man Who Was Not Afraid to Ask ‘Why?’ (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), 44.

233 Social Research.98 Unlike Lazarsfeld, Dichter was largely apolitical, and his interest in market research stemmed not from its political application, methodological opportunities, or concern with social stratification. Rather, Dichter was drawn to the business of marketing and consumerism out of a revulsion at his own childhood poverty and a desire to evangelize his personal philosophy of hedonism which, he felt, was not only good for the individual, but good for modern capitalism.99 Later in his career, Lazarsfeld mocked

Dichter’s disinterest in politics, pointing out to an audience of Austrian-Americans that this “Vienna Ph.D. of the early 30s” had gone on to advise both political parties in Austria on the problems of propaganda.100

While his Viennese colleagues Herta Herzog and Hans Zeisel remained employed by advertising firms, and while Lazarsfeld kept his institutes affiliated with universities,

Dichter’s lack of patience with institutional constraints and the demands of quantitative research inspired him to sell himself as a “psychological” marketing consultant with a unique perspective. Dichter generally spurned the quantitative methodology of

Lazarsfeld, instead applying—somewhat crudely—his own brand of Gestalt, or “image,” theory to the study of consumer motivations. Though Dichter practiced a kind of pop-

Freudian psychology,101 he achieved great success as a marketing consultant in the postwar years, a time when psychology and psychoanalysis pervaded the popular

98 Ernest Dichter Papers, box 161, folder “Diary, 1943-1944” (Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware). 99 This philosophy is most fully developed in Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960). 100Paul Lazarsfeld, “Austrian Sociologists in the United States,” speech at the Austrian Institute in New York, ca. 1972, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, No Dates III. See chapters one and two for a detailed account of Dichter’s troubled relationship with Lazarsfeld and his early years in Vienna and as an émigré in the U.S. 101In Vienna, Dichter lived for years in a building across the street from Freud’s apartment and office, but Dichter never studied under or even met the famous analyst. See Dichter, Getting Motivated, 79.

234 discourse as explanations for social phenomena.102 Dichter employed series of “depth” interviews with willing subjects as a kind psychoanalytic probe into the consumer unconscious. One of the advantages of this method of motivational research, from the practical standpoint of Dichter’s marketing clients, was its facility in discerning psychological differences that did not align with demographic categories. This had a practical application for Dichter’s clients in directing product appeals and advertising messages to their intended markets, which might not align with demographic categories.

But Dichter was his own most successfully marketed product. Dichter’s provocative statements made him a sensation in the industry, and he soon became a common reference in popular books. In Whyte’s Organization Man, for example, he was mentioned as a motivational researcher working to encourage a hedonistic ethos of consumption to counter the American Protestant Ethic of restraint.103 Dichter was also profiled admiringly as a self-styled “mad genius” in Martin Mayer’s Madison Avenue

U.S.A.104 He was a devilish, but unnamed, “manipulator” in Betty Friedan’s Feminine

Mystique. Friedan recounted several of Dichter’s reports on marketing to housewives, and she interviewed Dichter. While she gave him credit for taking a serious interest in the lives of women, she concluded ominously:

The motivational researchers must be given credit for their insights into the reality of the housewife’s life and needs—a reality that often escaped their colleagues in academic sociology and therapeutic psychology, who saw women through the Freudian-functional veil. To their own profit, and that of their clients, the manipulators discovered that millions of supposedly happy American housewives

102Lazarsfeld’s first wife and colleague, Marie Jahoda, proposed that, in the competitive environment of the U.S., a vulgarized version of psychoanalysis was attractive because it “took away from the individual the full responsibility for his success in life,” which may have been set off course by some traumatic early childhood experience. Marie Jahoda, “The Migration of Psychoanalysis: Its Impact on American Psychology,” in Fleming, Intellectual Migration, 433. 103Whyte, Organization Man, 17. 104Martin Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (New York: Harper, 1958), 235.

235 have complex needs which home-and-family, love-and-children, cannot fill. But by a morality that goes beyond the dollar, the manipulators are guilty of using their insights to sell women things which, no matter how ingenious, will never satisfy those increasingly desperate needs. They are guilty of persuading housewives to stay at home, mesmerized in front of a television set, their nonsexual human needs unnamed, unsatisfied, drained by the sexual sell into the buying of things.105

Here Friedan well captures the ambiguous morality of the market research enterprise: it was sincere in its interest in the needs, desires, and motivations of consumers—and specifically women—but it used that knowledge not toward some socially progressive end, but rather as a tool of psychological exploitation.

Vance Packard’s Moral Indictment of Dichter

Most famously, Dichter was featured as the chief villain in journalist Vance

Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders,106 an exposé on insidious marketing practices, which appeared in 1957 at the height of anxiety over the manipulative powers of Madison

Avenue propaganda. Packard himself was disparaged by Macdonald as a purveyor of

“Midcult” who merely summarized and repackaged the most sensational findings of

“academic sociologists,” and there is some truth to this assessment.107 Packard was sincere in his critique of Dichter, and he was generally taken seriously by both the public and the advertising industry. Their conflict encapsulated a clash of economic values—

Protestant, producer values versus hedonist consumer values—that was a key feature of the mass culture and mass society debates of the 1950s.108

Packard and Dichter came from starkly different backgrounds: Packard was a

105 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1963), 227-8. 106Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, 1957). 107Macdonald, “Masscult,” 54. 108See Daniel Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004) and Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and

236 native-born Protestant, and Dichter was cosmopolitan immigrant, a secular Jew from

Vienna. The contemporary context and substance of their debate was mostly void of explicitly religious content, but Packard represented an austere strain of Protestant morality that was threatened by a new, Keynesian ethic of consumption, encouraged in the postwar years by both government and business. Dichter, in contrast, wholeheartedly adopted the values of consumer capitalism. This stance served his personal interests as a marketing consultant, but he proudly articulated a sincere defense of a countervailing ethic of indulgence and enjoyment. Against charges of manipulation by Packard, Dichter maintained that the work of marketers, which he called “progress engineering,” satisfied people’s real needs.109 He said that his role was to serve as the consumer’s ambassador to the industrialist, forwarding economic and technological progress by showing producers the way to meet consumers’ unconscious desires in the form of commodities.

Packard was remarkable for his ordinariness, both in his background and in his talents. Unlike many prominent postwar critics, Packard lacked an immigrant heritage, urban upbringing, or a radical past. As his biographer Daniel Horowitz observes, Packard was an unlikely social critic because he was “neither a Jew, a city dweller, nor...an intellectual.”110 He was born in 1914, and he grew up in strictly Methodist household in rural Pennsylvania. His parents were committed to Prohibition, which they saw as a progressive part of the Social Gospel movement to Christianize the world and liberate society from the corrupting influence of vice propagated by urban, monied interests.

They instilled in their son an ethical sensibility that would later find “secularlized

Popular Culture in the Postwar World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). 109Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 258. 110Daniel Horowitz, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 200. Horowitz has made a career profiling American social critics, and his book is the principal source for my discussion of Packard’s biography.

237 expression in the moral outrage that marked his social criticism.”111

Packard expressed himself as a journalist, getting his start while an undergraduate student at Penn State University, where he tended to write ironic stories about the culture of undergraduates for the student newspaper. After getting a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia, he wrote for the Boston Daily Record and the Associated

Press. At age 28, he landed a job at American Magazine, Crowell-Collier’s mass- circulation, general-interest publication. Readers found this magazine to be very

“wholesome,” according to a Lazarsfeld study, to the extent that some responded negatively to its relentless didacticism and “sugary sweet” themes.112 There, he wrote human-interest feature stories for nearly fifteen years, and he settled into a comfortable, middle-class life in the suburbs of New York. But when the magazine folded in 1956,

Packard found himself out of a job. He had worked on a story for Reader’s Digest about the new marketing practice of “motivational research,” or “MR,” which was ultimately nixed when the magazine began taking advertising. Packard pursued this project as the power and reach of advertising became more apparent through the new medium of television, and as Cold War fears of totalitarianism and the manipulative powers of marketers—who were more vigorously employing the social sciences—began to spook the public. He ultimately developed his article into a book, The Hidden Persuaders, which he published in 1957.

Packard’s book appeared at a moment of rising anxiety about conformity and the powers of industrial America to manufacture not only products but also compliant and willing consumers. Touchstone works of popular sociology, such as Mills’s White Collar

111Horowitz, Vance Packard, 20. 112Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Patricia Salter, “Magazine Research: Problems and Techniques,” Magazine World, June 15, 1946, 16-7, 22-3.

238 and Riesman’s Lonely Crowd addressed these fears, and Packard referred to the troubling rise of the “other-directed” person documented by Riesman.113 Another inspiration was

Whyte’s Organization Man, a critique of the corporate culture that stifled individual industriousness. Corporate executives might disingenuously preach its virtues while, at the same time, their marketing and advertising agents encouraged profligacy and hedonism for the consuming public. He pointed to motivation researchers, and to Dichter in particular, as culprits in the deliberate dismantling of the Protestant Ethic.114 The old ethic of thrift had been perverted by what Whyte called “budgetism,” wherein the accumulation of capital was only productive insofar as it permitted a meticulous planning and accounting for consumption.115 The historian Jackson Lears has called this the

“managerial version of thrift” that made high consumption socially permissible.116

Packard’s book drew on these lingering anxieties, and it was a document of the growing suspicion of Freudian psychology, which had been adopted by the “persuaders” who saw consumers as mere bundles of “hidden yearnings, guilt complexes, irrational emotional blockages.”117 Packard believed that this dim view of humanity was a threat not only to Protestant, producer values, but also to rationality and, therefore, democracy.

It was dangerous for marketers to presume the rationality of consumers, Packard said, because it could undermine their methods of persuasion. Moreover, due to the increasing standardization of products, consumers could not be trusted to discriminate reasonably, and so marketers sought to encourage their unreasonable, emotional discrimination.118 113Packard, Hidden, 202. 114Whyte, Organization Man, 17. 115Whyte, 322-8. 116T.J. Jackson Lears, “The Modernization of Thrift,” in Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present, eds. Joshua J. Yates and James Davison Hunter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 236. 117Packard, Hidden, 7. 118Packard, Hidden, 46-7.

239 These “subconscious salesmen” did this by creating “personalities” for products to help consumers distinguish between them.119 A package of cigarettes or an automobile could serve as a “portable symbol of our personality,” according to one market researcher.120

The very gender of products could be changed, as in the famous case of Marlboro cigarettes. Philip Morris’s brand of filter cigarettes had had a dainty, feminine image before marketing man Leo Burnett and his research consultant Louis Cheskin recommended changing the packaging and advertising to produce an aggressively masculine, virile brand personality: the tattooed “Marlboro Man,” flaunting cigarettes that came in a bold, red hard-pack.121 As overproduction threatened to compromise economic growth, executive planners went from being “maker-minded” to being

“market-minded” in their approach to business, and the role of the “professional stimulators” on New York’s Madison Avenue was accordingly amplified.122

Packard profiled a number of psychological consultants to Madison Avenue, but the most prominent among them was Dichter, whom Packard referred to as “Mr. Mass

Motivations Himself.”123 Packard said that Dichter had “brooded a great deal” over the

“old-fashioned puritanism of the average American” who hypocritically indulged in all kinds of vice, from soft drinks to cigarettes to liquor, and yet recoiled at his own behavior as morally repugnant. Dichter argued that it was the duty of marketers to help Americans get over their “puritan hangover” and assuage consumers’ guilt feelings with an offer of

“absolution.”124 Confidence, in fact, was essential to ensure the continuation of “self-

119Packard, Hidden, 46. 120Packard, Hidden, 52. 121Packard, Hidden, 96. 122Packard, Hidden, 21. 123Packard, Hidden, 31. 124Packard, Hidden, 57, 176.

240 indulgent buying.”125 Packard noted Dichter’s advice to an ice-cream maker to depict

“lavish portions” of its product on packages, rather than discrete dips.126 He also skeptically reported Dichter’s recommendation to a brewer of low-calorie beer to avoid emphasizing calorie consciousness, which was a form of penance and deprivation that was contradictory to the ideal of pleasure and enjoyment that was appropriate for beer.

One legendary example of Dichter’s inclination to encourage anti-puritanical indulgence was his advice to the Chrysler Corporation in a 1940 study for its Plymouth line of automobiles.127 Although the contents of Dichter’s study were somewhat vague and varied, he enthusiastically publicized, in the trade and popular press, the “finding” that, in psychological terms, the convertible was like a mistress to the male automobile purchaser. He recommended that convertibles be displayed prominently in auto showrooms as bait, even if the sober buyer ultimately opted for the practical sedan.

Packard, eager to maximize the sensationalism of his subjects to serve his moralistic argument, did little to investigate Dichter’s somewhat inflated claims.128

Though he did acknowledge skeptics who questioned the validity and effectiveness of motivational research, Packard was genuinely alarmed by the

“Orwellian” world toward which the “persuaders” seemed to be pushing American society, where no one would be spared from the “Big Brotherish eye of the motivational analyst.”129 He felt that the practice of the “persuaders” was immoral because it invaded the private minds of citizens in an effort to exploit irrationality and channel behavior.

125Packard, Hidden, 227. 126Packard, Hidden, 101. 127“The Psychology of Car Buying: A Psychological Study Undertaken to Answer Two Vital Questions About Car Buying,” report prepared by J. Stirling Getchell, Inc., January 1940, box 1, Ernest Dichter Papers (Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware). 128Packard, Hidden, 87. 129Packard, Hidden, 232, 236.

241 Packard concluded his book by noting Dichter’s role in encouraging the waning of the

“puritan complex,” and he quoted his own minister’s warnings about the problems of prosperity. Packard finally reported that, according the Protestant publication

Christianity and Crisis, the next great moral dilemma facing America was the threat to the “quality of life” created by the abundance of material goods.130

Packard Exposes the Marketing Strategy of “Planned Obsolescence”

Packard’s best-selling book signaled a rising popular resistance to the cultural clout of marketers and a new wave of consumer advocacy. By 1960, in the wake of the quiz-show and payola scandals, leading figures in the advertising industry increasingly came to fear government regulation, and executives in the advertising business sought to defend its role in creating an “economy of abundance.”131 The editors of the trade magazine Printers’ Ink lashed out at what they called the “irresponsible,” “unrestrained,” and “runaway” Congressional probe into the marketing of pharmaceuticals led by Senator

Estes Kefauver, which, they feared, could extend to all advertising practices and ultimately decimate the industry. The writers of the advertisers’ journal were particularly worried that two of President Kennedy’s key advisers—historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and economist John Kenneth Galbraith, author of The Affluent Society132—were such prominent critics of the advertising industry.133 Leading advertising agencies harbored fears that there was a Washington conspiracy against the business, and the debate over

130Packard, Hidden, 264. 131“The gray flannel couch,” Consumer Reports, March 1960, 161; Edward C. Bursk, “Thinking Ahead,” Harvard Business Review, May-June 1960.“Madison Ave. Studies Its Mirror,” Business Week, April 30, 1960. 132John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1958). 133“THE SHAME OF CONGRESS—PART I: How probes can kill marketing,” Printers’ Ink, August 19, 1960, p. 19.

242 advertising’s undue power and antidemocratic nature reached a crescendo with the publication of a new book by Packard.134

Packard’s follow-up to The Hidden Persuaders was The Status Seekers,135 a cultural critique of social striving, class stratification, and conspicuous consumption in the style of Whyte’s Organization Man. Though he never claimed to be anything more than a journalist, Packard was on his way to becoming “the nearest thing to the popular image of a sociologist,” according to one contemporary account.136 He returned his attention to American industrial marketing practices with The Waste Makers in 1960, the third in a string of number-one best-sellers.137 Packard’s book was motivated by his

Protestant morality and by his disgust at the centrality of consumption in the postwar

Keynesian economic order. He decried the prodigal spirit of the era and Americans’ increasing preference for acquisition and waste over developing a measure of individual industriousness and workmanship.138 This was no spontaneous development: it was, rather, a product of the deliberate effort of industrialists and marketers to “stimulate greater desire and to create new wants” by developing strategies to turn Americans into

“voracious, wasteful, compulsive consumers.”139 Packard was particularly appalled by the the business strategy of “planned obsolescence,” whereby marketers deliberately outmoded old models in order to encourage consumers to purchase newer models, which often differed only in superficial, stylistic features. The most aggressive and blatant practitioners of planned obsolescence were the automobile manufacturers, led by General 134Joseph Kaselow, “Conspiracy Against Advertising Seen,” New York Herald Tribune, September 9, 1960. 135Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (New York: David McKay, 1959). 136“How Does It Come to Be So?” The New Yorker, January 28, 1961, 39-63. 137Vance Packard, The Waste Makers (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1960). Horowitz, Vance Packard, 123. 138Packard, Waste Makers, 7-8. 139Packard, Waste Makers, 23-5.

243 Motors, which had pioneered the annual model change in the 1920s. The company relentlessly pushed the industry to focus more and more on style and design features, culminating in the chrome-laden models of the late 1950s with their famously garish tail fins.140 But the method spilled over into other industries, and Packard quoted a representative of an association of appliance manufacturers who advocated the nurturing of perpetually “dissatisfied” customers—ironically, the best kind—who always longed for the latest model.141

Consumption and waste were compelled by other postwar economic trends, such as inflation—which encouraged consumers to spend their dollars before they lost their value—and by the wider availability of consumer credit. This “debt economy,” as historian Louis Hyman has argued, disguised wealth disparities by creating an “apparent equality of consumption.”142 Packard reported that many retailers had discovered that they could make more money on interest charges from financing credit than on the products themselves.143 He worried that the sovereignty of the consumer—her ability to make rational decisions among competing products—was compromised by an aggressive onslaught of confusing and misleading advertising that characterized products not by their physical qualities but by their brand images.144

140Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 194-220; Packard, Waste Makers, 185. General Motors’ efforts at stylization were also aided by new synthetic lacquers produced by the Du Pont company, which made color another important element of choice for the consumer. GM’s rapid style changes were complemented by Du Pont’s deliberately-fashioned corporate image of “future-mindedness,” which it cultivated by associating itself with a popular notion of science. Jeffrey L. Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 12- 13; Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 194. 141Packard, Waste Makers, 119. 142Louis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of America In Red Ink (Princeton University Press, 2011), 135. 143Packard, Waste Makers, 144-7. 144Packard, Waste Makers, 252.

244 But Packard was most disturbed by marketers’ calculated strategy, led by their consultant researcher Ernest Dichter, to promote self-indulgence and hedonism. Dichter wanted to encourage consumers to discard their latent puritanical inhibitions, which only put an unnecessary check on the spending that drove the economy.145 Packard believed that these commercial innovations were beginning to change the American character, which came to be defined more and more by pleasure-mindedness and passivity.

Increasingly, Packard argued, satisfactions were found in the consumption role rather than the production role.146 “What will happen to the dignity of man,” Packard asked, “if he finds that his main contribution is to be as a consumer rather than as a creator?”147

Packard feared that the nation had entered into a stage of decline and decadence. He warned that the country was living beyond its means, much like other formerly great civilizations that had fallen into libertinism.148

The ad industry was swift in its response to Packard’s latest jeremiad.149 Printers’

Ink invited several top marketing executives to defend their industry against this “self- anointed enemy of advertising” who seemed to revile the American economic system that had produced the world’s highest “standard of living” in terms of consumption. One ad executive quipped that Packard, despite his condemnation of planned obsolescence, faced, as an author, the same problem that motivated manufacturers: “how to get a new model out every year that sells.” Another executive stressed that, if marketing were as easy and effective as Packard described, and if the typical consumer were so easily manipulated, “the files of most American companies would not be bulging with unused

145Packard, Waste Makers, 160-1. 146Packard, Waste Makers, 233. 147Packard, Waste Makers, 286. 148Packard, Waste Makers, 317. 149Horowitz, Vance Packard, chapter 9.

245 marketing plans for products that received a firm thumbs-down in the area of the competitive market place.” The admen pointed to their service done to the world of

American desire, a civilizing process that produced the “sweetest-smelling nation on earth.” “Full sweaters inflated with foam rubber are more attractive than sweaters mildly swelled,” argued one executive with a note of facetiousness. Another free-marketer sounded the ominous warning that the regulation of advertising by government agencies, which Packard seemed to endorse, was a kind of social planning that sprang from a contempt for the people.150

Businessmen defended the advertising industry by extolling the virtues of the things it could positively do, but they also maintained that there were things that it could not do. The president of one of the country’s largest advertisers, Procter & Gamble, exploited Cold War anxieties in alluding to the specter of Russian-style government control over markets. He made the case that advertising could only create new markets for products that fulfilled a genuine, pre-existing consumer want—even if it were based on a desire may have been latent or unexpressed.151 Ironically, the industry often took to trumpeting its failures to demonstrate the limits of its capacities in the wake of criticism from Packard and others. Fairfax Cone, a former chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, recoiled in 1961 at the latest of Vance Packard’s “anguished appraisals.” He pointed to a favorite example of admen, the spectacular flop that was the

Ford’s Edsel automobile, which debuted in 1957. Despite extensive market research, the car was “something the public didn’t want on sight, and couldn’t be coaxed, through any

150“Is ‘Waste Makers’ a hoax? Why Packard did it,” Printers’ Ink, September 30, 1960, 20-29. 151Howard J. Morgens, “Why Advertising’s Critics Are All Wet,” Sales Management, October 7, 1960, 35- 136.

246 amount of advertising to buy.”152

Dichter Defends His Industry

One of the most spirited defenses of advertising, and of the edifice of American consumer capitalism, came from the principal target of Packard’s attacks, Ernest Dichter.

Dichter’s rejoinder came in 1960 with the publication of The Strategy of Desire. It was an articulate defense of his practice and an argument for the ethical the role of marketing and advertising in the American economic system.153 Dichter referred to Packard’s

Hidden Persuaders as a dire but misleading warning against the “occult” influences that were shaping the mind of contemporary man. Dichter countered that he was a technician of human desire whose role was to use the methods of persuasion to creatively push modern man up the hill of human history against his natural, atavistic inclination to remain a mere “beachcomber.”154 In the context of the Cold War, Dichter fought against the fatalistic attitude of economic determinism in the capitalist system: for Dichter, buying was an act of democracy that signified a faith in the future.155 He called his kind of psychological market research the “application of social science techniques to the problems of human motivations,” which was a just crusade, in his view. “We need to

152Fairfax M. Cone, “The Case Against Advertising,” speech before the Regent Advertising Club, London, April 28, 1961, box 33, folder “Criticism of Advertising,” Advertising Vertical File, 1950-1994, J. Walter Thompson Company Archives (Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Duke University). 153Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960). As a moral defense of capitalism, Dichter’s book anticipated Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, which appeared in 1962. Friedman was the clear heir to Friedrich Hayek in the economics department at the University of Chicago, which Hayek left for a position at the University of Freiburg in 1962. Like Dichter, Friedman believed firmly in the virtues of hedonism and the freedom of consumer choice as key drivers of the capitalist economy. He believed that supporters of government regulation and economic intervention were merely paternalists who disparaged those things, however vulgar, that people actually wanted. See chapters 5 and 6 of Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012). 154Dichter, Strategy, 17. 155Dichter, Strategy, 169.

247 crack the whip of constructive discontent,” Dichter argued, “by using all the methods of modern communication and persuasion.”156 This method required a frank acknowledgment that, more often than not, human behavior was irrational.157 Consumers rejected Ford’s Edsel not for any rational reason, but because of the shape of its front end, which failed to signify potency and “penetrating power.”158 Dichter believed that insight on the irrationality of human behavior could be scientifically applied in the world of commodities in the ultimate service of reason. For many consumers, choice was not a freedom but a burden, and Dichter’s advice to advertisers was designed to help their clients’ customers overcome the “misery of choice.”159

Dichter referred to several of his most canonical studies—which had become legend in the world of advertising—as evidence of the efficaciousness of his method. He distinguished his motivational research from more quantitative forms of market research, which were often blind the the psychological realm of human emotions and aspirations.

Dichter also defended his work in the prosaic world of commodities, which were, he argued, essential to the spiritual and emotional life of the individual. Objects had souls, he maintained, because the “anthropomorphic tendency” of the human mind invariably projected human qualities onto things. Rather than arousing guilt feelings, buying tangible things could be a way to translate aspects of one’s personality into a tangible form. Indeed, branded merchandise often served to signify one’s personal identity and class category. Motivational research purported to reveal the Gestalt—the total signification of all elements of any given object—encompassed by the brand image, a

156Dichter, Strategy, 21. 157Dichter, Strategy, 31. 158Dichter, Strategy, 116. 159Dichter, Strategy, 242.

248 concept Dichter claimed to have invented.160

Ultimately, Dichter addressed an embedded American puritanical culture and

Protestant austerity. He surmised that these traits had been useful in the past, but were no longer relevant in the modern era. Americans had been taught that hard work and savings were essential to the moral order, and they were fearful of the sinfulness of leisure-time and abundance. The very word “desire” had a tinge of immorality, and Dichter saw himself as an agent of change who could help to convince Americans to rid themselves of guilt and take pleasure in consumption, indulgence, and the “good life.” Dichter called for a revision of morality and an embrace of hedonism. The job of the motivational researcher was what Dichter called “progress engineering”: to represent the consumer to manufacturers and advertisers who needed guidance—strategies—to meet the plastic and expansive needs and desires of their markets in order to lull them from their complacency. “We must use the modern techniques of motivational thinking and social science,” Dichter argued, “to make people constructively discontented by chasing them out of the false paradise of knowledgeless animal happiness into the real paradise of change and progress.”161

Though Dichter vigorously defended his practice against Packard’s critique, in fact he was grateful for the publicity that his antagonist gave him. Indeed, after the success of The Hidden Persuaders, Dichter wrote to thank Packard for the new business it gave him.162 Dichter reiterated his gratitude in his memoir, noting that some of his clients seriously suspected that he had paid Packard to write the book, which amounted to

160Dichter, Strategy, 146-7; 231. 161Dichter, Strategy, 264. 162Horowitz, Vance Packard, 162.

249 a testament to the value of his work for advertisers.163

Indeed, there is a sense of awe and wonder that pervades Packard’s documentation of the work of motivational researchers. But Packard’s ultimate aim was to question the morality of the new capacities for persuasion devised by Dichter and other marketing consultants. In the postwar excesses of consumer capitalism, Packard saw a challenge to

America’s fundamentally Protestant, producer-oriented morality. Packard carried on the

Methodist values of his rural upbringing and translated them into a new form of journalistic social activism, much like his parents’ support for the Prohibition movement.164 His conflict with Dichter was a crystallization of the postwar American conflict of values that resulted from the aggressive promotion of consumerism by both private industry and government. The economic imperative of consumption required a kind of social engineering that marketing consultants like Dichter were eager to promote as essential to modern living. But this new ethic clashed with a latent, Protestant resistance to the leisure, pleasure, and indulgence of middle-class consumption. Packard wrestled with this moral dilemma in his best-selling jeremiads.

Mass Culture and Mass Consumption: Celebration and Critique

The series of books by Packard, and the exposure of the manipulative market researcher in the person of Dichter, marked the culmination of the postwar anxieties over the “affluent society,” to use the famous phrase from economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s

1958 book.165 The media and market research interests of Lazarsfeld’s cohort of sociologists and critical theorists were amplified by popular authors like David Riesman,

163Dichter, Getting Motivated, 82. 164Horowitz, Vance Packard, 208. 165John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958).

250 charismatic market researchers like Ernest Dichter, and critical journalists like Vance

Packard. The inevitable intercourse of business and culture was of primary concern to these researchers and critics, and the “mass society” that was the result held the possibility of both democratic progress and totalitarian terror.

In June of 1959, the Tamiment Institute and Daedalus, the journal of the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences, sponsored a conference on mass media and culture, the proceedings of which were published as Culture for the Millions?166 The conference brought together academics and intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Daniel Bell, and

Arthur Schlesinger; sociologists like Nathan Glazer; mass media producers like Frank

Stanton and Leo Rosten; and artists such as James Baldwin. Paul Lazarsfeld wrote the introduction, in which he noted that it was, as far as he knew, “the first time people who write about culture and those who create it have confronted each other.”167 Lazarsfeld mentioned a new technique to analyze audience response and receptiveness to mass media messages which had been mainly used for improving the effectiveness of commercial propaganda, but he saw no reason why it could not also be used “for more objective ends.”168 Lazarsfeld saw no essential contradiction between the critics of mass culture and its industrial purveyors; instead, he saw these forces existing in a dialectical relationship with one another. In this sense, it was no accident that his research institutes nurtured both cultural critics and the agents of industrial mass society. Lazarsfeld summed up his ambivalent attitude by observing that the “tragic story” of the cultural crusader in a mass society was that “he cannot win, but that we would be lost without

166Norman Jacobs, ed., Culture for the Millions? Mass Media in Modern Society (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961). 167Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Mass Culture Today,” in Culture for the Millions? Mass Media in Modern Society, ed. Norman Jacobs (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961), ix-xxv. 168Lazarsfeld, “Mass Culture Today,” xix-xx.

251 him.”169 169Lazarsfeld, “Mass Culture Today,” xxiv.

252 Chapter 4: The Segmentation of the Mass Market

The professionalization of market research in the 1920s and 1930s occurred simultaneously with the rise of public opinion polling, and the most important American pollsters—George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley—got their start in the world of business as market researchers. Pollsters, by and large, sought to know and understand the “mass mind,” but in doing that they had a tendency to flatten out the difference and diversity of the American public. “Much like the Lynds’ use of native- born Muncie to reflect the nation [in Middletown],” observes historian Sarah Igo, “Gallup and Roper fell back upon the template of a white, educated male populace when they set out in search of ‘the public.’”1 Market researchers’ initial embrace of that famous sociological study by Robert and Helen Lynd, which appeared in 1929, reflected their desire to reach a mass market by appealing to an imagined average American consumer.

But as their methods improved—helped in no small part by the innovative motivational research techniques of Paul Lazarsfeld and Ernest Dichter—marketers became more skilled at addressing the discrete segments of the population that made up the mass market. Though Dichter and Lazarsfeld were both trained in social psychology as practiced by Karl and Charlotte Bühler at the University of Vienna, their postwar careers went in starkly different directions. This chapter considers the divergent professional paths of Dichter and Lazarsfeld and the ways in which their distinct methods of consumer research contributed to the segmentation of the market, just as the rise of identity politics came to emphasize difference over commonality. Demographic categories were not the only available means of distinction; market researchers also used studies in consumer 1 Sarah E. Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 138.

253 psychology to define market groups on the basis their relationship to, and participation in, subcultures, lifestyles, and particular brand images.

Lazarsfeld, Cosmopolitan Scholar in the McCarthy Period

Dichter’s large personality dominated his consulting firm, the Institute for

Motivational Research (IMR or “the Institute”). Far from Dichter’s commercial sensationalism, Lazarsfeld’s celebrity was much more academic. Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of

Applied Social Research (BASR or “the Bureau”) at Columbia University, which was co- directed by his close friend and colleague Robert Merton, was governed more by methodology than by personality. From its formation, Lazarsfeld had seen the Bureau, like his other research institutes, as a kind of “Boy Scout affair” through which he could develop protégés through a program of practical training, whereupon he would “send them out into the world.” Lazarsfeld said that the Bureau was so “custom tailored” to his needs that it must have felt like a “straight-jacket” to everyone else involved. Though he remained constantly involved in its activities and would stay on as an associate director,

Lazarsfeld relinquished the directorship of BASR to Kinsley Davis in 1948. Lazarsfeld became the chair of the Department of Sociology, a position he believed would give him the leverage to convince the Columbia administration to provide more financial support for the Bureau. Along with Merton and Davis, he believed that the greater availability of government grants would allow them to “reduce drastically” the Bureau’s commercial studies. Indeed, the commercial work of the Bureau had begun to wane significantly at this time.2

2 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Robert Merton, October 11, 1948, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947- 1960), Mappe 1/2, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archive (Institut für Soziologie, Universität Wien) [hereafter, “PFL Vienna”]; “Columbia Picks Dr. Davis To Head Social Research,” New York Herald Tribune, July

254 Lazarsfeld began to travel to Europe more frequently in the postwar years, participating in the reimportation of “American” quantitative methods that had actually originated in interwar Europe.3 He lectured in his beloved Paris in the summer of 1948, and in the fall he served as a visiting professor at the University of Oslo, where, for the first time, he said, he began to feel like an “American.” He lectured and worked to establish an institute of social research, which was old-hat for him by this point.4 He also got to know a socialist economist, Ragnar Frisch, a “great man,” according to Lazarsfeld.

Frisch, an academic who became an economic planner for the Labor-party government in

Norway, seemed to reinvigorate Lazarsfeld’s interest in socialist politics.5 He was fascinated by the fact that, in Scandinavian countries, stringent economic controls had evolved in harmonious coexistence with complete political freedom. “In America, we tend to assume that economic laissez-faire and political liberty go together,” Lazarsfeld later reported to an American audience. He called for the study of the “independent development” of the two principles.6 Lazarsfeld even admitted to his colleague C. Wright

Mills that he had been “quite seduced” by the policies of the Norwegian labor party. He even expressed sympathy for the idea of the “corporate state,” which, he said, had been an idea that was appealing to leftists when it was detached from its unfortunate “historical

2, 1949; Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research” in Organizing for Social Research, eds. Burkhart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa (Cambridge, Mass: Schenckman Publishing Company, 1982), 17-83; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to George [surname unknown], March 2, 1950, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2; “Mankind—the eternal puzzle,” Columbia Alumni News, March 1953. 3 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Gene M. Lyons, June 4, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 37, Correspondence 1969-1974, Mappe 2/2, “von Argyns Chris – 21.03.1973 bis Lazarsfeld Paul F. - 02.01.1964.” 4 “Roundletter No. 1” [from Oslo], August 1948, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 1/2. E. H. Gammons, letter to Hans Olav, July 27, 1948; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Sam Stouffer, September 25, 1948; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Francois Coguel, July 27, 1948. PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2. 5 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Stoughton Lynd, October 6, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 1/2. 6 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “The Prognosis for International Communications Research,” Public Opinion Quarterly 19, no. 4 (Winter 1952-53): 487.

255 tie-up” with Italian fascism. At the same time, Lazarsfeld saw no reason why an

“intelligent” capitalism could not become a stable system.7

Lazarsfeld returned to Central Europe, too, visiting a devastated Frankfurt with

Max Horkheimer in 1951.8 When he returned to his hometown of Vienna as a representative of the Ford Foundation—ironically, with the mission of developing

Austrian social research—he was disheartened to discover that the practice barely existed. But he was proud that his “Columbia group” had a nearly “legendary reputation” in social science circles abroad.9 Lazarsfeld also worked for a time in Santa Monica,

California, where he was employed as a researcher for the RAND Corporation. There, he enjoyed socializing with the many European refugees who had made careers in

Hollywood.10 He became known in the U.S. as a mass-media expert, and he testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1953 on whether TV crime and violence were causing juvenile delinquency. (He reported that more study was necessary to draw any firm conclusions.)11 Lazarsfeld solidified his academic credentials, becoming the chair of the department of sociology in 1950 and president of the American Sociological Association in 1961.12

Yet in 1954, in the midst of the Second Red Scare, Lazarsfeld became the subject of an investigation by the International Organizations Employees Loyalty Board, part of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. His case came to the attention of the agency in the

7 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to C. Wright Mills, November 2, 1948, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976, mixed dates, Mappe 1/6. 8 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter from Frankfurt, January 21, 1951, box 3A, folder 003/2, “Correspondence, Round Letters I,” Paul Felix Lazarsfeld Collection (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York City) [hereafter, “PFL Columbia”]. 9 Paul Lazarsfeld, “roundletter,” February 7, [ca. 1958], box 3A, folder 003/2, PFL Columbia. 10 Paul Lazarsfeld, “roundletter,” n.d. [ca. April 1950], box 3A, folder 003/2, PFL Columbia. 11 Milton Berliner, “The Insight Into TV Programming Is Dim,” Washington Daily News, April 8, 1953. 12 Ted Princiotto, “Sociologist Says Job Grows More Complex,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 22, 1961.

256 course of his attempt to get a security clearance required for a post with the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Lazarsfeld expressed astonishment that even his close friend and colleague Samuel Stouffer, “an old

Republican from Iowa,” had been, for a time, refused a security clearance on the basis of his association with certain “Harvard professors.”13 Lazarsfeld was accused of actions and associations that created a “doubt” concerning his “loyalty” to the government of the

U.S.14

The charges against him, prefaced by the passive construction “it has been alleged,” were enumerated: he attended sessions of the American Writers Congress in

1943 at the University of California, Los Angeles, sponsored by the Hollywood Writers

Mobilization, an organization with alleged communist ties; he appeared on a “free speech forum” with Earl Browder, a “former Communist Party functionary”; he spoke at a meeting of the Greenwich Club of the Communist Political Association in 1945; he canceled a summer teaching appointment at the University of California in 1950 in protest of a loyalty oath; he chaired a committee on radio for an organization charged with being a front for communist propaganda; and he discussed confidential information with an “unauthorized person” while employed by the Office of War Information in 1942.

The Board also questioned Lazarsfeld about his association with his former wife Marie

Jahoda, who was alleged to be an “adherent to Communist ideology,” and about his use of an alias, “Elias Smith.” (Lazarsfeld had invented the pseudonym while directing the

Newark Research Center to disguise the fact that he had a very small staff and had to

13 Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. Otto Klineberg, July 15, 1954; Otto Klineberg, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, July 21, 1954: PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 2/2. 14 Pierce J. Gerety, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, July 26, 1954, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 2/2.

257 write many of the articles himself.15) The interrogatory concluded, bluntly: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of, or in any manner affiliated with the Communist

Party, U. S. A.?” Lazarsfeld wrote, simply, “No.”16

This unsettling experience motivated Lazarsfeld to conduct a study on the effect of McCarthyism on the American professoriate, which was ultimately published with co- author Wagner Thielens in 1958 as The Academic Mind.17 The results were first published in the journal Social Science Problems. The report was based on lengthy interviews with 2,451 university professors in social science disciplines from 165 colleges. The study found that these professors, who largely supported the Democratic party, felt that congressmen and businessmen would give them a “low prestige” rating.

The professors tended to be more liberal or “permissive” than the population at large, though they were not a group of “Communist sympathizers.” The more liberal the professor, the more apprehensive they were about anti-communist crusading in the

“difficult years” of the early 1950s. Professors at “high quality” colleges felt particularly vulnerable, and most withdrew from the larger community during these years, refusing to give speeches or write in general magazines on controversial issues.18

The study used mathematical considerations to analyze manifest data and derive a

“latent” sentiment.19 Lazarsfeld called this “Latent Structure Analysis,” a mathematical

15 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, eds. Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1969), 308. 16 “Interrogatory: Mr. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld,” International Organizations Employees Loyalty Board, Washington, D.C., August 1954, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960), Mappe 2/2. 17 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens, The Academic Mind: Social Scientists in a Time of Crisis (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958). 18 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens, Jr., “Social Scientists and Academic Freedom,” Social Problems 5 (Winter 1957-58): 244-66. 19 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Latent Structure Analysis,” Contributions to Scientific Research in Management (University of California, Los Angeles Graduate School of Business Administration, 1959).

258 technique he had developed to make sense of sociological findings by revealing the underlying social dimensions that had a probabilistic relationship to certain behaviors.20

The idea attracted great interest from social psychologists.21 “He used numbers in a humanistic way,” remembered Robert Merton.22 Lazarsfeld wanted to develop “a direct line of logical continuity from qualitative classification to the most rigorous forms of measurement” in order to “express the statistics of living processes in numbers.” For

Lazarsfeld, qualitative social research was the work of turning social and psychological conceptions into “measures or indices by which large numbers of individuals or larger social units can be characterized.” He sometimes referred to this as substruction: the procedure of finding the “attribute space” in which a given system of characterological types belonged. The problem with qualitative data was not so much that it was murky; the problem was that it was super-abundant. The purpose of Lazarsfeld’s mathematical tools and indices was, therefore, to “reduce the multiplicity of the original information into a smaller number of dimensions” in order to make it meaningful.23 The raw material of Latent Structure Analysis was the manifest data produced by subjects in interviews— that is, their responses to questions that had been designed to reveal an underlying trait, e.g., ethnocentrism. The task of the researcher was to arrange the manifest data as a

20 Jean M. Converse, Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 142; Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 116. 21 Samuel A. Stouffer, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, September 14, 1948, PFL Vienna, Box, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2 (Biographie 1947-1960) Mappe 1/2. 22 “Dr. Paul Lazarsfeld Dies; Sociologist at Columbia,” The New York Times, September 1, 1976, 38. 23 Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Allen H. Barton, “Qualitative Measurement in the Social Sciences: Classification, Typologies, and Indices,” in The Policy Sciences (Stanford University Press, 1951), 155- 92; Allen H. Barton and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Methodology of Quantitative Social Research” in A New Survey of the Social Sciences, ed. Baidya Nath Varma (Asia Publishing House, 1962), 153; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Statistics for Fieldworkers in Psychology,” translated by John G. Jenkins, 1935 [original German version 1931], PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, T/UI (3 bis 7), Mappe 2/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, “Some Remarks on the Typological Procedures in Social Research,” adapted from Zeitschrift für Sozialforschun 6 (1937):119-139, PFL Vienna, Box Rote Mappe, Papers Ia, Mappe 2/2.

259 quantifiable, probabilistic expression of an underlying, unexpressed trait. It was a kind of mathematical psychoanalysis—a way to access an unconscious, social disposition through objectively identifiable characteristics.24

The Edsel Studies and a Changing Mass Market

Despite its official status as a research institute at Columbia University, BASR relied entirely on outside funding for its first ten years of existence. From 1951 until the

Bureau’s dissolution in 1977, BASR received some financial support from the University, but it composed only a very small percentage of its total budget. In the 1940s, BASR received most of its funding from businesses and foundations, and some from non-profit organizations. But by 1952, BASR received only 17 percent of its outside funding from these sources and 82 percent from government. By 1956, government funding had dropped to 18 percent of the budget, and business and foundation support had risen to 24 and 51 percent, respectively. From that point on, however, business and foundation funding would dwindle, while funding from non-profit organizations peaked at 32 percent in 1961 and slowly diminished to zero by 1974. Government funding, meanwhile, steadily increased from 1955 until it composed nearly all of BASR’s budget in 1974.25

These shifting sources of funding changed BASR’s research priorities, so that its market studies had virtually ceased by the 1960s. But as the Bureau reached the end of the period of its most intensive commercial contract work, it did a series of large studies

24 Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “A Conceptual Introduction to Latent Structure Analysis,” in The Social Sciences (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1954), 349-87. 25 Allen H. Barton, “Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research” in Organizing for Social Research, eds. Burkhart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa (Cambridge, Mass: Schenckman Publishing Company, 1982), 17-83.

260 for Ford Motor Company in the mid and late 1950s. The giant automaker enlisted the

Bureau as it prepared to launch its new mid-priced car, the Edsel. Simultaneously,

Dichter’s Institute produced several large automobile studies, including one that was commissioned by Ford after the Edsel’s ill-fated launch. These studies illuminate the centrality of the automobile in the lives of middle-class Americans, the degree to which cars indicated status and personality, and automakers’ great interest in matching their products to consumers’ often mysterious desires. The studies also demonstrate very different approaches to market research practiced by Lazarsfeld’s BASR and Dichter’s

IMR.

Ford first commissioned BASR to undertake a series of studies of the U.S. car market in 1955 as it planned to introduce another line of automobiles, tentatively called

“car E,” in the “medium-price” field.26 Ford wanted to know the specific characteristics of medium-price car buyers, and it directed BASR to find out what images were associated with different automobile makes and how those images factored into purchasing decisions. The auto company also wanted to know what “social-symbolic needs” new cars served beyond their practical function as a means of transportation.

BASR conducted a study based on 800 hour-long interviews with respondents in Peoria,

Illinois and San Bernardino, California. The subjects were registered owners of nine different makes of cars: Ford, Chevrolet, Plymouth, Buick, DeSoto, Dodge, Mercury,

Oldsmobile, and Pontiac. The interviewers inquired about car histories, the care and use of cars, the images of different makes of cars, and respondents’ “style of life” and background characteristics. The study found that most car buyers were not in a position

26 “Social Stereotypes of Automobile Makes (Report #1),” report prepared for Special Products Division, Ford Motor Company, June 1956, box 125, Bureau of Applied Social Research Archive (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York) [hereafter, “BASR Archive”].

261 to judge the relative merits of cars on the basis of engineering, but instead made their decisions based on certain qualities associated with different makes and the social imagery they conveyed. They were motivated by a desire to identify themselves with a class or group that embodied an ideal of “beauty, youth, wealth, power, status, prestige, taste, discrimination,” or some other positive quality.

Because consumers’ ostensibly rational purchasing decisions derived from such motivations, automobile manufacturers became vitally concerned with the social images that adhered to their products. Like a brand of cigarettes, a car could convey a particular gender: the study found that Ford and Mercury owners were more “masculine-minded,” for example, whereas Plymouth and Dodge owners were more likely to believe that their car was suitable for women. Oldsmobile and Buick were also generally perceived as masculine cars, while DeSoto and Pontiac were feminine. “Masculinity” was clearly the preferred automobile image for male drivers—but it also appeared to be the preferred image for female drivers, who sought “gratifications in preempting a male role.”

Different makes also had different class connotations: Ford, Dodge, Pontiac, and Mercury were perceived to be workingmen’s cars, whereas Plymouth was seen as the car of professionals. Respondents saw Oldsmobile, Buick, and DeSoto, meanwhile, as the cars of the well-to-do.

BASR researchers also looked at the phenomenon of “anticipatory socialization,” wherein individuals would change their attitudes, behaviors, style of dress, and even model of car on the basis of a predicted change in socio-economic position. Bureau researchers found a remarkable degree of “economic optimism” in 1956 and early 1957:

42 percent of respondents expected their income to increase within the next three years,

262 while only seven percent expected it to decrease.27 Ultimately, BASR recommended the addition of a second medium-priced car in the Ford line as a more “mature” make for the owner who had graduated from a “youthful” brand.

The “social” images of different automobile makes were more durable, and consistent, than “product quality” images, which varied among owners and non-owners.28

Subsequent studies showed that consumers saw Ford and Mercury as the least conservative lines, much more “modern” than Chrysler, which was the last of the “Big

Three” automakers to adopt the kind of chrome-laden, two-tone, low-built look that dominated late 1950s car styling.29 Mercury was seen as a “flashy” car, appropriate for a young person or “adventurer.”30 The opposite of Mercury was Buick, the image of which was on the “traditional” end of the continuum. BASR recommended that Ford’s new “car

E” should be styled in a way that would appeal the apparently large segment of buyers who preferred the relatively square image represented by Buick.31 Another BASR report cited the sociologist David Riesman’s notion of “other-direction” to suggest that fitting in

—by keeping up with the Joneses, but not outpacing them—was more important than desperate displays of conspicuous consumption.32

27 Theresa Falaguerra, “Anticipatory Socialization: A Study of Mobility Expectations and Style of Life,” August 1957, box 125, BASR Archive. 28 Lee M. Wiggins, “The Stability of Automobile Images,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company, n.d., box 18, folder “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia. 29 Chrysler was long beset by a conservative image, and it was stuck in third among the “Big Three” American automakers. “Marketing Chrysler Automobiles in a Rapidly-Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume I,” report submitted to Chrysler Motor Corporation by IMR, September 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3499 (IMR 2524C), Ernest Dichter Archive (Fachbereichsbibliothek Publizistik-und Kommunikationswissenschaft und Informatik, University of Vienna) [hereafter, Dichter Vienna]. 30 Belle Wiggins, “The Popular Image and Buying Behavior,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company, n.d., box 125, BASR Archive; Belle Wiggins, “Occupational Image, Product Quality Images, and Buying Intention,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company, n.d., BASR Archive. 31 Bernard Levenson, “Product Images of Automobile Brands (Report #2),” report prepared for Special Products Division, Ford Motor Company, October 1956, box 125, BASR Archive. 32 Donna M. Smith, “Social Influences on Automobile Buying,” October 1956, box 125, BASR Archive.

263 BASR proposed to study the public image of Ford’s new Edsel car both before and after its launch. Objective attributes of the car could influence its public image, but even more important—especially before the launch—were the images produced through advertising and word-of-mouth, which together established the car’s total “personality.”33

BASR conducted two sets of interviews: in June 1957, roughly two months before the release of the Edsel in September 1957, and again in February 1958, about six months after the launch. Lazarsfeld’s corps of researchers interviewed 3,000 owners of recently- purchased cars living in three cities in the South, Northeast, and West of the U.S.:

Knoxville, Tennessee; Rochester, New York; and Pasadena, California.34 Data drawn from the interviews was analyzed using the “sixteen-fold table,” a method of indexing developed by Lazarsfeld and Merton that was designed to gauge the relative influence of several variables on the changing ideas, images, and opinions held by respondents.

BASR researchers employed the method in order to determine motivating factors that respondents had disguised, consciously or unconsciously, with rationalizations that justified their opinions and behaviors. While Dichter used psychoanalytic techniques to probe the consumer unconscious, Lazarsfeld applied mathematical formulas toward the same end.

The BASR study found that consumers were swayed more by images and advertising than by practical experience. For example, respondents insisted that they placed more importance on engineering and workmanship than on appearance and speed, but BASR analysts determined from their matrices that the opposite was true.

33 Charles Y. Glock, letter to David Wallace, January 14, 1957, box 18, folder, “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia. 34 Lee M. Wiggins and Richard Pomeroy, “The Relative Strength of Four Automobile Product Images,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company, n.d., box 125, BASR Archive.

264 Respondents also anticipated that Edsel would be a fast car, but the study found that the

“speed” image of the car had declined precipitously after its introduction, despite the fact that independent research organizations, which examined its machinery, had judged the car to have “tremendous speed.” The shift in public image was thus not based on real observations of the car’s performance on the road. Instead, it was the result of “a drop in other more powerful images which merely carried the Speed image along with them,” according to the report. It was an example of the “halo” effect, wherein specific qualities of an object or idea are subsumed under a total quality, or Gestalt.

At the same time that BASR was conducting a battery of studies for Ford,

Dichter’s Institute for Motivational Research (IMR) was engaged in its own studies for the giant automaker. Ford’s nervous executives were evidently fretting over the launch of the Edsel and its place within the constellation of existing Ford models and those of its competitors. The intense publicity campaign that preceded Edsel’s launch made it front- page news; it even threatened to overshadow the other Ford lines, such as Mercury. But an IMR study of Mercury owners found that they were less concerned with the status the car conferred on them, relative to Buick and Oldsmobile owners, and more interested in the pleasure it brought them. The Mercury, a somewhat flashy car for non-conformists, was also known to be a favorite model for the tinkering of hot-rodders. Owners were less likely to be white-collar professionals, and more likely to be successful tradesmen—the skilled craftsman, the construction man—and small businessmen. They liked to think of themselves as “self-made” and “self-reliant.” Mercury was also associated with its famous pitchman, Ed Sullivan, who was the perfect personality for the car: not glib, not sophisticated, down-to-earth, “simple and awkwardly sincere,” and associated with sports

265 and popular entertainment. IMR posited that Mercury’s popularity among African

Americans in the North and South might derive from Sullivan’s “introduction of many

Negro personalities” on his program.35

As Ford rolled out its large, mid-priced Esdel in September of 1957, Dichter’s

IMR produced a “creative trend analysis” on the low-priced, small car field, based on its history of automobile studies.36 IMR reported that drivers of small cars such as

Volkswagen or Vauxhall were no longer stamped as “unsuccessful” or socially inferior, as they had been in the recent past. Increasingly, IMR reported, such drivers were seen as

“sophisticated” individualists who were perhaps thrifty, but in a “shrewd and elegant” way. This was partly due to the increasingly common practice of owning a second car, the social characteristics of which could be offset by the presence of the first car: such a motorist could “eat his cake and have it” with a “conformist, power-symbol” first car and a “daring” and “individual” second car. But drivers of small cars like the VW generally sought to convey a different attitude through their purchases. They were not acting for purely economic reasons: they were not generally of the lower- or even lower-middle classes but were usually more affluent consumers of the middle and upper-middle classes.

IMR explained their behavior as a “striving for individuality,” a “yearning for excitement,” and a corresponding “aversion to conformism.” These were not economic, but rather psychological motivations. Many of these consumers disdained the “push- button” technology celebrated by the industry, and rebelled through their purchases. This

35 “A Progress Report on the Sales and Advertising Problems of The Mercury,” report submitted to Ford Motor Company by IMR, October 1957, box 37, folder “Acc. 2407, 885B – 885D,” Ernest Dichter Papers (Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware) [hereafter, Dichter Hagley]. 36 “A Creative Trend Analysis of the Low-Priced Small Car Field and of Ford’s Future Role in This Field,” report submitted to Ford Motor Company by IMR, September 1957, box 37, folder “Acc. 2407, 885.1B- 885.1C,” Dichter Hagley.

266 was a segment of buyers who enjoyed the feeling of mastery over a car and preferred “to drive the car rather than have the car drive them.”

Given this trend against conspicuous displays of status, it was perhaps an inauspicious time for Ford to launch its large, gaudy, mid-priced Edsel. Only two months later, in November 1957, IMR filed a report on a study of consumers’ attitudes toward

“middle-priced” cars.37 Ford had asked IMR to investigate the “sharp decline” in its share of the market for middle-priced cars, and to examine what could be done to reverse that trend. The study found a growing rebellion against conformity and a desire to express “individuality” as a way to escape the “mass anonymity” of the ordinary.

Younger consumers, in particular, were increasingly opting to spend their money on vacations and leisure-time activities rather than overt material expressions of status such as automobiles, and they were more satisfied with lower-priced models. Market segmentation strictly by income level was being blurred as different ways of expressing group identity, or “life style,” emerged. The rise of the station wagon as a low-priced, all- purpose car for all economic classes was also contributing to the breakdown of the old status hierarchy of automobiles. The IMR report quoted a well-to-do, middle-class

“Negro loan company executive” who had traded in his mid-priced Oldsmobile for a low- priced Chevrolet because he noticed that the wealthy drove high-priced or low-priced cars, while only the less well-off “social strivers” bought medium-priced cars, for show.

It was into this shifting social context that Ford launched its mid-priced Edsel, which had the added, unfortunate problem of a distinctive kind of styling marked by an

“open,” oval-shaped grille. Many consumers perceived this unorthodox feature as being

37 “Summary Report of Major Findings on Middle-Priced Car Study” report submitted to Central Research Staff, Ford Motor Company by IMR, November 1957, box 37, folder “Acc. 2407, 885.1B- 885.1C,” Dichter Hagley.

267 feminine or “passive”; it appeared to be “on the ‘receiving’ end” rather than a symbol of

“penetrating power,” according to the report. One respondent reported that his nine-year- old daughter, who had a tendency to classify cars by sex, instantly called the Edsel a

“she.” IMR tentatively suggested that this distinctive, oval feature could be positively re- labeled as a “jet intake,” but the connotative damage had likely already been done.

Moreover, many consumers were beginning to respond negatively to the abundance of chrome that adorned the typical American car. Such “extra chrome” was perceived by many as being “loud” and stylistically disharmonious, offering not true value but merely superficial flair. “The major research finding clearly is that over-cluttered, over-gaudy use of chrome is coming to be a major subject of negative feeling,” the report concluded.

By late December, it was clear that the Edsel was tanking with consumers, and

Ford began to panic. It commissioned IMR to do an urgent “pilot” study with thirty subjects, a third of whom were Edsel owners. To produce a research-based recommendation for the immediate actions Ford could take to increase Edsel sales, IMR supplemented this study with an analysis of earlier depth interviews with 100 middle- priced-car buyers.38 From the perspective of a Ford executive, the results of the study were not encouraging. The Edsel was suffering from the effect of a “bandwagon in reverse,” according to the report; almost immediately, a deep social stigma was attached to the car. More than 80 percent of respondents were aware that the Edsel was not catching on. According to one respondent:

The only thing you hear about the Edsel these days is what a flop it’s been. I wasn’t enough of a sucker to bite for that one. […] I sure wouldn’t want to own a car that would make a freak out of me. You see an Edsel and you see everyone turn around and look at it as though it was a monster of some kind. If it’s not 38 “Edsel Pilot Study,” conducted by IMR for Car and Truck Divisions, Marketing Research Office, Ford Motor Company, December 30, 1957, box 37, folder “Acc. 2407, 885B – 885D,” Dichter Hagley.

268 good enough for other people it’s not good enough for me.

Even Edsel owners reluctantly admitted to a growing sense of shame and alienation stemming from their socially unacceptable consumer choice. The car was seen as being excessively flamboyant for people “who don’t have a damned thing but want you to think they do,” according to one respondent. Another said that the car was appropriate for a

“smart young jerk who goes for anything that’s novel.” Consumers also resented the

“self-assured” approach taken by Ford in promoting the Edsel, which seemed to take the public’s excitement for granted while ignoring consumers’ desire to “feel wanted.” Ford had also failed to properly define the target market for its product, which resulted in consumers’ inability to imagine that the car was designed for them. “Consumers require a systematic attempt on the part of advertisers to offer them a picture of themselves as the best possible market,” the report noted. “Without this, they will not construct such a picture unaided.”

But the principal reason for the negative reaction to the Edsel appeared to derive from its unconventional, “ambiguous” styling, which many respondents saw as distinctive but “ridiculous.” Beyond the growing resentment for the aggressive styling changes, or planned obsolescence, promoted by American auto manufacturers, there was a semiotic problem with the peculiar front end of the Edsel. Its oval-shaped, vertical grille “looks like a girl with her lips all puckered up waiting to be kissed—and you just know she never will be,” said one respondent. “I’ve seen EDSELS several times and they look as though something’s missing, as though a part had been left off the front there,” said another. The styling somehow suggested passivity and tended to make consumers “uncomfortable,” prompting them to express their antagonism in jokes and

269 ridicule. IMR recommended that Ford could possibly correct this problem by giving the grille a “masculine, aggressive” name, or by offering customers the opportunity to close the open space with “sturdy aluminum or steel grille or bars in order to effect a less passive and more aggressive appearance.” But IMR insisted that Ford should not abandon its “vertical grille concept,” which would be seen by the public as a sign of failure and “retreat.” By February, IMR even believed that negative attitudes toward the grille, which stemmed from the latent “other-directed” attitudes of the American public, were diminishing.39

But by the summer of 1958, the failure of the Edsel could no longer be denied, and a year later, IMR admitted that the oval grille on the Edsel had disturbed the car’s function.40 A BASR report on “Some Hazards of Innovation in a Recession” looked at the experience of Chrysler and Plymouth, which had been known as conservative lines, but which were radically restyled in 1957.41 These makes had been driven mostly by educated bureaucrats, professors, and clergy—market segments for whom displays of status were less important, or deliberately avoided.42 But, suddenly, the austere Plymouth jumped on the styling bandwagon. Plymouth’s 1957 advertising proclaimed, “Suddenly it’s 1960!” Its new styling had “out-finned the industry” in ostentatious display, according to the report, but the car did manage to grab a greater market share for the first half of 1957. With some conjecture, BASR posited that consumers adversely affected by

39 “Motivational Research Study Testing: 1. Edsel Spring Magazine Campaign; 2. Edsel Newspaper Testimonial Campaign,” report submitted to Ford Motor Company by IMR, February 1958, box 37, folder, “Acc. 2407, 885.3C-885.3D,” Dichter Hagley. 40 Memo to Ford Motor Company, December 28, 1959, box 38, folder “Acc. 2407, 885.18A-885.18B,” Dichter Hagley. 41 “Attitudes of New Car Buyers to Chrysler Styling: Some Hazards of Innovation in a Recession,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company by BASR, June 1958, box 125, BASR Archive. 42 Edith B. Loewy, “Automobile Buying and Status Aspirations,” report prepared for the Ford Motor Company, n.d., box 125, BASR Archive.

270 the recession, which hit just before the release of the Edsel in September, would become resentful of radical styling changes that were associated with rapid obsolescence. By the middle of 1958, the restyled Chrysler’s sales had slumped to a greater degree than Ford or GM, and the Edsel, the most boldly styled of all, had undeniably encountered the

“roughest going” amidst the recession. Between the two BASR panel studies in June

1957 and March 1958, the market had been troubled not just by a major recession, but also by the Soviet launching of Sputnik, which was perceived to shake the nation’s confidence and optimism.43

The Consumer Society as Cold War Symbol

In this Cold War context, Dichter spoke with some alarm about the Soviet threat, making the charge that it was the Americans, not the Russians, who were behaving like

Marxists in their fatalism about the future. By praising Russians as “masters of their destiny,” he reversed the notion that a laissez-faire market was the epitome of freedom, because it meant a fatalistic submission to the forces of capitalism and a lack of free will to shape a national destiny.44 “The Russians...have stopped being Marxists, they have stopped being fatalists, they have put themselves into the saddle again; they determine their own future,” Dichter argued in1958 in a speech before a trade convention of supermarket mangers.45 Americans, in contrast, had become saddled by guilt over their lives of abundance and overconsumption, which, they feared, were not deserved. In a

43 David Wallace, “Social Imagery Of Principal Car Makes,” memorandum, October 25, 1958, box 18, folder “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia. 44 “Dichter Offers Psychological Program to Combat Recession,” press release, Institute for Motivational Research, March 17, 1961, box 148, folder 4, Dichter Hagley. 45 Ernest Dichter, “Let’s Not Be Ashamed Of Our Abundant Life,” Wednesday Breakfast Address at the Annual Convention of the Super Market Institute, Inc., Convention Hall, Atlantic City, N. J., May 28, 1958, box 134, folder 2, Dichter Hagley.

271 theme he would develop in his 1960 book, The Strategy of Desire,46 which was very well received in the business community,47 Dichter called for a proud, affirmative “philosophy of the good life” to counteract the puritanism that was, in his view, putting a drag on the economy. “I feel that somebody, somewhere, has to make a start in selling a modern

American philosophy,” Dichter pleaded, “the philosophy of saying ‘Yes’ to abundance, of saying ‘Yes’ to the good life, and giving it a moral foundation.”

Cooperatives presented an alternative to free-market capitalism, but Dichter believed that consumer cooperatives were insufficiently attentive to the drama of the consumer experience. Yet other kinds of cooperatives, such as farmers’ cooperatives, could help the farmer to check some of the “threatening forces” of global capitalism by giving him some control over the market. Many farmers felt that, in the face of the economic organization of large corporations, they were compelled to respond with their own form of economic organization. “Surely we have to have something—everything else is organized economically,” said a respondent in a 1957 IMR study.48 Farmers found the co-ops to be progressive and democratic, “working for the farmer and not for themselves,” unlike for-profit organizations. Yet some respondents felt that large corporate chains, such as the grocer A&P, essentially functioned as cooperatives through

“group buying” which allowed them to get good prices and pass them along to the consumer. Publicly-held corporations, in which anyone could purchase stock, were also seen by some respondents as functionally cooperative. Urban food co-ops, however, served a different function for the consumer, and Dichter was critical of their understated,

46 Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1960). 47 The book received warm reviews in the September 2, 1960 issue of Sales Management and the September 9, 1960 issue of Printers’ Ink, for example. 48 “American Cooperatives and Consumer Motivations: An Exploratory Study,” report submitted to The Cooperative League of the USA by IMR, January 1957, Signatur-Nr. 997 (IMR 803C), Dichter Vienna.

272 sober, and factual presentation of products that neglected the “clouds of emotional advertising” that motivated the typical consumer. Several respondents complained of the drabness of the co-op and its questionable opposition to private enterprise, despite its noble aims. It had a reputation as a quasi-socialistic place for “little people” to band together to “save a few pennies”; it was not a place for social strivers. “You don’t enjoy pitying your neighbors,” observed one respondent. Another confessed to the excitement produced by the dramatic displays of a commercial grocery, relative to the dullness of the co-op. A businessman complained that co-ops could not attract or offer status to “first- rate” people, which resulted in a lack of creativity and imagination in salesmanship.

Commercial business had lured customers through attractive imagery and identification with trade characters like Betty Crocker, but co-ops had failed to satisfy “social-cultural- psychological needs” along with practical needs, according to IMR.

Housewives, in their daily shopping routines, could be enlisted in the Cold War ideological battle by being reminded every time they went to the supermarket that it was an “achievement of our system.” Consumers also needed advertisements for definite instructions in the buying situation to help eliminate their “misery of choice,” and even supermarket chains’ house labels, if attractively designed, could catch the “emotional fancies” of consumers. Addressing supermarket tradesmen, Dichter assured them that they had a “very important mission” in the recession: their job was to sell “an ‘abundance philosophy’ along with merchandise, price and quality.”49 This kind of family-centered spending also upheld postwar ideals of domesticity as essential to the American way of

49 “Dichter Survey Reveals Some Readers Unable to Cope with Newspapers,” press release, Institute for Motivational Research, December 31, 1958, box 148, folder 4, Dichter Hagley; Ernest Dichter, “Housewives Have Changed Their Minds; ‘Popular Brands’ Now Means Chain Labels,” Food Business, January/February 1956.

273 life, and, as Elaine Tyler May has argued, enlisted housewives in the ranks of cold warriors.50 Abundance did not equal decadence, and could even be a national virtue. As a kind of “commercial” Keynesianism replaced an obsession with balanced budgets as the economic orthodoxy of conservative businessmen, a principle of infinite growth through increasing consumption became the new norm.51 In response to a reporter’s suggestion that self-indulgence historically led to the decline of nations, Dichter retorted that “self-indulgence” was better understood as “self-realization in gathering new experiences,” and passivity was what ultimately led to national decline.52

Edsel Postmortem and the Decline of Market Studies at BASR

The ideological battles of the Cold War, which Dichter called a “psychological war,”53 raised the stakes for major product launches that were wrapped up in the

American way of life. For this reason, the failure of the Edsel took on a cultural significance beyond the sphere of consumer commerce. It was not only an industrial embarrassment, but also, in some sense, a national embarrassment. The failure was damaging not only for Ford, but also for BASR, and it may have contributed to the

Bureau’s retreat from commercial market research, which diminished sharply after the

Ford studies. Internal memos from July of 1958 reveal the turmoil caused by the reports.

A Bureau manager, Lee Wiggins, condemned the thesis of the BASR report which posited that the sales slumps experienced by Chrysler and Edsel were the result of

50 Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 168. 51 See Robert M. Collins, The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). 52 “Is Motivation Research a Science?” Marketing, October 10, 1958. 53 Ernest Dichter, “The Khrushchev Visit: The Role of Social Research,” Political Research: Organization and Design 3, no. 1 (September 1959): 17-18.

274 consumers’ resentment of stylistic obsolescence. This was an appealing but logically fallacious claim, according to Wiggins, who recommended that the report be suppressed.

“I believe any clever, hostile critic, academic or commercial, can make mincemeat of this report,” said Wiggins, who made it clear that he did not endorse the report. “The Bureau should also look to its reputation here. It is no secret that both uptown and downtown heavy criticism has been leveled at the Bureau on these Edsel projects.” The quality and scientific integrity was crucial to all Bureau work, and it was the only thing that justified its commercial research. The Bureau’s commercial projects were disdained by academics and resented by BASR’s “downtown competitors”—commercial market research firms— whom it undercut in costs due to the cheap labor of its researchers, many of whom were graduate students in sociology.54 Wiggins was evidently distraught over the “horrible mess” made of the Edsel project, and he lamented that morale was the “worst I have ever seen at the Bureau in my eleven years around here.” He also attacked David Wallace, a

Ford executive who was overseeing the Edsel market research studies, as being “totally incompetent.” Wallace had apparently rewritten and taken credit for Bureau reports, taking advantage of the Columbia University association while holding the Bureau responsible for any mistakes.55

Wallace, it turned out, was equally displeased with the work of the Bureau, which had received a $175,000 appropriation to do the study of 2,400 panel cases.56 He seemed to regret the decision not to give the project to a commercial market research firm,

54 Lee Wiggins, memorandum to Clara Shapiro, David Sills, Barbara Silverblatt, David Wallace, “Re: Silverblatt Report on Innovation in a Recession, Edsel Project,” July 20, 1958, box 18, folder “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia. 55 Lee Wiggins, confidential memorandum to David Sills and Clara Shapiro, “Re: Edsel Project,” June 20, 1958, box 18, folder “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia. 56 From the original 3,000 respondents, this is how many were successfully re-contacted for a follow-up interview.

275 admitting in a 1959 memo that “the study, like the Edsel itself, has been a flop.” The panel study, one of Lazarsfeld’s favored methods to gauge changing consumer opinions over time, became an embarrassing “before-and-after disaster study,” according to

Wallace. The study produced some helpful findings concerning the “personalities” of various makes of automobiles that would compete with Edsel: Buick was viewed as a

“doctor’s car” and Plymouth as a car suitable for school teachers, for example. (The

Edsel, in contrast, was supposed to be the “smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.”) But, for the most part, Ford executives were mystified by the Bureau’s methodology, which included incomprehensible matrices and

“super-technical” explanations by Lazarsfeld that Wallace found to be “fantastic” in the most pejorative sense of the word. But it is unclear in what way, if at all, the BASR studies affected the styling and promotion of the Edsel. The larger cultural and economic context also appears to have conspired to make the entire enterprise a failure. When Ford initiated the Edsel project in 1955, it had only one entry in the medium-priced field versus GM’s three models. Ford executives were quite reasonably concerned that many

Ford owners were trading-up for Buicks and Oldsmobiles. This is precisely why they were so intent on introducing a new medium-priced model. But the recession that coincided with Edsel’s launch, which adversely affected sales of all mid-priced cars, along with the “psychic tizzy” caused by Sputnik, combined to doom the car.57

The Edsel fiasco was an object lesson in a corporation’s profound failure to meet the desires and expectations of a market that it did not properly understand. The market studies that Ford commissioned from BASR and IMR proved to be too little, too late.

57 David Wallace, memorandum, March 4, 1959; David Wallace, “Background and Objectives of the Edsel Panel Study,” April, 1961; P. Springer, memorandum, August 1962, box 18, folder “Subject File, Ford Motor Company – Edsel Study,” PFL Columbia.

276 But this major marketing misstep underscored the practical value of market research that investigated not only the demographic composition of a market, but also consumers’ psychological dispositions and the broader cultural context in which they made their choices. Manufacturers knew that their products had “personalities,” but they were not always successful in designing characteristic images for those products that were in accord with the desires and motivations of their increasingly segmented consumer markets. For this reason, the services of Lazarsfeld, and especially Dichter, were valuable to mass marketers who could not risk a connotative misfire on the scale of the

Edsel. While Dichter often resorted to clichés, particularly in the articles he wrote for trade journals, he could also demonstrate remarkable insight on the basis of his long career in consumer research. When it came to articulating the personality, essence, or

Gestalt of a product, Dichter’s advice could be prescient. The component parts of the

Edsel may have consisted of positive, desirable attributes—a large body, a plush interior, a powerful engine, chrome adornments—and yet the total personality of the car contradicted the sum of its parts.

The Ineffable in the Consumer Experience

Gestalt psychology, frequently referenced by Dichter, was principally concerned with perception of the whole, which had a quality apart from its various constituents.58

“The single elements of an ad or commercial are not what determine its effectiveness,” said Dichter in a 1957 speech before advertisers. What made an ad effective, according to Dichter, was “the total overall integration of all its elements.” With great satisfaction,

58 Normal Heller, “An Application of Psychological Learning Theory to Advertising,” Journal of Marketing, January 1956.

277 Dichter noted the business community’s warming to his unorthodox, qualitative methods.59 In some cases, manufactures were startlingly ignorant of their products’ psychological associations and semantic connotations. Before a group of frozen food producers, Dichter pointed out the “unfortunate” name of frozen or “frosted” food.

“Food is full of emotional associations, it is warm, flavorful, it is active and alive and you have surrounded it with a dead name,” Dichter admonished. “What you are really selling is flavor-sealed freshness, a sleeping beauty which is very much alive and is only waiting for the creative touch of the homemaker to be brought back to life.”60

The sensual qualities of the experience of consumption could animate consumers’ desires, and Dichter advised advertisers on the best way to exploit these associations.

Respondents in a 1954 Institute study reported that a “milk-resistant quality” and crispiness was one of the most important characteristics of dry cereals.61 The same quality was essential for potato chips: crispiness was synonymous with freshness.

Dichter recommended that a California potato chip maker, Crispie, should emphasize its origins to capitalize on the “freshness concept.” The fluffiness and irregular shape of potato chips was also pleasing to consumers, making them “pretty” when on display.62

The sensual experience of bedsheets was also key to consumer acceptance. A 1957

Institute study for DuPont emphasized the importance of the tactile experience of fabrics:

59 Ernest Dichter, “A Credo for Modern Research and Advertising,” speech before the Advertising Federation of America, June 11, 1957, box 162, folder 14, Dichter Hagley. 60 Ernest Dichter, “FROSTED FOODS NEED EMOTIONAL DEFROSTING,” speech at the Eastern Frosted Foods Association Meeting, Hotel Belmont Plaza, New York City, December 12, 1962, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley. 61 “A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna. 62 “A Motivational Research Study on the Sales and Advertising problems of Crispie Potato Chips,” report submitted to Crispie Potato Chip Company by IRMM, January 1955, Signatur-Nr. 530 (IMR 444C), Dichter Vienna. “Crispie” was thus a perfect name for potato chips, while “Ruffles” had to combat an unfortunate feminine connotation with “associated masculine symbols.”

278 nylon sheets were adored for their silky smoothness, but resented for their impracticality and “strangeness.”63

Some products were so completely associated with a particular kind of experience that they struggled to adjust their brand identity when changing beliefs, new technologies, and cultural trends threatened to invalidate that experience. Alka-Seltzer, the fizzy, bicarbonate remedy for gastric ailments, was a very well-known and trusted brand, but by

1955 it had come to be regarded as “old-fashioned” by many consumers according to an

Institute study.64 As a tablet that dissolved to produce a seltzer, it belonged to an older class of stomach-oriented home-style remedies that “grandma used to make.” In an age in which Freudian theories were in currency, younger, “modern” consumers were less likely to believe in than in “biogenic” causes more apt to believe in psychogenic, head- oriented causes of ailments that could be cured by pills. Dichter recommended that the company emphasize the product’s “natural” ingredients to take advantage of another emerging trend in self-medication.

While consumers generally wanted to be “modern,” they were capable of holding a simultaneous, contradictory longing for the past. Many housewives and mothers, in particular, often resented the “conveniences” that had been incorporated into the rushed atmosphere of modern life, which, they felt, diminished their role. Dry cereals, for example, became a symbol of a “hurried, streamlined” breakfast, according to a 1955

Institute report for General Mills.65 One particularly articulate respondent observed:

63 “A Motivational Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Nylon Bed Sheets,” report submitted to E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Inc. by IMR, August 1957, Signatur-Nr. 1051 (IMR 838C), Dichter Vienna. 64 “A Motivational Research Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Alka-Seltzer,” submitted to Miles Laboratories, Inc. by IMR, April 1955, Signatur-Nr. 571 (IMR 473C), Dichter Vienna. 65 “A Motivational Research Study on Present and Future Psychological Trends in Cereals,” report submitted to General Mills by IMR, October 1955, Signatur-Nr. 712 (IMR 559C), Dichter Vienna.

279 There just doesn’t seem to be enough time for eating these days, and this time grows even less as we make “progress.” Isn’t it ironical that the more time-saving devices we have, the less time we have to enjoy them, the less leisure we have. […] The old time breakfast, where everybody ate together, symbolizes the old time family relations, where the family lived and worked as a unit, and had common interests. Today’s way of eating breakfast also symbolizes the family relationships of today—each one on his own, each striving for something else. It’s a great age for individuality, but also for individual isolation.

The modern housewife feared that she was neglecting her duties, and that modern conveniences made her increasingly irrelevant. Cold cereal of the kind produced by

General Mills—which lacked the essential aroma of a home-cooked breakfast—was perceived as being part of the problem. A mother’s only “alibi” in serving it to her children was that it “gets the milk into the kids.” To combat this sentiment, the Institute recommended that General Mills’s advertising should associate its products with a

“leisurely” family breakfast, while reassuring the housewife—through intermediaries such as the Betty Crocker trade character—that she was “right” in serving dry cereal.

She needed to be convinced that the dry cereal was a real, natural, wholesome food, not something overly-refined, synthetic and “shot-from-guns.”

The Essence of a Commodity: Beer

In some product fields, Dichter’s recommendations, which could very well capture the essence of a product, would become part of the common knowledge of marketing professionals. Beer, for example, was not merely a drink; it was a “social experience,” but manufacturers were myopically interested in touting the product’s tangible qualities. Dichter advised brewers that the consumers chose beer not for its taste, but on the basis of the community of drinkers they would join through their selection. Though consumers identified with their preferred beer as their own, special

280 beer, they also needed reassurance that their beer was socially acceptable and indicative of the proper status. Producers could convey this status through packaging, promotions, and advertising that used “idealized pictures of ordinary beer drinkers, careful quality claims, and a general atmosphere of restraint and good breeding.” Consumers sought affirmation that their choice conveyed their unique personality but, at the same time, sanctioned their association with a community of drinkers. Beer drinkers also desired a personal connection with the producer of their beer. They feared that modern, mass- produced beers were artificially aged, made with synthetic ingredients in “big shining vats by men in clinically white costumes.” Their ideal, however, was a romantic image of an old-fashioned “brewmaster” who took personal pride in the quality of his brew, using natural, quality ingredients. Regardless of their actual method of production, brewers could convey this idea to the consumer through packaging and advertising, creating an “aura of personal relationship” with the consumer.66 Consumers also thought of beer as wet, cool, “thirst-quenching,” and even tranquilizing—ideas that could be communicated through the colors and symbolism used in packaging.67

While consumers liked the romantic idea of the old-fashioned brewmaster, they simultaneously took comfort in the reputation of a large brewer that could “stand behind” its product. A large regional brewer like Rheingold in New York City could personalize its relationship with the consumer through a brand representative like its “Miss

Rheingold,” the winner of a yearly beauty contest sponsored by the company. Unlike the

66 Ernest Dichter, “Personality Plus—the key to successful beer advertising,” The Brewers Digest, March 1955; Ernest Dichter, “Ways and Means of Increasing Beer Consumption,” speech before the International Beer Advertising Congress, Kunstlerhaus, Lenbachplatz, Munich, Germany, September 4, 1963, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley. 67 “New ads sell old brews,” Tide, August 10, 1955; Albert Shepard, “Studies in Commercial Effectiveness: Hamm’s Beer,” Television Magazine, June 1957.

281 “seductress” that was typical in much advertising, Miss Rheingold was generally sweet and wholesome-looking, an “everyday” person who could plausibly be the wife or sister of the average man. “I think that Miss Rheingold is a good clean American girl,” said one respondent in a 1952 Institute study.68 “Her fitting in with Rheingold eludes me, except that American advertising seems to be geared to a pretty girl selling anything.”

That she appeared to be “so pure and chaste” was a benefit to the company, according to the Institute, because it provided men with “amorous attraction” without arousing “erotic guilt.” Women, meanwhile, could identify themselves with Miss Rheingold “without encountering all of the culturally prescribed guilt for beer drinking.”

Many of the findings from Dichter’s studies would become common tropes of advertising in certain product fields, such as beer, in which producers’ idea of their product did not always match the consumers’ psychological relationship to that product.

Even in the 1950s, there was a latent, nineteenth-century emphasis on production in much beer advertising that belied a managerial misapprehension of consumers’ experience drinking beer.69 A 1954 study by Dichter’s Institute analyzed 354 beer ads in newspapers, magazines, and on radio and television, which it compared with data gathered from 379 depth interviews and projective tests.70 The study found a remarkable disconnect between the way brewers advertised their product and the way consumers understood it.

While consumers saw beer as a “sensuous,” convivial beverage toward which they had an

68 “A Psychological Research Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rheingold Beer,” report submitted to Foote, Cone and Belding by IRMM, November 1952, Signatur-Nr. 187 (IMR 159C), Dichter Vienna. 69 On the modernization and professionalization of advertising in the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and on the shift from production-oriented to consumer-oriented advertising, see Pamela Walker Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). 70 “A Psychological Research Study of the Major Appeals in Current Beer Advertising,” report by the Institute for Motivational Research, 1954, box 17, folder, “Acc. 2407, 468C,” Dichter Hagley.

282 emotional relationship, the prevalent advertising relied on “intellectual” appeals that focused on the qualities of the beer outside of its social context. Consumers chose particular beers based on how the beer’s particular “personality” fit with how they wanted to see themselves, but brewers often insisted on touting ingredients and other elements of production. Advertising copy did give consumers a language with which to discuss their preferences—they reported liking “dry,” “full bodied,” or “light” beers, for example—but this was a rational, intellectual veneer for a truly emotional relationship, according to the report.

The Institute’s testing revealed that beer drinkers were, on the whole, poor judges of taste: 81 percent could not distinguish brands in a blind taste test. Another Institute study had revealed that, while respondents tended to characterize their favorite beer as

“dry,” they indiscriminately applied this generic quality of goodness to all kinds of beer.71

But consumers were very keen judges of a beer’s “personality,” which was cultivated through packaging, advertising, and other promotions. This unique personality had to be in accord with consumers’ self-ideal to the extent that they could think of it as “my beer.”

In many regards, the beer ads analyzed in the study failed to properly represent consumers’ lived experience with beer. The ads (1) lacked depictions of consumption or anticipatory consumption and enjoyment of the product; (2) focused on product claims more than personality, and failed to show that the brand shared the consumer’s feelings about beer; and (3) were addressed to everyone or no one in particular, rather than a certain kind of consumer. The report offered a “checklist” for beer advertisers to ensure that their ads conveyed enjoyment, reward for a job well done, sociability, and morally-

71 “A Psychological Research Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rheingold Beer,” report submitted to Foote, Cone and Belding by IRMM, November 1952, Signatur-Nr. 187 (IMR 159C), Dichter Vienna.

283 sanctioned satisfaction. At the same time, the Institute advised, the ideal ad showed a substantial beer, made by careful craftsmen, and it reassured consumers that they could

“be themselves” as they drank the beer in a community of like-minded, happy people.

These motifs would become clichés of beer advertising, but they were not readily apparent to advertisers in the middle 1950s.

Discriminating Consumers and Discovering the “Negro” Market

But while these tropes were appropriate for a mass-market of mostly middle- and working-class whites, other market segments—such as African Americans—presented unique challenges to beer marketers.72 Certain brands became favored among certain groups, sometimes by virtue of the explicit marketing efforts of the producer, and sometimes through the serendipity of cultural symbols. A 1956 Institute study found that

Lucky Lager beer was preferred by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans partly because the name was easy to pronounce and because the label featured the same colors as the

Mexican flag. African-Americans in northern California, meanwhile, disproportionately preferred Falstaff beer due to the company’s sponsorship of sporting events, its efforts to hire black salesmen, and for the more intangible, word-of-mouth reason that it seemed to have a kind of “prestige” lacking in other beers.73

72 National advertisements in the interwar years almost universally portrayed the typical consumer, as the advertisement’s protagonist, as a white, middle-class woman (usually a housewife) or man (usually a generic “businessman”). The working class only occupied functional roles in a supporting cast of characters—such as mechanic or truck driver—and ethnic minorities almost never appeared. Blacks appeared almost exclusively as servants, meant to symbolize “the capacity of the leading lady and leading man to command a variety of personal services,” according to Roland Marchand. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 189-99. 73 “A Progress Report of a Motivational Research Study on Falstaff’s Position in the Northern California Beer Market,” submitted to Falstaff Brewing Corporation, December 1956, Signatur-Nr. 974 (IMR 787C), Dichter Vienna.

284 A 1955 “pilot” study conducted by the Institute for the advertising agency of the

New Orleans-based Jax beer company was based on 67 interviews with “the more articulate and better educated Negro” in New Orleans and Texas.74 The study found that black consumers, presumably because of their minority status, were less likely than whites to “follow the crowd” in their choices. Instead, blacks displayed their difference and individuality through their consumption. They also sought to use consumption to refute the prevailing negative stereotypes concerning class and morality. While whites wanted to signify their group belonging through their consumer choices, blacks were more likely to make aspirational choices, identifying with “upper income and professional people,” regardless of their own income or class. National brand names and

“premium” beers associated with an elevated status were an “easily attainable” item for many black consumers.

The African Americans interviewed for the study were also keenly aware of the hiring practices of the major breweries, which affected their consumer decisions. “I’m not particular about drinking Dixie because they won’t hire Negroes,” said one respondent, a 30-year-old YMCA recreation director. “[I]f I know that you won’t hire

Negroes, I don’t buy your product—that goes for everything I buy.” Many consumers felt that, while Jax employed blacks, it restricted them to the lower-level jobs, which did not contribute to the brand’s esteem. One respondent, a 22-year-old teletype operator, was not convinced by the “phoney” efforts of the brewery to reach out to black consumers: “They don’t have any real relationship with the minority groups—even when they do attempt to contribute something—it’s done in a condescending manner—you

74 “A Pilot Study on the Sales and Advertising Problems of Jax Beer in the New Orleans Negro Community,” report submitted to Fitzgerald Advertising Agency, May 1955, box 17, folder, “Acc. 2407, 462E-464D,” Dichter Hagley.

285 know that great white father hooie!” The study’s respondents were also highly sensitive to how blacks were portrayed in advertising—if they were portrayed at all. “That’s the one thing I don’t like about the Bud Company,” said a 47-year-old ward attendant. “They don’t have colored people advertising their beer. I’d like to see Negroes as much as a white man likes to see white people on the scenes.”

Though Jax attempted to appeal to blacks in its advertising, the brand was resented by many black consumers who associated it with a lower class of blacks. “I hate

Jax and the reason is their radio programs make you mad and Negroes should get up and do something about it,” said a 49-year-old butler. “It is a real insult. My friends have stopped serving it at our club meetings. They could at least get an announcer that speaks good English, even if I can’t.” The Institute recommended that Jax should remove all

“objectionable stereotypes” from its promotions, including “jitterbugging” and “use of dialect.” Instead, Jax was advised to employ “attractive, middle-class people” in its ads, enjoying beer in “casual situations.” This aspirational ideal was summed up by one respondent: “The idea so predominant in the south that Negroes are ignorant and silly could more easily be erased if advertisements used a different level or representative picturing of the Negro.”

A 1958 IMR study for the Hecht department store in Washington, D.C. emphasized the diversity of the African-American market.75 Washington was notable for its very large black population—which composed about half of the city—and its relatively high levels of income and education. The Hecht company saw this as a potentially lucrative market, but it was concerned that a large increase in black shoppers

75 “A Motivational Research Study of the Present and Future Role of The Hecht Company in the Washington Department Store Field, Volume II,” IMR report, December 1958, box 46, folder “Acc. 2407, 1024C, Volume II,” Dichter Hagley.

286 might be “detrimental” to the image of the store in the minds of white shoppers.76 IMR’s report noted that middle- and upper-class blacks often shunned “the traits which whites often associate with Negroes in mannerisms, dress, entertainment and public conduct.”

Middle-class blacks, the report observed, were highly status-conscious, and they attempted to emulate the consumption patterns of upper-class blacks. The lower class of

African-Americans, meanwhile, was most given to displays of conspicuous consumption, despite—or, more likely, because of—its limited income. The report speculated that this status-striving may have been aided by the “movement toward desegregation” in

Washington. However, the large majority of respondents reported that discriminatory practices still lingered at Washington department stores, and some bitterly recalled the practice at Hecht’s. “Mother used to talk about how they didn’t want colored people to eat there and she thought she wouldn’t buy there,” said one teenaged respondent. “For a long time Hecht’s like the others had separate facilities like lavatory and you could not eat, in fact, for a while you had to stand up to eat while the whites sat down,” recalled another subject, a middle-class woman in her forties.77 76 “A Socio-Psychological Testing Procedure for Predicting Reactions to a Changed Racial Distribution of Customers in the Hecht Co.’s Washington Store,” report submitted to The Hecht Co., October 1958, box 46, folder “Acc. 2407, 1024CE-1024F”; Tibor Koeves, letter to Robert H. Levi, October 14, 1958, box 46, folder “Acc. 2407, 1024.1A-1025.1A,” Dichter Hagley. 77 In fact, Hecht department stores, along with C.S. Murphy and Kresge stores, had been the target of a boycott in 1951 led by civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell. Terrell was the chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws, which was protesting the store’s policy of segregating customers by color at its lunch counters in the Washington metropolitan area. When the Hecht company refused to change its policy, the Committee launched a boycott designed to make the company “realize that segregation is bad business as well as bad morals.” Mary Church Terrell and Alice C. Trigg, letter to supporters of Hecht boycott, April 30, 1951, container 16, folder “Correspondence, April 1951,” The Papers of Mary Church Terrell (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.); Audrey Thomas McCluskey, “Setting the Standard: Mary Church Terrell’s Last Campaign for Social Justice,” The Black Scholar 29, No. 2/3 (Summer 1999): 51; Mary Church Terrell and Alice C. Trigg, letter to supporters of Hecht boycott, May 2, 1951, container 16, folder “Correspondence, May 1951”; Annie Stein, telegram to Mary Church Terrell, May 25, 1951, Terrell Papers. Hecht’s and the other stores eventually capitulated, and the Committee was ultimately successful in its drive for desegregation in public accommodations, winning a 1953 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of District of Columbia v. John Thompson. The Court ruled in 1953 that the practice

287 U.S. corporations were eager to capture the African-American market, but they also feared alienating their white customers. A 1958 IMR market study for a bank noted the fear among business people that an “increase in Negro traffic” would decrease business from white customers.78 The Standard Oil Company had such a concern, and it commissioned IMR in 1957 to study the African-American market for its Esso gasoline service stations.79 The study, based on 207 interviews with black car owners, found that they generally trusted large, national brands like Esso more than local or regional brands.

But even one instance of discrimination could turn them off to a brand for good. “Just once they kept me waiting while they took care of a white woman who’d pulled up a long time after me,” said one respondent. “I never bought that brand again.” Separate restrooms and vending machines for “Whites Only” left deep and lasting impressions. “I haven’t yet found a place where they provide such accommodations that are just as good for Negroes as for Whites,” reported one respondent. Another reported switching to Esso after being called “boy” by an attendant at a Shell station, and one avoided a particular station that was run by a known racist.

Esso, perhaps owing to its size, was not known to be more discriminatory than any other company. But at least one respondent had heard that it was difficult for blacks to get an Esso credit card. This was a key issue for African-Americans: if credit cards

of segregation in commercial establishments violated the District’s “lost laws,” established by the short- lived territorial legislature in the District in 1872 and 1873, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations. Beverly W. Jones, “Before Montgomery and Greensboro: The Desegregation Movement in the District of Columbia, 1950-53.” Phylon 43, No. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1982): 144-154; Kate Masur, An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 230. 78 “A Motivational Research Study for Society for Savings and Society National Banks, Volume I,” report submitted to Society for Savings by IMR, November 1958, Signatur-Nr. 1282 (IMR 938C), Dichter Vienna. 79 “A Motivational Research Study of the Negro Market for Esso Gasoline, Services and Related Products,” report submitted to Esso Standard Oil Company by IMR, October 1957, Signatur-Nr. 1069 (IMR 848.1C), Dichter Vienna.

288 were issued on the same terms by which they were issued to whites, it was a signal that the company endorsed social equality. This was essential for travel in unfamiliar territory, especially in the South, where “some pretty raw things happen,” according to one respondent. “With a credit card they recognize that you’re a regular customer and seem to treat you different.” IMR recommended that Esso publicize its non- discriminatory credit card policy.

The issue of segregation in public accommodations—commercial spaces—was also examined in a 1963 IMR study on the “Motivations of the Negro Bowler” commissioned by the Brunswick corporation of Chicago.80 Instructed to focus on the conditions peculiar to African-Americans in Southern cities, IMR employed a corps of black researchers to conduct interviews in Houston, Jacksonville, and Birmingham with

180 “past and present Negro bowlers.” While most whites saw bowling as an informal activity, the study found that, among many blacks, bowling was seen as a “sophisticated” and “dignified” pastime that had the capacity to enhance middle-class status. But in arriving at this conclusion, the report indulged in much speculation about the racial character of black Americans. The authors even lent validity of some negative stereotypes concerning blacks’ resentment of physical labor and tendency toward

“inertia,” their bitter envy of whites, their avoidance of responsibility, and their tendency to seek out a “carnival” atmosphere of immediate gratification through the “fun and play” of activities like drinking, dancing, and card-playing.

The study also suggested that its black respondents were not particularly concerned about the segregation of bowling alleys. This was the “accepted” way of life

80 “The Negro Bowler: A Pilot Study on the Motivations of the Negro Bowler,” report submitted to The Brunswick Corporation by IMR, March 1963, box 68, folder “Acc. 2407, 1486.3D,” Dichter Hagley.

289 in the South, according to the report, and it was tolerated so long as the segregated facilities were well-maintained, “modern,” “desirable,” and not inferior to white lanes.

“Certainly we want it to change but until it does we’ll go on doing what we’ve been doing all the time,” said one respondent. “We all probably feel the same way, don’t you?

That we don’t like segregation but that we expect it. Anyhow, there are more important things than bowling alleys that have to be integrated first.” Yet some respondents were deeply resentful that they had to travel great distances to black establishments, and many were wary of facilities owned or run by segregationists. “The word had gotten out,” said one woman, a bookshop manager, “that Honey Bowl was being backed by a group of staunch segregationists who were perfectly willing to accept the money of the Negro but wanted to allow him none of the privileges that he was already paying for in the way of opening public facilities to him.” Another respondent, a maintenance worker, reported avoiding Honey Bowl because of rumors that it was run by segregationists. “I didn’t want them to spend one dime of my money,” said the subject.

While Dichter may have valued progressive ideals in a cosmopolitan, capitalistic sense, he was not a progressive advocate of equal rights. Perhaps the most dramatic episode revealing Dichter’s unease with the issue of race in the U.S. immediately preceded the heart attack he suffered in 1970. According to Dichter, the traumatic event was induced by his “verbal fight” with the head of the Malcolm X College in Chicago while onstage at a conference in Long Island. Dichter’s opponent accused him of being a racist.81 That may have been hyperbole, but Dichter had expressed wariness toward efforts to make greater use of African-American models in advertising, a goal sought by

81 Dichter, Getting Motivated, 119.

290 some civil rights groups.82 While Dichter was an early and articulate advocate of the segmentation of consumer markets, the period of his greatest influence in the 1950s preceded the growth of ethnic marketing in the 1960s. Large, white-owned corporations, newly aware of their regrettable neglect of a huge domestic market, began appealing to

African-Americans. These companies largely followed the political contours of the civil rights movement, promoting an ideal of integration in the early 1960s and, by the end of the decade, extolling blacks’ growing sense of racial pride through appeals to the “soul” market segment.83

This new interest in African-Americans as a market segment was also evident in a

1962 BASR report for an association of insurance agency managers which examined the economic position and consumer behavior of “American Negroes Outside the South.”84

The report surveyed contemporary market research and trade journal discourse, affirming or refuting stereotypes about African-Americans’ consumption habits. The analysis of market research affirmed the notion that blacks were greater consumers of alcoholic beverages, noting that, in 1950, middle-income black families in the North spent an average of 46 percent more on alcohol than comparable whites, and lower-income blacks in the South spent as much as three times as much on alcohol as whites in their income range. The report drew a conclusion, without much evidence, that the “Negro often attempts to compensate for his lack of self-esteem through apathy, hedonism, living for

82 Peter Bart, “Advertising: A Talk with a Motivation Man,” The New York Times, November 5, 1963. 83 Historian Robert Weems observes that, because corporations’ basic concern for the bottom line in a competitive commercial environment was the catalyst for segmented marketing, “it can plausibly be argued that some of the gains associated with the Civil Rights Movement were based on conservative, rather than ‘liberal’ impulses.” Robert E. Weems, Jr. Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 74. 84 Julian H. Nixon, “The Negro Consumer: A Review of the Economic Position and Consumer Behavior of American Negroes Outside the South,” report prepared for the Life Insurance Agency Management Association, August 1962, box 127, BASR Archive.

291 the moment, or criminality.”

In addition to their disproportionate alcohol consumption, blacks also tended to spend more on clothing than whites because clothing was a “prestige item among

Negroes.” Blacks’ conspicuous consumption was, according to the report, “one of the few methods by which the Negro can celebrate and demonstrate his new position in the world.” Their spending on personal-care products also tended to be higher than that of whites, due in part to product categories such as hair-straighteners and skin-bleaches that were particular to African-American consumers. They also tended to prefer national brands to store brands due to their history of being subjected to unbranded goods of inferior quality. But while blacks spent considerably more than whites on such consumer goods, they spent much less on housing because they were “generally denied access to the best housing and receive less value for the money they do spend.” While whites spent money in the restricted spaces of suburbs and country clubs, blacks were denied the opportunity to consume in this manner. Confined largely to dense urban centers in the

North, blacks also spent less on automobiles, statistically, despite a reputation for purchasing flashy cars like Cadillacs.85 Though they were “important symbols of achievement,” personal autos were impracticable in the urban environment, which was better-served by public transportation than the white suburbs.

Despite these limitations, the report pointed to a number of publications that helped to articulate the lifestyle of the black middle-class. These magazines would serve

85 However, Dichter, concerned more with product identity than sociological reality, warned that this reputation could affect the brand image of the Cadillac: “Even the fact that many more people of low income groups, for instance Negroes, have begun to drive Cadillacs has to some extent already changed the meaning of this famous trade mark.” “Twelve Criteria for a Good Brand Name or Trade Mark,” report submitted to Young & Rubicam, May 1961, box 66, folder “Acc. 2407, 1426E-1428E,” Dichter Hagley.

292 as efficient vehicles for companies—and insurance agents, in this case—looking to reach this market. The report pointed to the Johnson Publishing Company’s several large- circulation magazines catering to black Americans, which it compared to their mainstream, white analogues. There was Ebony, a general-interest magazine much like

Life; Jet, a pocket-sized tabloid; Negro Digest, which approximated Readers Digest; and

Tan, a sensational magazine in the manner of True Confessions. Ebony, in particular, was noted for its very large circulation and commitment to the use of black models. The magazine depicted “well dressed and happy Negroes of distinctly middle class character engaging in the glamorous activities of conspicuous consumption or conspicuous leisure.” As Life was the standard document of middle-class, white America, Ebony provided “a kind of handbook for the Negro middle class and those who aspire to that class.” Lazarsfeld predicted ever-growing consumption by African-Americans, whose economic and status aspirations would inevitably lead them to “move from one side of the window pane to the other.” However, contemporary blacks were more likely to spend money on mass media from which they could derive “security,” while avoiding other kinds of public consumption because of their “anticipation of rejection in the use of community leisure facilities.”86 Indeed, the emergence of African-Americans as a viable consumer group more seriously studied and marketed to roughly coincided with the civil rights movement, which began as a struggle for equal access to public accommodations

—spaces of consumption.87 86 Max Kaplan and Paul Lazarsfeld, “The Mass Media and Man’s Orientation to Nature: Interpretation of Trends and Patterns of American Living to the Year 2000 Having a Bearing on Outdoor Recreation,” report for Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission, December 1961, box 37, folder “Manuscripts (Research Papers by PFL), ‘The Mass Media and Man’s Orientation to Nature,’” PFL Columbia. 87 Lizabeth Cohen notes that, in the late 1940s and 1950s, “ordinary people waged the first stage of the postwar civil rights struggle at the grass roots by demanding access to public accommodations—to the stores, restaurants, hotels, housing developments, theaters, bowling alleys, and other sites of

293 “Psychographic” Consumer Markets

From the perspective of marketers, however, African Americans were one of many consumer groups, and their social and political aims were only relevant insofar as they illuminated their motivations as consumers. Dichter was interested in emphasizing the importance of psychological motivations over static social categories, and in matters of business he was largely apolitical. He appealed to potential clients by touting his unique ability to penetrate the minds of inscrutable consumer groups in order to explain why, for example, many lower-income blacks had a proclivity for buying “expensive cars like Cadillacs and Buicks.” While Lazarsfeld and BASR were more likely to categorize consumers on the basis of their relationship to a social group, Dichter was more apt to categorize consumers on the basis of their relationship to a product.88

Relative to the sociological approach prevalent among BASR researchers,

Dichter’s intense focus on the character of the product was attractive to marketers who saw the world through the thin sliver of whatever they were selling. “This report is opposed to the slavish reliance upon socio-economic labels in classifying people,”

Dichter noted in a 1958 issue of his journal, Motivations. “[T]he Institute has found that many markets, many populations can be stratified on the basis of psychological factors which apply to a specific kind of purchase behavior.” This kind of knowledge was most useful to corporate executives who may have known the social, economic, and

consumption where consumers were expected, and black Americans increasingly expected to fulfill the rights and obligations of purchasers as citizens. […] Mass consumption begot a mass civil rights movement.” Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003), 173-4; 190. 88 I am indebted to Dr. Roger Horowitz, director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, for emphasizing this point to me.

294 demographic characteristics of their markets, but did not know how to appeal to the basic motivations of those groups in relation to their particular product. “When an advertiser understands those ‘typical’ aspects of character and self-concept which operate in the purchase and use of a product, he can modify and improve his product to meet the special needs of the personality types represented in his market,” Dichter continued. “This requires a new emphasis on the psychological segmentation of the market, rather than a simple breakdown of the market by social and economic groupings.” The physical qualities of a client’s product might not be the source of its sales problems, Dichter argued. Instead, the “personality” of the product might not match the personality of the targeted market group.89

If businesses hoped to refashion the personalities of their products, they had to first understand the basic psychological constitution of the personalities of individuals in their market. This is what Dichter called “psychological” market segmentation; he would later call it “psychographic” segmentation, a neologism derived from demographic which emphasized its utility as a scientific method of consumer categorization. This kind of market analysis was also useful to advertisers looking to asses the “image” of a particular advertising medium and its readers in order to determine its suitability as a vehicle for advertising. The typical reader of Family Circle, for example, derived her total self- image from homemaking and family management, and the magazine provided her with escapist fiction that nevertheless restored her confidence and optimism.90 The typical

89 “Typology: The Classification of Consumers by Psychological Types As A Tool For Advertising and Merchandising,’ Motivations 3, no. 3, September 1958, box 151, folder 17, Dichter Hagley. 90 “New Dichter Report Reveals ‘Profile’ of Family Circle Reader,” Advance News 4 no. 5, August 1960, box 151, folder 17, Dichter Hagley; “Editorial Supplement to the Study of Family Circle’s Advertising Effectiveness,” report submitted to Everywoman’s Family Circle by IMR, July 1960, Signatur-Nr. 1599 (IMR 1198 C.2) Dichter Vienna.

295 reader of Esquire magazine, meanwhile, valued the magazine for catering to his hedonistic desires, and he saw the advertisements as fully integrated with the editorial content. Readers like this composed a prized audience for advertisers.91 “The vast majority of marketing research studies still use age-old categories: marital status, sex, education, income group, occupation, age, etc.,” noted Dichter in a 1961 trade journal article touting his method. “We are conducting more and more studies in which we use motivational categories that cut across many of the more superficial categories customarily used.”92 Increasingly, Dichter argued that the mass market was dying out, and would be replaced by a mosaic of psychologically segmented sub-markets.93

Dichter and his associates promoted their business and the idea of psychological market segmentation not only in trade journals and at industry conferences, but also in direct appeals to potential clients.94 Dichter promised to provide a “psychological X-ray of your market” through his special method of motivational research. “He discovered

MR; he named it; he has been its foremost practitioner for more than 20 years,” boasted a promotional brochure describing the services of Dichter’s IMR.95 He became so well-

91 “The Images of a Man,” brochure, ca. 1958, box 131, folder 13; “A Motivational Research Study of The New Esquire: Magazine of ‘Shared Excitement,’”April, 1958, box 1, folder “Research Reports, 3- 3.3A,” Dichter Hagley. 92 Ernest Dichter, “Seven Tenets of Creative Research,” Journal of Marketing 25, no. 4 (April 1961): 1-4. Of course, Dichter served himself and the services of his Institute by promoting the idea of psychological market segmentation. But IMR’s studies continued to analyze traditional demographic categories, as in a 1960 study on the motivations of middle-aged women in lower-education brackets. The study found that these women tended to assume more traditional gender roles than middle-class women: “Unlike the middle class woman whose activities extend into the community and toward other outside interests, this woman develops few or no contacts or skills other than those related to the immediate family group.” Janet Sillen, “A Memorandum on the Motivations of Middle-Aged Women in the Lower Educational Brackets to Return to Work,” report submitted to Jewish Vacation Association, March 1960, box 131, folder 16, Dichter Hagley. 93 Ernest Dichter, “The mass market is dying out,” unknown publication, n.d., ca. October 1964, box 131, folder 19, Dichter Hagley. 94 Irving Gilman, letter to Richard H. Soule, February 26, 1960, box 40, folder “Acc. 2407, 925C- 925.1A,” Dichter Hagley. 95 “An Introduction to The Institute for Motivational Research (Ernest Dichter Associates, Inc.),” promotional brochure, n.d., ca. 1961, box 213, folder 10, Dichter Hagley.

296 known as a marketing maven that he was invited to testify before a U.S. Senate committee hearing, arranged by Senator Philip Hart of Michigan, on packaging and labeling practices.96 There, he was confronted by senators who were convinced, to his surprise, that marketers deliberately sought to cheat consumers through deceptive packaging.97 But for companies seeking to penetrate the minds and exhume the buried, unconscious psychic material of their consumers in an effort to craft a product identity ideally suited to their mysterious desires, Dichter offered a solution. “All that Gallup has been to opinion, and Kinsey to sex, Dichter has become to the world of product appeal,” noted a favorable review of Dichter’s 1960 book, Strategy of Desire, suggesting the guru status that Dichter had cultivated.98

“Personalities” for Products: Cigarettes

As market segmentation became a prevalent and necessary business strategy in the early 1960s, large U.S. corporations that offered a variety of products within the same field—such as cigarettes and automobiles—hired consultants like Dichter to discover the distinct “personalities” of their products in the minds of consumers. The nature of cigarette smoking as an expression of individuality made it a product that required careful

96 James Ridgeway, “Segregated Food at the Supermarket,” New Republic, December 5, 1964; Ernest Dichter, “Dichter: Honesty Is One of Advertiser’s Best Weapons,” letter to editor, Advertising Age, October 23, 1967. Sen. Hart grew worried that the “psychological disbelief” that consumers acquired in response to an onslaught of misleading advertising was producing a dangerous mistrust in social and civic institutions. “Advertising Adds to Ills of ‘Distrust’: Hart,” Advertising Age, September 11, 1967. 97 Ernest Dichter, “Packaging – A psychological bridge or barrier?” Bakers Weekly, January 4, 1965. 98 “Discusses Ins, Outs of Product Appeal,” review of Strategy of Desire, Star Ledger, September 11, 1960, box 151, folder 14, Dichter Hagley. Dichter used the book to present a vigorous defense of both himself and the American system of capitalism. The book attracted much publicity, not all of it positive, and Dichter responded to a negative review by the author John Keats by calling him and fellow critic Vance Packard “hypocrites” who were “making a good living beating us with their royalty checks” while indulging in the consumer society they decried. “Capitman Hits Dichter Claims for Motive Research: My Views Distorted, Says Dichter,” Advertising Age, September 26, 1960.

297 attention to branding. “Smoking a cigarette is unlike any other pastime,” noted a 1961

“creative memorandum” produced by IMR for an advertising agency. “It is a more personal experience because your relationship to the cigarette is more personal. You carry it around with you most of the time, close to your body, in your jacket pocket or in a pocket of your shirt, sometimes close to your heart.”99 Dichter encouraged marketers to use creative packaging and advertising to transform commodities into personalized products to which consumers had an emotional connection. “Before a cigarette may become a Lucky Strike or a Pall Mall, and more a Lucky Strike or a Pall Mall than a cigarette, its perception by the consumer must be changed,” Dichter advised.100 Tobacco companies and their advertising agencies were acutely aware of the importance of cultivating and maintaining images for their cigarette brands that appealed to various market segments. Relative to smokers of pipe tobacco—connoisseurs of taste known to be fickle and promiscuous in their brand choices—smokers of cigarettes were often intensely loyal to a brand for more personal reasons.101

Dichter’s IMR was well equipped to analyze popular identities of these intensely personalized commodities. A 1957 Institute study for Philip Morris identified Camel and

Lucky Strike as masculine; Marlboro, Winston, and Pall Mall as feminine (before

99 “The Motivations of Cigarette Smoking: A Creative Memorandum,” report submitted to Young & Rubicam, Inc., March 1961, box 65, folder “Acc. 2407, 1400E-1401E,” Dichter Hagley. 100Ernest Dichter, “The Theory of Creativity,”speech at POPAI's 1963 Seminar, Chicago, October 15, 1963, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley. 101“A Motivation Research Study on Increasing the Sales of Amphora Tobacco, Volume II,” report submitted to Douwe Egberts Tobacco Co. and Douwe Egberts, Inc. by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., March 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3482 (IMR 2521C Vol. II), Dichter Vienna. Pipe smokers generally smoked at home, to relax, while cigarette smoking was more of a public behavior that took place during the tense work day. It was generally considered to be a man’s activity. Some even took it up for health reasons: “It was my doctor who got me to use a pipe – he was always after me to quit cigarettes – he even loaned me what I needed to get started,” said one respondent. “A Motivation Research Study on Increasing the Sales of Amphora Tobacco, Volume I,” report submitted to Douwe Egberts Tobacco Co. and Douwe Egberts, Inc. by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., March 1973; Signatur-Nr. 3479 (IMR 2521C Vol. I), Dichter Vienna.

298 Marlboro’s gender transformation had taken hold); Chesterfield as “mixed sexually”; and

Philip Morris as male, preferred by the “artistic, professional, social sciences kind of person.”102 It was a bit “high-brow,” according to one respondent, and it had a certain air of “Englishness” and even “British colonialism” to it, perhaps owing to the crest on the package. This brand personality clashed sharply with the loud brashness of its trade character, the midget bellhop Johnny, known for his catchphrase, “Call for Philip

Morris!” The character had originated in print and radio ads, which were deliberately designed to be startling and intrusive.103 But when picture was combined with sound on television, Johnny’s “shrill” voice was too much for many to take.104 The Institute recommended that Philip Morris kill the character.

A series of IMR studies in 1961, based on a total of 2,667 interviews, examined three brands produced by the American Tobacco Company: Tareyton, Pall Mall, and

Lucky Strike. The reports on these studies, which included more statistical information and less psychoanalytic interpretation than earlier Dichter reports, drew general conclusions about cigarettes and smoking as well as particular conclusions about the brands under consideration. In 1961, smoking was no longer vilified as a sinful habit that evoked feelings of guilt; instead, it was a reliable source of satisfaction and a way of coping with modern life. Smoking had become a common, accepted practice—so

102“A Motivational Research Study of the Current and Indicated Future Impact of ‘Johnny’ Phillip Morris on the Advertising, Promotion, Merchandising & Sales of Philip Morris Cigarettes,” report submitted to Philip Morris Incorporated by IMR, January 1957, Signatur-Nr. 899 (IMR 736C), Dichter Vienna. 103Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 110. 104Some women found him “lively” and “bouncy,” but men tended to see him as “loud” and “pushy.” They recoiled at his “circus-like freakishness,” which was, in their view, a travesty of the dignified Philip Morris image. “This awful voice Johnny used got on my nerves,” complained one respondent, a “manufacturer” from New York City. “He used to shriek and it was awful. [...] I remember school kids used to run around yelling ‘Call for PHILIP MORRIS’ at the top of their voices. Kids used to think it was a cute idea but I don’t think the grownups went for it.”

299 routinized that it had been seamlessly incorporated into everyday existence. Parents were more likely to condone smoking by their children, and younger people were more apt to smoke. IMR even advised that tobacco companies must “make the necessary changes to absorb these new smokers” in their marketing practices. Although smoking was more common, it had also become more segmented. There were not only different kinds of cigarettes—filter, menthol, “king-size,” etc.—but also different personalities that required tobacco companies to “maintain eminence in several cigarette fields.” “Today’s smoker is looking for individuality,” observed IMR. “He is looking for a cigarette that ‘suits’ him.” Smokers were little concerned with the identity of the corporation that produced the cigarettes, but very concerned with their favored brands.

IMR produced a complete personality profile of American Tobacco’s “Dual

Filter” Tareyton brand. Tareyton—which came in an attractive, well-liked package featuring a red stripe and crest—was believed to be a high-status cigarette, alongside

Kent, used by older, wealthier, sophisticated people who smoked less than the average smoker.105 The image of the crest, along with the name, evoked an old, English aristocracy: “That crest on the package is probably the family crest of the English family

Tareyton’s,” guessed one respondent. “I would say that I feel a little classier when we go out and I take out a pack of Tareyton,” said another. “It’s a fancy looking package and you don’t mind people seeing it on your table.” Tareyton smokers saw themselves as discriminating consumers, more inclined to intellectual and “domestic activities,” as opposed to outdoor or athletic pursuits, than the average smoker. They were very loyal to

105The packaging and marketing of the Tareyton brand followed advertising historian Roland Marchand’s “Parable of the Democracy of Goods,” which held that democracy was defined in terms of equal access to consumer products. Although the wealthy had easy access to a wide variety of luxuries, even the humblest of citizens could partake in their deep satisfaction by choosing that one, special product that they shared. Marchand, Advertising, 217-22.

300 their brand: 74 percent reported that they would not switch. Those who did not smoke

Tareytons tended to view the brand as appropriate for the actor, the test pilot, the senator, and the society matron—and generally as a more feminine cigarette. They were skeptical of the claim that a filter cigarette “delivers the flavor,” and they suspected that inferior tobacco might be used because the filter would mask the taste. However, the filter cigarette also symbolized the “modern” and even the “future” cigarette, which contributed to its “snob appeal” and image as a sophisticated smoke. But younger smokers did not see the brand as being for them.106

Packaging was essential to American Tobacco’s efforts to market Tareyton as a sophisticated, modern, filter cigarette. Indeed, package styling strongly indicated both a brand identity and product qualities. Imagery for menthol cigarettes, for example, almost invariably employed white, green, and blue colors, and often indicated “cool refreshment” and tranquility. Brand names like “Alpine,” with its mountain imagery, and

“Kool,” with its green coloring, also conveyed this idea (though the latter was beset by a lower-class association). One respondent recalled a TV commercial for Salem menthol cigarettes in which a couple glided gracefully on a lake in a canoe. “The main idea is that everything is so cool,” the subject remarked. This idea was so powerful that many smokers often turned to menthols for their perceived medicinal qualities when they were suffering from a cold or a sore throat. At the same time, many men avoided them for fear of being marked a “sissy” for smoking a milder kind of cigarette that was commonly associated with women smokers.107

106“The Present Position of Dual Filter Tareyton in the Cigarette Market: A Motivational Research Study,” report submitted to American Tobacco Company, November, 1961, box 3, folder “Research Reports, 62A-62.1C,” Dichter Hagley. 107“The Present Menthol Cigarette Market: A Motivational Research Study,” report submitted to American Tobacco Company, October 1961, box 3, folder “Research Reports, 62.4A-62.4E,” Dichter Hagley.

301 Despite the trend toward market segmentation, IMR found that American

Tobacco’s Pall Mall brand had a “universal” image. It was a sort of everyman’s cigarette, suitable for all income groups and women as well as men, though it was perceived as being somewhat less for the very young. In an age of fickle consumption, in which smokers were apt to switch brands if they felt that their brand had fallen in esteem or no longer matched their personality, Pall Mall was a secure choice. It existed in “the broad middle ground where smokers of all characteristics and from all walks of life meet”; it thus served as a “safe” cigarette. Pall Mall was a sort of compromise between an old brand with a fixed, overly-exposed status and a “radical,” untested new one. It was known as the first “king size,” or longer, cigarette that came in a “familiar” red package that commanded remarkable loyalty. Though it lacked a filter, it had “acquired attributes” of “filter-associated modernity” owing to its familiar (but probably dubious) claim that “traveled” smoke was effectively filtered in its course through the longer cigarette. Indeed, its length was an “integral part” of the brand that carried a special meaning for its users. Pall Mall’s main trouble as a brand was with young smokers, who tended to see it as a conservative cigarette that lacked the trendiness of some other brands like Parliament.108

American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike, meanwhile, was a venerable brand that was

“strongly rooted in the past” and yet had potential as a “starter cigarette” for younger smokers. This sense of nostalgia was encouraged by the brand’s advertising slogan: 108Some of its marketing also struck a discordant tone with consumers: the bright red package seemed to suggest harshness, while the advertising tagline, “wherever particular people congregate,” struck many respondents as pretentious, and the repetition of “Pall Mall is good, good, good” struck some as brash. To remedy this problem, IMR suggested adding a human element to Pall Mall advertising because it was a “cardinal truth” of advertising that “the ad that tells the consumer what this product will do for him is more effective than the ad that talks about the product itself.” “The Present Position of Pall Mall in the Cigarette Market: A Motivational Research Study,” report submitted to the American Tobacco Company, November 1961, box 3, folder “Research Reports, 62.2A, 62.2C,” Dichter Hagley.

302 “Remember how great cigarettes used to be...” In the context of the cancer scare and the increasing popularity of filter cigarettes, the ads suggested that there was something pure, unadulterated, and unpretentious about Luckies—and that there was, perhaps, something effete or unmanly about filters. According to a Lazarsfeld study, blue-collar smokers had a much more fatalistic view of the future which affected their smoking habits. “If I stop I might live more, but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” said one respondent.

“I’d rather live my life today and enjoy it now rather than worry about what will happen tomorrow.” In the minds of many smokers, Lucky Strike was in the same category as

Camel—an unpretentious smoke for a extroverted type in the middle- to lower-income brackets fond of proletarian social activities like bowling or watching television in a bar.

The well-known package, with is simple design featuring a striking red circle or “bull’s eye,” was seen as a “familiar friend” by many consumers. At least one respondent, however, was skeptical of Lucky Strike’s “It’s Toasted” slogan: “I once read where all cigarettes are toasted. I think that’s misleading because Lucky Strike tries to give the impression that they’re the only cigarettes that are toasted.”109

Growing “Ad-Consciousness” and Consumer Skepticism

By the late 1950s, Americans were becoming increasingly skeptical of advertising and marketing practices. A 1958 IMR “basic research” study of 255 consumers, conducted on behalf of several major U.S. corporations, identified an emerging, more

109“The Present Position of Lucky Strike in the Cigarette Market: A Motivational Research Study,” report submitted to American Tobacco Company, November 1961, box 3, folder “Research Reports, 62.3A, 62.3C,” Dichter Hagley; Alan S. Meyer, Lucy. N. Friedman, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Motivational Conflicts Engendered by the On-going Discussion of Cigarette Smoking,” January 1972, box 37, folder, “Manuscripts (Research Papers by PFL), “Motivational Conflicts Engendered by the On-going Discussion of Cigarette Smoking,’” PFL Columbia.

303 sophisticated attitude it called “ad-consciousness.”110 Middle-class consumers had become increasingly aware of the “highly paid brains” on Madison Avenue who were feverishly at work “competing with each other to make us see things, feel things, do things, buy things.” But the advertiser was not defenseless against this increasingly aware consumer disposition, the report suggested. Advertisers could preempt this critical attitude by absolving themselves of their “original sin,” adopting a winking, self-mocking tone. In this way, they could distinguish themselves from the “commercial camp” by establishing their status as an intermediary between producer and consumer—but on the side of the consumer. “Meet the consumer’s ad-consciousness by showing that you are ad-conscious yourself!” implored the IMR report. Advertisers could also create a

“community of taste and interest” and invite prospective consumers into an elite group, exclusive to those in-the-know.

Despite their knowledge, consumers were still involved in the drama of postwar consumerism, and they often preferred radio and television advertising to what they perceived to be more pernicious cultural threats, such as comic books. They still liked to bring up products as topics of conversation with their peers to demonstrate their connoisseurship or show their pioneer spirit into some new consumer territory. They also liked to “spread the gospel” about products they liked, seeking confirmation of their own judgment in others’ willingness to follow suit. And though they were more aware of the spectacle of modern advertising, they often submitted to its inevitability. “I realize the programs can’t go on without commercials and it’s a way of learning about new products,

110“The Motivations of Word-of-Mouth Advertising: How Advertising and Word-of-Mouth Influence Each Other,” report prepared in cooperation with Esso Standard Oil Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Philip Morris, Inc., Wildroot Company, Inc., Miles Laboratories, Inc., January 1958, box 40, folder “Acc. 2407, 918A-919C,” Dichter Hagley.

304 especially if you’re house-bound,” said one California housewife. Another was content that the commercials inspired her children’s consumer choices: “whatever program they are thinking about decides what cereal they think they want.”111

A sustained marketing program could produce a real, lasting affection toward and trust in corporate brands. A trademark such as the Ralston Purina company’s red checkerboard, for example, could evoke “friendly associations” and “fondly remembered childhood experiences.”112 A lasting corporate identity combined with effective symbolism, such as Prudential Life Insurance’s Rock of Gibraltar, could demonstrate the

“time-tested integrity, strength and conscientious responsibility” that consumers desired in such a company.113 Trademarks had the potential to become so dominant that they could become generic terms for a product—such as Tampax for tampons.114 Many consumers accepted advertising as an “independent attraction” with its own entertainment values and element of competition between rival brands. They even enjoyed the cleverness of ads and were apt to appropriate ad lines and slogans from commercials as a realm of verbal innovation. Yet even an eleven-year-old boy was sophisticated enough to understand a common marketing tactic. In reference to the cold cereal brand Wheaties’

111“A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna. 112“A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna. 113“Understanding and Selling More Effectively to the Potential Prudential Life Insurance Buyer: Volume I,” report submitted to Prudential Insurance Company of America by IMR, July 1960, Signatur-Nr. 1312 (IMR 953C Vol I), Dichter Vienna. 114“Developing a Market for Tampon Products: Report on Phase I of a Motivation Research Study,” submitted to Personal Products Company by IMR, August 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3706 (IMR 2594C), Dichter Vienna. The mere though of using a “cut-rate” brand or private label of sanitary napkins could have sent “shudders up the consumer’s spine,” according to an IMR report. “Strengthening the Market for Modess and Stayfree Sanitary Napkins: Report on Phase I of a Motivation Research Study,” submitted to Personal Products Company by IMR, October 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3716 (IMR 2595C), Dichter Vienna.

305 claim to be the “Breakfast of Champions,” the boy reasoned: “I don’t think any of them are any better for you—they just pay athletes money to say so—I don’t believe it—no one does, do they?”115 Another eleven-year-old girl dismissed the aggressive ad claims as

“silly” and “childish” with a hearty laugh: “I know some of the ads always say this cereal makes you strong and healthy.”116

The American Consumer Grows Weary of “Planned Obsolescence” in Autos

Still, advertising sometimes had to outflank the brash, aggressive practices of consumer-oriented businesses, such as planned obsolescence, which had nearly reached the point of self-parody in some fields, such as automobiles. As early as 1959, IMR anticipated more sober, less conspicuous kind of styling for future models, with less garish chrome and ostentatious tailfins. Consumers were growing tired of rapid obsolescence, and they sought new, non-material ways of expressing their status and sophistication.117 “The average motorist simply cannot cope with the complexity of keeping track of the appearance of so many cars in any one year,” noted a 1962 IMR report, “much less with being familiar in any detail with style changes in each from year to year.” IMR identified the appearance of “new needs” in the American auto consumer, such as a greater reluctance to submit to Detroit’s relentless styling changes, a growing concern over safety, and better consumer knowledge because of the information provided by advocacy organizations like Consumers Union. American Motors’ Rambler, a 115“A Motivational Research Study on Present and Future Psychological Trends in Cereals,” report submitted to General Mills by IMR, October 1955, Signatur-Nr. 712 (IMR 559C), Dichter Vienna. 116“A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna. 117“A Pilot Summary on Automobile Usage and the Automobile of 1962,” report submitted to M-E-L Division, Ford Motor Company by IMR, June 1959, box 37, folder “Acc. 2407, 885.3C-885.3D,” Dichter Hagley.

306 compact car, was seen as “stodgy” and conservative by some consumers, but its owners also exhibited a conscious rejection of the ostentatious styling and enormous size that had come to characterize the typical American car. The name “Rambler” even seemed to suggest a certain rejection of the norm, “choosing one’s own path and pace.” Relative to another compact car like the Chevrolet Corvair, with its “radical and progressive” styling and “sporty reputation,” the Rambler was indeed a modest vehicle.118

But another compact car, the German-made Volkswagen, made modesty its principal virtue, even flaunting it to the point of ostentation. Volkswagen began running a series of advertisements for the U.S. market in 1959, created by the firm Doyle Dane

Bernbach (DDB), that would become legendary for “puncturing the mythos of the

American automobile in the year of maximum tailfins on the GM cars,” according to historian Thomas Frank. The ads were strikingly minimalist, featuring white backgrounds, unglamorous photos of the product which were often quite small, and very little text in non-serif fonts that usually conveyed a pun or joke about the Volkswagen’s proud nonconformity and stubbornly consistent styling in an era of rapid obsolescence.

The ads were also striking for their directness in addressing the consumer as a knowing, discerning subject who would not be fooled or manipulated by the deception, exaggeration, and trickery that many educated consumers had come to expect from

Madison Avenue. They were aimed squarely at the independent-minded, intellectual type of consumer who was known to despise advertising but was influential in making small, foreign cars acceptable in the U.S. The ads joined contemporary critiques of advertising

118“A Motivational Research Study of the Rambler Image among Owners of Competitive Cars: Phase II, The Impact and Influence of 1962 Car Models,” report submitted to American Motors Corporation (Detroit) and Geyer, Morey, Madden & Ballard, Inc., January 1962, box 65, folder “Acc. 2407, 1399C PHASE II,” Dichter Hagley.

307 and the consumer society, such as Vance Packard’s Hidden Persuaders and Waste

Makers, and ironically proffered Volkswagen Beetles as “badges of alienation from the ways of a society whose most prominent emblems were the tailfin and the tract home with a two-car garage,” according to Frank.119

Frank’s interpretation is supported by a 1962 IMR study for Volkswagen of

America.120 The witty and distinctive ads, which were well-known and appreciated by

Volkswagen owners, served to confirm their “feeling of having made a wise decision” in purchasing a Volkswagen. “I’d say they don’t get the broad base of American public, but then I guess they don’t want to since the broad base of the American public wants a car with a lot of show and flash,” said one self-satisfied Volkswagen owner, an attorney in his forties, in reference to the ads. “This is not true of the people who want Volkswagen.

They have come to the conclusion that they want economy and performance.” Another contented owner remarked that “the looks are constant and I don’t have to concern myself with being out of fashion.”

IMR identified a new trend in the popularity of Volkswagen, deriving from a

“saturation in materialism.” Traditional “prestige” goods such as the house and car, had been, to some extent, displaced as markers for “conspicuous status demonstration” by other, non-material goods, such as recreation, travel, knowledge, and cultural activities.

Volkswagen owners, shunning materialistic conformity, wished to be “a little different” from the mass of consumers. “We Americans have been trained to be ‘followers’ and not

119Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 62-8; “Esquire and The College Market; the Automobile Market; and the Egg-Head Market,” December 1959, box 1, folder “Research Reports, 3-3.3A,” Dichter Hagley. 120“Detailed Findings of Motivational Research Study on the Marketing Situation of Volkswagen, Volume II,” report submitted to Volkswagen of America, Inc., February 1962, box 66, folder “Acc. 2407, 1413C Volume II,” Dichter Hagley.

308 ‘leaders’—we follow the ‘pack’ so to speak, and whatever Mrs. Jones does we have to do too,” observed one respondent, a Florida piano player. Volkswagen owners were seen as mildly nonconformist types, but still within the realm of social acceptability: the writer, the artist, and perhaps the school teacher. Most importantly, they saw themselves as intelligent, discerning, individualistic, and little concerned about the opinion of others.

However, they also saw themselves as members of a knowing tribe with a common set of values, a kind of subculture centered around the ownership of this particular car. Dichter advised advertisers to preempt the critical attitude of consumers by displaying “ad- consciousness” to prove to consumers that they were “kindred souls” belonging to a

“circle of the initiated.” The Volkswagen ads accomplished this in their sardonic repudiation of mainstream automobile culture.121

Counterculture, Consumption, and the Sexual Revolution

The Volkswagen would become an emblem of the 1960s counterculture, and the liberalization of sexual mores that accompanied that youth movement also had a consumer analogue. Dichter, of course, was consistently frank about sexuality and its role in advertising. He is often credited as the inspiration for the Esso gasoline slogan,

121Ernest Dichter, “How Word-of-Mouth Advertising Works,” Harvard Business Review 44, no. 6 (November/December 1966): 147; Ernest Dichter, “How to capitalize on word-of-mouth advertising,” Stimulus, January/February 1967, 43-52. Consumers associated certain products with types of people, and in some product fields these associations were difficult to change. A later study for the Chrysler Corporation, for example, reaffirmed many of the consumer types associated with automobiles that Dichter had found in earlier studies. Relative to the other big U.S. automakers, Chrysler was perceived as being “square” in both its styling and in its consumer base. It was a car for business people, executives, and mature people; it was the “establishment” car for the upper-class. In contrast, Chevrolet was the car for the ordinary family man, and Volkswagen was the car for “hippies” and young people. Plymouth, a Chrysler make, was perceived as “humble” and “modest,” while VW was seen as “exhibitionistic.” Chrysler was seen as a “Gentile” car, while Cadillac was seen as a car for Jews, blacks, and Italian-Americans. Ford, meanwhile, was a car for factory workers and farmers. More than Chrysler, it relied on ostentatious styling, as in the Mustang. “Marketing Chrysler Automobiles in a Rapidly-Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume I,” report submitted to Chrysler Motor Corporation by IMR, September 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3499 (IMR 2524C), Dichter Vienna.

309 “Put a tiger in your tank,” which appealed to “impotent” consumers who sought to adopt the “virile qualities of the beast.”122 In his advise to advertisers, Dichter frequently encouraged a suggestive sexuality to overcome their puritanical “frigidity,” but the blatant sexuality of some advertising in the 1960s surprised even him.123

In a series of studies for the Youngs corporation in 1962, the maker of Trojan condoms, IMR found that the condom was seen as a “stepchild of technological progress” relative to oral contraceptives—“the pill”—which created a positive impression of modernity, progress, and high social status. Condoms were unfortunately tainted by the suggestion of immorality and promiscuity, and they were commonly associated with prostitutes, venereal disease, and low socio-economic status. Consumers also felt that condoms caused embarrassment in purchase and awkward displeasure in use.

“Sometimes you get the impression that the druggist handles condoms as something hot,” noted one respondent. The use of a condom could also cause psychological distress:

“The need to dispose of the condom is related to self-consciousness of lost erection (and consequent loss of virility),” observed the author of an IMR report. Yet the “new climate of moral permissiveness” and women’s desire for social equality made the practice of contraception an issue for both partners. And fortunately for Youngs, “Trojan” was virtually synonymous with condoms, and the brand was widely considered to be of the best quality. Consumers had an abiding faith in this brand in a product field in which trust was essential.124

122“Year of the Tiger,” Newsweek, September 28, 1964, 72. 123Ernest Leogrande, “You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet From Sex Mad Avenue,” Sunday News, November 27, 1966; Ernest Dichter, “Are Advertisers Losing Out in Sex Appeal” Advertising Age, April 7, 1969. 124“A Summary of Our Major Findings on Present Attitudes Towards Contraceptive Devices,” June 1962, box 68, folder “Acc. 2407, 1485A-1458B”; “The Place of the Condom in the Present Cultural Climate” report submitted to Youngs Rubber Corp., July 1962, box 68, folder “Acc. 2407, 1485C,” Dichter Hagley.

310 In 1973, the Youngs company commissioned the Institute to update its 1962 condom study.125 In the roughly ten years since the original study, it found an acceleration of the “sexual revolution” and a greater openness in discussing contraception. Relative to the 1962 study, a higher percentage of respondents reported using both condoms and the pill—from 38 to 65 percent and from 4 percent to 38 percent, respectively—while use of the diaphragm was sharply lower, from 26 percent to

7 percent. There was also a growing concern among respondents over the spread of venereal disease and the problem of population control. Fortunately for the manufacturers of condoms, they were seen as part of the change in sexual behavior, and there was a more prevalent attitude that men should bear as much responsibility for contraception as women. The pill was seen as more “modern” than the condom, and it also carried a more “upper class” image than other methods of contraception. However, women had a less favorable attitude toward it than men, and some women feared that it may cause adverse health effects or weight gain. Indicative of the different attitudes toward contraception between the sexes, women expected to see condom ads in

“medical-type” magazines, whereas men expected them in “girlie” magazines. To take advantage of the new attitudes of the women’s liberation movement, the Institute even recommended a few advertising slogans that could exploit this cultural development:

“Let him do some of the work for a change! Let him share some of the responsibility for contraception! The women’s liberator! For the liberated woman! The male contraceptive is more liberating than you may think!”

125“Marketing Condoms in Today’s Society: A Motivational Research Study,” submitted to Youngs Drug Products Corporation by the Dichter Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., May 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3852 (IMR 2652C) Dichter Vienna; “Marketing Colored Condoms: A Motivational Research Study,” report submitted to Youngs Drug Products Corporation by the Dichter Institute for Motivational Research, Inc., August 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3942 (IMR 2686C), Dichter Vienna.

311 Second-wave feminism, the liberalization of sexual mores, and the blurring of gender boundaries amounted to a cultural revolution that businessmen could not ignore and would ultimately come to embrace. This was a particularly significant development in the field of menswear, which had by the 1960s begun to appropriate the fashion cycles that had long driven sales in women’s clothing. The introduction of the men’s fashion magazine Gentlemen’s Quarterly in 1957 had fomented a sartorial revolt against conformity and a trend toward individual expression through dress. Clothing manufacturers were eager to apply the principle of planned obsolescence to menswear, and they were helped by the explosive popularity of British rock groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who flaunted androgynous “Mod” styles such as hip-hugging trousers and double-breasted, Edwardian jackets.126

In February of 1966, Dichter heralded the “Peacock Revolution” in the market for men’s clothing, as younger men sought to express their character as rebels, swingers, hot- rodders, or as “beatniks” through their clothing.127 The era of the “grey flannel suit” was coming to an end, and a “renaissance of more color” in men’s wardrobes was emerging.

Leisure slacks had come into fashion, complete with plaid prints and fastened with wide belts. More men discarded their matching wool suits in favor of unmatched slacks, composed of man-made and synthetic fiber blends: this gave them the freedom to create their own wardrobe. As the rapid fashion cycles of women’s wear were incorporated into menswear, more men became anxious about their “look.” “Because styles change, I feel self-conscious about wearing some of the older clothes I own because they are outdated,” said one respondent. “Some of my clothing has padding in the shoulders and even

126Frank, Conquest, 184-204. 127Ernest Dichter “The Peacock Revolution: The Psychology of the Young Men’s Market,” speech in Scottsdale, Arizona, February 18, 1966, box 9, folder “Acc. 2407, 191A – 193.8D,” Dichter Hagley.

312 though they are in excellent condition, I don’t feel comfortable in them.” Consumers felt simultaneously empowered and enslaved by the new fashion regime. One respondent predicted that, in the future, computers would analyze individual consumer personalities and match them with the perfect wardrobe.128

Dichter observed that, by the mid-1960s, a “a new value system” was being born as the trend toward individual self-expression and a desire for “inner satisfaction” had eclipsed the compelling need to conform. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in

1965, he reintroduced one of his favorite rhetorical gestures: rather than “keeping up with the Joneses,” the modern consumer was more inclined to follow his own “Inner Jones.”129

Dichter was referring to an individual’s desire to express his or her uniqueness from the mass: rather than consuming to conform, more Americans were motivated to consume as a way to express their personalities. Americans had not completely given up status- seeking, but they were beginning to revolt against the “mass-market psychology,” and they were rejecting puritanism as they opened up to a new philosophy of hedonism. Guilt feelings were becoming “old-fashioned.” Dichter expressed his disdain for the kind of mass-market research practiced by colleagues like Lazarsfeld, which attempted to “put the consumer’s vital statistics onto a punch card and to classify him as a typical member

128“A Motivational Research Study of Men’s Slacks,” report submitted to Hystron Fibers Inc. by the Ernest Dichter International Institute for Motivational Research, September 1968, Signatur-Nr. 2874 (IMR 2141C), Dichter Vienna. In addition to status-striving white-collar professionals, Dichter urged retailers not to ignore the blue-collar men’s market because a large percentage of workers were of Italian or Latin descent. Retailers could exploit the “Apparel-Hedonism” of these ethnic groups, who preferred ostentatious garments and tended to be “more concerned with personal appearance and to spend proportionately more on it,” according to Dichter. Advertisers could also exploit the new narcissism that men expressed in their experimentation with their hair—through long locks, beards, sideburns, and mustaches—which had become an auto-erotic “plaything.” “Male Hairdo Ado Not About Nothing: Dichter to Admen,” Advertising Age, July 15, 1968. 129It was an idea he returned to frequently, especially in the trade publication articles that he often cobbled together from previous writings. “Today...most of us do something different to satisfy our Inner Jones,” Dichter wrote in 1969. “People do not want to be members of the mass society any longer.” Ernest Dichter, “Ideas Can Generate Desire To Own Pool,” Swimming Pool & Outdoor Living Products Merchandiser, February 1969.

313 of a demographic group.” This kind of analysis, according to Dichter, failed to recognize the psychological motivations for consumer behavior. “One can safely predict that the mass market per se will die out, and it will become increasingly difficult to capture more than a small percentage of a particular market,” wrote Dichter. “Instead, it will become necessary for producers to develop merchandise which is keyed toward specific segments of that market.”130 Consumers were rebelling against the mass-market mentality by purposefully crafting personalities through their consumption while submitting to luxurious indulgence without guilt. But it was indulgence with a purpose. In a sense, it was a rejection of the conformist, “other-directed” personality that David Riesman described in The Lonely Crowd, and a return to a kind of inner-direction. The difference, though, was that the object of an inner-directed individual’s labor and ambition was no longer external; the new object was one’s own personality as a social expression of self.

Dichter was a tireless evangelist for the emancipatory power of consumption. He was expanding his business internationally and spreading the message that advertising, through the creation of “constructive discontent,” was “one of the most important aspects of the political and economic awakening of developing countries.”131 By 1966, the idea of “psychographic” market segmentation began to appear in trade journal discourse, and

Dichter affirmed his view that market fragmentation “in a psychological sense” had grown with “our increased interest in individuality.”132 The changing social values and the

130Ernest Dichter, “Discovering the ‘Inner Jones,’” Harvard Business Review 43, no. 3 (May/June 1965): 6; Ernest Dichter, “Packaging Concepts of the 1970’s and Their Influence on the Psychology of a Packaging Sale,” speech, May 7, 1968, box 171, folder 69, Dichter Hagley. 131“Ernest Dichter Forms New Company Abroad and Expands Domestic Motivational Research,” press release, IMR, January 15, 1964, box 213, folder 30; Ernest Dichter, “The Latin American Common Market or the Strategy of Human Motivations,” speech before the Agencias Asociadas Lationoamericanas, Dorado Beach Hotel, Puerto Rico, April 24, 1963, box 139, folder 1, Dichter Hagley. 132“A Conversation with Dr. Ernest Dichter,” Western Advertising, June 1966, 35-7.

314 countercultural trends of the 1960s became increasingly apparent in the Institute’s studies. Consumer durables as status symbols seemed to be on the wane: “Modern man no longer perceives the ‘big car’ as being evidence of either financial success or of verifiably high self-esteem,” IMR observed in a 1972 report.133

Changing social mores and a profound generational realignment of values were evident in a variety of Institute studies from the early 1970s. The baby-boomers were coming of age, and they espoused new values that, according to Dichter, incongruously combined hedonism and social responsibility.134 A 1973 study for a formal wear company already noted the waning of the “Peacock Revolution,” the Mod-inspired fashion trend of the late 1960s that had introduced colorful flamboyance and ostentatious styling to menswear.135 What remained, however, was a diminished formality, a greater permissiveness in styles of dress, and an increasing desire for comfortable and casual attire. Some formal wear merchants perceived this as a threat to their business: “[N]ow with the new ideas and habits of youth, the idea of dressing up to go to a dance is too

‘Establishment,”’ said one rental dealer. Yet comfort in clothing remained more psychological than physical: the desire to be accepted and at ease in social situations.

Although formal wear went against the trend toward greater casualness, it did produce psychological satisfaction in that it produced a sense of “equality” at formal social gatherings. The superficial appearance of equality provided by formal wear provided an

133“Marketing Chrysler Automobiles in a Rapidly-Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume II,” report submitted to Chrysler Motor Corporation by IMR, September 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3501 (IMR 2524C), Dichter Vienna. 134Dale W. Sommer, “The aging youth market, Industry Week, March 15, 1976, 27. 135“Improving the Market for Men’s Formal Wear in a Rapidly Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume I,” report submitted to After Six, Incorporated by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research Inc., March 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3665 (IMR 2581C); “Improving the Market for Men’s Formal Wear in a Rapidly Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume II,” report submitted to After Six, Incorporated by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research Inc., March 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3668 (IMR 2581C), Dichter Vienna.

315 opportunity for members of the lower-middle class and members of “minority” and immigrant groups to seek social ascendancy.

Women’s Liberation through Consumption

The movement for women’s equality—Second-Wave Feminism—was partly enabled by new consumer products, like the oral contraceptive, or “the pill,” and by the more widespread use of the tampon. Anxious about the effect of shifting social values on its business, the Personal Products Company, which manufactured the Modess and

Stayfree brands of sanitary napkins, commissioned Dichter’s Institute to conduct a series of market studies in 1972 and 1973.136 The company wanted to understand the composition of its market, and it tasked the Institute with investigating whether “feminine liberation” had changed women’s perceptions of sanitary napkins. The Institute’s studies emphasized the importance of the tampon in freeing women from the strictly domestic role. The product made it possible for users to “deny” menstruation and conquer a

“natural law,” according to the report. As a pioneer in the manufacture of tampons,

Tampax was revered by consumers for liberating them from the constraints of the sanitary napkin. This corporate affection even created a bitterness among some tampon users toward companies associated with sanitary napkins, such as Kotex and Modess, which were perceived as being “backward.”

The Institute, as it often did, divided the market into three personality types: the

136“Strengthening the Market for Modess and Stayfree Sanitary Napkins: Report on Phase I of a Motivation Research Study,” submitted to Personal Products Company by IMR, October 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3716 (IMR 2595C); “Developing a Market for Tampon Products: Report on Phase I of a Motivation Research Study,” submitted to Personal Products Company by IMR, August 1972, Signatur- Nr. 3706 (IMR 2594C); “Developing A Market for Tampon Products: Phase II of a Motivation Research Study,” report submitted to Personal Products Company by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research Inc., March 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3709 (IMR 2594.1C), Dichter Vienna.

316 “body-repressed” type, who was most prone to use the napkin because it allowed her to view her period in “non-sexual” terms; the “reluctant emancipated woman,” who recognized changing values but was hesitant to lose the security of tradition; and the

“body expressive” type, who saw her body as an “instrument of pleasure and enjoyment”

The latter type had the least positive image of napkins, which she believed to symbolize an order that was “repressive” and “out-dated,” relative to tampons, which were viewed as a “liberator.” She viewed sanitary napkins as demeaning like a chastity belt, requiring

“ pins, locks, and attachments.” “I’ve always felt there was this Judeo-Christian ethic about women being unclean and I always resented that,” said one tampon user. “I got the feeling with napkins that I was wearing something like a diaper and I was relegated to a childlike role.”

Yet some women were concerned that tampons could cause infections, and a few respondents had a fear of “not getting it out.” They also resented being “oversold” on the

“business of bad odor” in “constant and repulsive deodorant ads.” “Things are better subtle because people are subtle most of the times,” said one respondent. “We all know that we are being taken by buying these products but we don’t like to know about it.”

Some actually looked forward to the “menstrual rite,” according to the Institute, and they took satisfaction in its “highly organized strategy.” Some even saw the sanitary napkin as a symbol of “long suffering womanhood” and took perverse pleasure in their own self- pity. Tampons had also been considered taboo for teenagers, based on the fear that their use would force a girl to “surrender her virginity.” Many feared engaging in a

“masculine act,” and some middle-aged women believed that tampons would “tamper with nature’s intent’ and make one appear a “fallen women” on her wedding night.

317 Others felt that tampons were “unclean” because they did not “get rid of everything inside.”

But tampons—which were virtually synonymous with the most popular trade name, Tampax—had become more acceptable by the 1970s, particularly as more girls participated in sports. Tampons gave them the “freedom” to do what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it. Some “exclusive” tampon users even felt a “Missionary

Need” to evangelize the use of tampons as an essentially modern, feminist practice that was an essential step toward emancipation. “With me it’s a point of personal honor always to speak out against pads because with Tampax it’s like you’re not having a period at all,” said one respondent. Sometimes girls were initiated into the use of tampons through a kind of hazing ritual. One respondent recalled her introduction to the product while in college at age eighteen: “I got the usual initiation – locked in the John with a tampon and lots of encouragement from those already initiated on the outside.”

While women generally kept their pantyhose and bra, more explicit forms of physical constraint, such as the girdle, were also challenged by the movement for gender equality.137 A 1975 study for DuPont by Dichter, based on a smaller sample than was typical during the peak years of the Institute, revealed an almost moral resistance to girdles, particularly among the younger generation.138 There was a new trend toward a more “natural” look, and respondents saw girdles as being in opposition to “women’s lib” ideas and contrary to the contemporary “lifestyle.” They were seen as part of the more

137“A Motivational Research Study of Pantyhose Potential,” report submitted to Textile Fibers Department, E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Company, Inc. by IMR, April 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3550 (IMR 2539C), Dichter Vienna. 138“A Motivational Research Study on the Sales Opportunities for Ladies’ Girdles,” report submitted to DuPont Textile Fibers Department by Ernest Dichter Associates International, Ltd., March 1975, Signatur-Nr. 4080 (IMR 2815C), Dichter Vienna.

318 “structured” behavior patterns of the past and against the new morality of “being real” and “doing your own thing.” Many women suspected that they were designed by men without the needs and interests of women in mind. “A girdle feels like a stuffed turkey, just pouring myself into I-don’t-know-what,” said one respondent. Rather then using artificial constraints to control one’s figure, the new trend was toward diet and exercise, according to the report. Girdles were also seen by many respondents, both men and women, as “anti-erotic” undergarments, almost chastity belts; it was the physical imposition of a moral constraint. One male respondent called them an “automatic stop sign” and a “barrier” that had to be broken through. Another described girdles as a “brick wall”: “A girdle on a woman definitely turns me off. I like to feel a woman’s behind.”

However, some segments of the population—particularly older women and Latin

Americans, a neglected ethnic market—defended girdles on moral grounds: properly- groomed women wore girdles, and only “loose” women went without girdles, they said.

For some, it was a kind of reassuring protection against unwanted sexual advances.

Other girdle-defenders claimed that they could “tighten” things up and conceal flabbiness. “I think a woman my age who has had children needs a girdle to keep all the internal organs a little bit better in place,” said one woman. “But that’s just my personal opinion. It’s probably not medically true.” Dichter recommended that the girdle should be marketed as a colorful fashion item, a “molded” undergarment that could promote shapeliness rather than the “barrel look” associated with girdles of the past. He offered a few ideas for re-branding the girdle to fit the times: Love Curve, Body Pride, Touch Me,

Fondle, L.S.G. (Life Style Girdle), Feel Throughs, Separate But Equal.

319 The Consumer Movement

Large, national companies like General Mills had the capacity to distribute and effectively market a consistent product, but their very size and efficiency in processing could also negatively affect their image. A 1968 Institute study for a luncheon meat packager noted a trend away from mass-produced items and toward more “personalized” products. Consumers, particularly those with higher levels of education, increasingly saw processed meats as “synthetic” byproducts and not “real” meat. What consumers actually wanted was more agency in preparing their own food, and increasingly they liked the idea of a product grading system enforced by the federal government.139

Consumerism came to be known as a movement for consumer rights and safety, with activist figures like Ralph Nader at the head. Nader was seen by many consumers as a trustworthy man who could keep the auto manufacturers “honest.” Many consumers resented the business strategy of planned obsolescence, and they accepted Nader’s critique that the automobile industry’s rapid style changes had superseded its attention to the engineering and safety of its products.140 Some understood “consumerism” as a national movement to defend the interests of the consumer, and many were familiar with

Consumers’ Union and its publication, Consumer Reports. The success of the April 1973 meat boycott had demonstrated the potential power of organized consumers, but many simply understood “consumerism” as the economy of marketing, buying, and consuming

139According to Dichter’s report, in their eagerness to provide “convenience” foods to the overworked housewife, “food technologists” misunderstood the “complaints” of women. While attempting to “liberate” her from the kitchen, they failed to understand that she often enjoyed working in the kitchen; her complaining was only a means of gaining “ego-statisfaction.” “A Motivational Research Study of Luncheon Meats and Wieners,” submitted to Bonsib, Inc. by The Ernest Dichter International Institute for Motivational Research , November 1968, Signatur-Nr. 2945 (IMR 2189C), Dichter Vienna. 140“Marketing Chrysler Automobiles in a Rapidly-Changing Society: A Motivational Research Study, Volume II,” report submitted to Chrysler Motor Corporation by IMR, September 1972, Signatur-Nr. 3501 (IMR 2524C), Dichter Vienna.

320 products.

In 1973, the Institute conducted a study of the consumers’ responses to consumerism for Time, Inc.141 The study found a generally favorable attitude toward

Nader—about two-thirds said he was “more of a saint than a loudmouth”—despite some ignorance and ambivalence about his role. A few respondents resented Nader for exposing “ugly facts” that shattered their faith in American industry, but most praised his work and took comfort in the fact that there was, at least, someone challenging the power of large corporations. They appreciated having a consumer advocate, which made them feel less helpless. They were, however, confused about what motivated him, and about where he got his money. Some also suspected that his immigrant heritage made him bitter toward corporate power, and they were disturbed by his shattering of their idea of security in order in the world.

Partly attributable to Nader, there was a growing skepticism and “passive resignation” among consumers in the early 1970s. Although some looked to television advertisements for information on new products, many resented TV commercials for their capacity to manipulate a captive audience. Although they believed that print advertising provided more reliable information and permitted a more critical attitude, they were suspicious of all media, and especially television, for being too dependent on commercial sponsorship. Many consumers believed that manufacturers were only interested in profits, and they felt victim to an industry conspiracy of planned obsolescence that deliberately designed flimsy products that would quickly become outmoded. “After all, they want to keep you buying new ones all the time,” said one respondent. “As long as it

141“The Motivations of Consumerism,” report submitted to Time, Inc. by The Dichter Institute for Motivational Research Inc., April 1973, Signatur-Nr. 3779 (IMR 2622C), Dichter Vienna. The study was based on 21 depth interviews and 80 interviews with psychological and projective tests.

321 will do for today, the hell with tomorrow.” Another even expressed the view that there was a trend in capitalism to “sacrifice quality to mass production for mass consumption” and that government was aligned with big business and the military against the consumer.

However, respondents in the 1973 study were inclined to support government action or special agency to protect consumers against faulty products and misleading advertising.

Nearly half of respondents believed that the consumer movement would be a positive force that would result in regulations to protect the consumer.

But such optimism was tempered by a skeptical, and sometimes hostile, attitude toward the consumer marketplace. Black consumers, in particular, felt more exploited than whites, forced to accept lower-quality merchandise at higher prices in “ghetto stores.” “There’s always open season on the Blacks!” complained one black respondent.

“Charge most, worst products, biggest interest on charged items.” One black respondent had given up on buying at the supermarkets in black neighborhoods, instead driving miles to shop in white neighborhoods for cheaper groceries and better produce. Another resented the ability of “clever” marketers and “Madison Avenue boys” who used psychologists to manipulate consumers.

Lazarsfeld Retires and Dichter’s Influence Wanes

By the late 1960s, Dichter was confronted with the opinion that the influence of motivational research had begun to wane, a notion that he resisted. His status among professional market researchers, both at home and abroad, was on the decline as his

“cavalier” approach came under scrutiny. “For those of us who practised motivational research in the manner of Dichter,” wrote reformed British practitioner Conrad Jameson

322 about his experience in the late 1960s, “there could be only one conclusion: we must clean out the house of motivational research and make it respectable, both as a science and as a practical marketing discipline.” Jameson recalled that, in this period, motivational research was gradually subsumed by the broader category of “qualitative” research, which was rarely conducted by trained psychologists and lacked the defining practice of “depth” interviews. But it was usually sufficient to satisfy quantitatively- inclined market research managers and their clients.142

In 1973, Dichter sold IMR to another company but stayed on as president after a brief departure.143 But his work as a market researcher diminished in the 1970s as he cultivated his public status as a popular psychologist and business guru. Although he was appointed as a research professor at a local Westchester college,144 Dichter never had the temperament of an academic. And while Lazarsfeld’s university-affiliated organizations could operate independent of him, Dichter’s celebrity personality superseded the institutions he created. He reincorporated as “Ernest Dichter Creativity, Ltd.,” and he began to write more self-help articles and books in the business management genre, such as The Naked Manager in 1974.145 Without the apparatus of a large research institute, however, Dichter tended to resort to clichés and old, static ideas that he would repeat in trade journals and at marketing conventions, only slightly changing his message to account for current events such as the Watergate scandal.146 He became increasingly

142Conrad Jameson, “Why Dichter’s detectives are still chasing motives,” Campaign, January 15, 1982, 34-41. 143Sydney Ashe, letter to Terry P. Haller, August 3, 1973, box 214); Sydney Ashe, letter to Mr. Francis J. Dynan, September 4, 1973, box 214, Dichter Hagley. 144“News from Mercy College,” press release, Dobbs Ferry, New York, n.d., box 151, folder 22, Dichter Hagley. 145Ernest Dichter, The Naked Manager (Boston: Cahners Books, 1974). 146“Consumers aren’t what they used to be; ads must reflect reaction, response changes,” Marketing News, October 7, 1977.

323 careless and whimsical in his analysis of cultural phenomena. At a workshop for textile manufacturers in 1974, he noted the waning of puritanical thinking and the increasing sexual freedom. “Perhaps we need a dress that will fall to the floor with one pull of a string,” Dichter suggested cheekily.147

Dichter’s social observations were limited by his tendency to view all social and political phenomena through the prism of his experience as a market researcher. His political views, on the rare occasion that he expressed them, could be crude and reactionary, and he once dismissed the civil rights, gay rights, and consumer rights movements as mere expressions of “nobody listens to me.”148 Yet he could still offer genuine, counterintuitive or dialectical insight. “We were individualists, then we went to the mass organization, and now we are discovering a new individualism, which is a combination of the two,” said Dichter in 1977. “We are now producing individualism on a mass scale.”149 In the new post-industrial society of falling wages, Dichter opined in

1974, “cultural and esthetic values” would counteract purely economic forces.150 Dichter finally moved from active market research to a public role as a pop-psychologist and prognosticator, and he wrote columns instead of reports.

Lazarsfeld never fully entered the commercial sphere like Dichter, but he never shied from taking contracts from corporate America. With the support of the Ford

Foundation, he attempted to organize social research and market research in American business schools in the early 1960s. The Foundation was eager to bring about a “liason” 147Martin Klapper, “Imprints: Motivation,” Women’s Wear Daily, August 27, 1974, 7. 148Ernest Dichter, “Consumer Goods—Boom or Doom?” address before the second annual Consumer Conference, Summary Consumer Products Seminar, Hotel Pierre, New York City, January 30, 1974, box 134, folder 10, Dichter Hagley. 149“Researchers Sees a Trend to Hedonism,” The Times-Picayune, June 11, 1977. 150Ernest Dichter, “Energy Crisis – Doom or Boom?” (talk given at the AMA New York Chapter “Advertising Effectiveness Conference,” held at the Biltmore Hotel, May 23, 1974) Marketing Review 30, no. 2 (October 1974): 18-21.

324 between the behavioral sciences and the business schools, and Lazarsfeld was, by his own admission, “one of the few sociologists who since way back have worked in this borderline field and advocated its respectability.” He believed that the business community lacked properly trained researchers, while social scientists tended to avoid business subjects. He wanted to reform the case studies used by Harvard Business

School to better incorporate the insights and concepts of social science.151

Lazarsfeld was more of an analyst than a partisan, and he also noted the lack of class consciousness among the American working class, and its failure to see business interests as basic antagonists, as was the case in Europe.152 But his engagement with the business community made him vulnerable to an attack by some radical student activists in the late 1960s as a “henchman of the capitalists.”153 Lazarsfeld had been invited to the

Sorbonne in Paris for the academic year of 1967-1968, and in the spring he found himself

“commuting between two revolutions” in Paris and at Columbia. He left Paris just before the general strike in May of 1968, only to return to Columbia to find it in “complete disorganization.” He found the turmoil at Columbia merely nonsensical and disruptive, and he fled to Paris to “liquidate” his affairs there.154

151Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Eric Moonman, February 2, 1961, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 1/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mr. Oscar Harkavy, May 22, 1961, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific I, Mappe 1/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, “A Program for Training in Market Research,” ca. 1964, PFL Vienna, T/U IX (T/U 80-81 bis T/U 83 ‘Innovation in Higher Education’), Mappe 1/3; Helen Hudouskova, letter to The Dean of the School of Business, University of Illinois, October 27, 1966, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Professor Everett Hughes, January 16, 1959, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 18, Bio-2, Biographie 1947-1960, Mappe 2/2. 152Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Political Behavior and Public Opinion” in Berezson Behavioral Sciences Today (Basic Books, 1963), 178. 153Baidya Nath Varma, “Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901-1976)” [manuscript version], International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Biography I.” 154Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Herbert H. Hyman, April 11, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2. Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Bert Leefmans, June 4, 1968; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. S. Friedman [Department of Social Sciences, Unesco, Paris], June 11, 1968; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Alfred R. Oxenfeldt, June 21, 1968; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Alice Myers, June 26, 1968, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 1/4. Paul Lazarsfeld, “Sorbonne,” August 8, 1968, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 2/2.

325 Beyond his visiting professorships, Lazarsfeld had been aggressively courted by the University of Chicago, but he remained at Columbia until his retirement in 1969. He was invited by his son-in-law, Bernard Bailyn, to write a memoir for the anthology,

Intellectual Migration. He recounted his early experience in the U.S., and his essay was paired with an account of the same period by Adorno.155 He occasionally taught courses as a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research, and he became a

University Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Merton left the Bureau in 1971. Lazarsfeld kept an office at Columbia and remained the chairman of the board of the Bureau. He commuted to Pittsburgh, where he was developing a degree program in applied sociology supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.156 He got involved in a study on the psychology of smoking sponsored by the tobacco giant

Philip Morris, in which he remained explicitly “neutral” on the health dangers of smoking and the anti-smoking campaign.157

Lazarsfeld maintained his affiliation with Pittsburgh until the time of his death

155Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1969); Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “From Vienna to Columbia,” Columbia Forum, Summer 1969, 31-6. Lazarsfeld found a draft of Adorno’s memoir “dull” because it was merely “propaganda for his philosophical ideas.” Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Bernard Bailyn, February 7, 1968, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, miscelle scientific II. 156Press release on the death of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Office of Public Information, Columbia, August 31, 1976, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, “Biography I”; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Mira Kamorovsky, April 18, 1973, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Biography II, Mappe 2/2; Wesley W. Posvar, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, January 23, 1973; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Professor H. Weaver, June 18, 1973; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. Mark Abrams, September 21, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4; Robert K. Merton, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, February 4, 1971, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 3/4; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dean George K. Fraenkel, April 24, 1969, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio- 4, Mappe 2/4. George Beadle, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, December 22, 1961; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Robert Merton, March 19, 1962, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 1/2; Joseph J. Greenbaum, letter to Paul Lazarsfeld, April 14, 1971, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 3/4; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. John A. Howard, October 27, 1971, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio- 4, Mappe 3/4. 157Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. W.L. Dunn, Jr., December 28, 1971, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 3/4; Alan S. Meyer, Lucy. N. Friedman, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Motivational Conflicts Engendered by the On-going Discussion of Cigarette Smoking,” January 1972, box 37, folder, “Manuscripts (Research Papers by PFL), “Motivational Conflicts Engendered by the On-going Discussion of Cigarette Smoking,’” PFL Columbia.

326 from cancer on August 30, 1976. BASR at Columbia dissolved a year later, and its operations were incorporated into the new Center for the Social Sciences at Columbia.

Toward the end of his life, Lazarsfeld expressed some regret for not studying the “inside” or production-side of the communications industry. He lamented the state of communications research in 1973, noting that, because the television industry was so successful, it had lost all interest in sponsoring research.158 But, sociologist James S.

Coleman noted at the time of his death, if “research in mass communications had a single father, it was Paul Lazarsfeld.”159 Indeed, his renown was such that he was recruited in his later years to revive his studies of daytime serials in television, for which he had become famous in the 1940s through his studies with Herzog.160 While Dichter had been unabashedly on the side of business, Lazarsfeld was always most interested in studying the effects of media, and his commercial work was just one part of his total research agenda. He remained concerned about the “cultural and social dangers” of commercial advertising.161 Lazarsfeld, to the end, maintained his commitment to social science and the development of method, but Dichter, the eager entrepreneur and exuberant capitalist, increasingly submitted to the hedonism and cult of personality that he encouraged.

Lazarsfeld, it seems, never had great respect for Dichter, and his estimation

158Ann K. Pasanella, “The Mind Traveller: A Guide to Paul F. Lazarsfeld’s Communication Research Papers,” The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University, 1994, box 444, folder 5, Merton Papers; Allen H. Barton, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld, 1901-1976,” The Bureau Reporter [newsletter of BASR] XXIII, no. 1 (October 1976), 1-2; Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Phillips W. Davidson, October 5, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 159James S. Coleman, “Paul F. Lazarsfeld” [obituary], ASA Footnotes, December 1976, 7. 160Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to William J. McGuire, March 9, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 38, Correspondence 1966-1976, mixed dates, Mappe 1/6. Lazarsfeld presumed that, given the rapidly changing role of women in the context of Second-Wave Feminism, the content of daytime serials, as well as their role in the lives of women, would be very different. Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Prof. Phillips W. Davidson, October 5, 1973, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 4/4. 161Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Dr. S. Friedman, November 15, 1971, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 20, Bio-4, Mappe 3/4.

327 diminished in proportion to Dichter’s fame and commercial success. As Lazarsfeld moved from his early market studies into a much greater range of sociological inquiry that was always well within the purview of academia, Dichter’s commercial studies appeared all the more crass. Indeed, Lazarsfeld was chiefly interested in market research as a way to fund his institutes and develop his methods, because, he said, “the purchasing act provides a paradigm for all empirical studies of action.”162 Lazarsfeld referred disparagingly to the faddish, commercialized practice of market research in 1955, and he specifically cited Dichter’s practice of motivational research.163 In private letter written in 1967, he said that his invention of motivational research “unfortunately then became the basis for Dichter’s operation when he came to this country.”164

But while the professional paths of these Viennese émigré social psychologists diverged, they both intervened in the daily business of American capitalism as scientists of the quotidian, exposing the latent anxieties, prejudices, and frustrations that beset the postwar American psyche. Their innovative methods of motivational market research, by identifying personality traits that sometimes crossed demographic categories and aligned with brand and product images, made possible the segmentation of consumer markets. 162Paul F. Lazarsfeld, memorandum to Messrs. Dahl and Haire, November 7, 1958, PFL Vienna, Rote Mappe, Papers IIIb, Mappe 2/2. 163Paul Lazarsfeld, “Progress and Fad in Motivation Research,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Seminar on Social Science for Industry—Motivation, held in San Francisco by Stanford Research Institute, March 23, 1955. 164Paul Lazarsfeld, letter to Peter Rossi, May 12, 1967, PFL Vienna, Blaue Mappen 19, Bio-3, Mappe 2/2.

328 Chapter 5: Packaging Personality: Walter Landor and Consumer Product Design in Postwar America

The American postwar consumer boom and its concomitant styles, images, and optimistic rhetoric defined a nation at the height of its global influence, economic power, and Cold War ideological confidence. But many of the most prominent architects of the celebrated American consumer culture—the industrial designers, the market researchers, the advertising gurus—had decidedly European origins. Frenchmen Raymond Loewy and Walter Margulies, for example, were at the forefront of industrial and graphic design in this period, and Loewy’s famous “streamlined” style, which came to prominence in the

1930s, defined the look of American consumer durables throughout the postwar years.1

Meanwhile, émigré market researchers trained in psychology, such as the Austrian Ernest

Dichter, pioneered the practice of consumer motivational research, which applied the insights of psychoanalysis to marketing problems.2 This new method of research guided designers who sought to create forms and images that could achieve mass appeal. The

German-Jewish émigré Walter Landor, a leader in the marriage of market research and industrial design, was one of the most successful of the mass designers, and he would

1 Glenn Porter, Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture (Wilmington, Delaware: Hagley Museum and Library, 2002). “Streamlining” originated as a functional design quality applied in aviation air resistance, but this quintessentially modern look soon spread to all manner of inert objects, often serving to disguise the mechanical aspects of consumer durables such as vacuum cleaners and radios. Jeffrey L. Meikle, Design in the USA (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 113-116. The concept of industrial design as a method of stoking consumption took hold in the early years of the Great Depression, when advertising and marketing professionals presented it as a way to create “artificial obsolescence” to induce a more rapid buying cycle. The new technique was embraced as a new business science by magazines such as Fortune, and the idea of “consumer engineering” came to refer to a combination of market research and industrial design that would fortify the fickle appetites of the Depression-era consumer. Jeffrey L. Meikle, Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 68-82; Roy Sheldon and Egmont Arens, Consumer Engineering: A New Technique for Prosperity (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1932). 2 See chapters 2-4. See also Daniel Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004).

329 become a major intellectual force behind the material world occupied by the postwar consumer.

Entrepreneurial immigrants like these employed socially progressive Continental philosophy and the modernist aesthetic ideals of the Bauhaus in an American cultural context in which Protestant, producerist values and puritanical restraint often put a moral check on the potential of consumer indulgence.3 But by the postwar period, resistance to the pleasure of consumption had eroded in the view of contemporary social critics like

John Kenneth Galbraith and Daniel Bell, who would later lament the death of the

Protestant ethic in an American culture that had become “primarily hedonistic” by the

1950s.4 Other contemporary critics, such as the journalists Vance Packard and Betty

Friedan, believed that the postwar consumer society permitted a kind of hedonism while at the same time enforcing a regime of social control.5 The view of these contemporaries is refined in the perspective of a historian, Jackson Lears, who argues that the Keynesian consumer regime that arose in the early- and mid-twentieth century did not mean the triumph of “hedonism” over self-discipline. Instead, Lears argues that the

3 On the ideological battle between the “producer-capitalist” culture and the “culture of abundance,” see Warren Susman, “Toward a History of the Culture of Abundance,” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984). 4 Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 70. Galbraith described the “dependence effect” whereby the satisfaction of wants created new wants through the process of emulation: “One man’s consumption becomes his neighbor’s wish.” John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998 [original 1958]), 126. Galbraith well understood that consumerism in the postwar years had become an economic necessity as much as a cultural phenomenon, but he could not conceal his revulsion at the cultural consequences of this kind of commercial Keynesianism. In addition to Affluent Society, Galbraith offered a critique of postwar capitalism in American Capitalism (1952) and The New Industrial State (1967), together constituting a trilogy of his discontent. See Kevin Mattson, “John Kenneth Galbraith: Liberalism and the Politics of Cultural Critique” in Nelson Lichtenstein, ed., American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006),88-108. 5 Packard assailed the practice of consumer motivation research in his popular book The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, 1957), while Friedan saw marketers who targeted housewives—particularly Ernest Dichter—as complicit in a social order that limited the opportunities and worldview of women. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963). See discussion in Chapter 3.

330 professionalization of marketing produced what he calls a “managerial” ethic, a form of social order that made consumption sanitized and rationalized, and shifted the notion of thrift from the abundant material world to the finite sphere of time.6

In contrast, my examination of the work of designers and market researchers from the period reveals a conscious and concerted effort on their part to liberate consumers’ repressed desires and encourage their enjoyment in consumption on a mass scale. The proud hedonist Dichter, for example, rejected the charge of consumer manipulation and insisted that the work of marketers was what he called “progress engineering,” an effort to move the economic system forward by freeing human desire—what he believed to be the true realization of the pursuit of happiness.7 The sociologist David Riesman, author of the best-selling book The Lonely Crowd and an admirer of the cohort of émigré social researchers such as those at Paul Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research at

Columbia University, observed in 1950 that market researchers were employed to discover “not so much what people want but what with liberated fantasy they might want.”8 The ambitious project of marketing in the mid-twentieth century was to discern the psychological basis of consumer desires, and to produce a world of commodities geared to the guiltless satisfaction of those desires.

The market researcher’s sensitivity to consumer motivations and the designer’s understanding of aesthetics and the connotative meaning of form were synthesized in the person of Walter Landor, whose San Francisco-based industrial design firm became one

6 T.J. Jackson Lears, “The Modernization of Thrift,” in Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present, eds. Joshua J. Yates and James Davidson Hunter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 7 Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 258. 8 David Riesman, with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1950), 344.

331 of the largest and most influential branding, packaging, and corporate image consultancies of the twentieth century. Landor is an important figure in his own right, but he is of particular interest as an emblem of the postwar confluence of European formal innovations and social research methods in an American context that demanded a mass transformation of consumer values. As an innovative package designer and branding specialist, Landor was one of the foremost creators of the objects and images that constituted the American commercial environment.

Landor was one of the creative figures responsible for what historian Thomas

Hine calls the age of “Populuxe” (a neologism combining “popular” and “luxury”), a period in the 1950s and 1960s defined by invitations to indulge in a “kind of innocent hedonism” that harnessed the power of innovations in the design of consumer products and packages.9 This was an era of popular fascination in psychology and the creative efforts of marketers, even when those methods were attacked by journalists and intellectuals as forms of manipulation. It was also a period of “material democracy,” when the dispersion of products styled in the manner of European modernism—derived from Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus, the influential school of design—popularized an idea of aesthetic progressivism.10 Many of the most prominent figures in the Bauhaus school— including Gropius, Herbert Bayer, and László Moholy-Nagy—emigrated to the U.S. after the Nazis shut down the Bauhaus in 1933. The historian Fred Turner argues that the

Bauhaus design philosophy, applied in the American context, was rooted in a kind of antifascist “socialist utopianism” that encouraged democracy by creating opportunities

9 Thomas Hine, Populuxe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 60. 10 Jeremy Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany, 1890-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 94.

332 for individuation while, at the same time, integrating individuals into society.11 Designers like Walter Landor contributed to the creation of that material democracy, both as an ideology and as a real, tangible world of goods.

Munich and London

Landor was born into a bourgeois, well-to-do, integrated Jewish family called

“Landauer” in Munich on July 9, 1913. While the family did not practice its religion,

Landor credited his parents and grandparents with giving him a strong “moral education.”

Landor also thanked his parents for instilling in him an appreciation for the arts by regularly taking him to art museums and galleries. His father Fritz was an architect and industrial designer associated with the Bauhaus movement, which placed a strong emphasis on functional design.12 The boy Walter was steeped in his father’s work: “I grew up in my father’s office,” Landor recalled. Though his father was principally an architect by profession, his talent for design extended to common objects such as furniture and silverware, and he also did some work in graphics. Besides his father,

Landor claimed to have been particularly influenced by the ethos of the German

Werkbund movement and the idea called form Gabeln, which held that design should be incorporated into common, mass-produced products (like forks) in the everyday environment.13 “I decided that I would concentrate on designing everyday products that

11 Fred Turner, The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 92. 12 Walter Gropius’s motto for his Bauhaus school of design, founded in 1919, was “art and technics,” which suggested that it would bring art into the modern world by aligning it with industrial production. Frederic J. Schwartz, The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 1. 13 The short-lived Werkbund movement, founded in 1907 and disbanded with the onset of the First World War in 1914, was a kind of proto-Bauhaus association of designers which aimed to bring the “fine” arts into the modern, industrial, and practical world of consumer goods. Its members understood it as a Kunstgewerbebewegung or “applied arts movement.” Schwartz, Werkbund, 3-10.

333 would make life more pleasant and more beautiful and appeal to the mass audience,” remembered Landor. He was fascinated by the possibility of designing common objects in a way that would make them more manageable and useful. He saw this as a challenge from a design and aesthetic point of view, and he wanted to take on the “responsibility” of making a mass audience more pleased with the things that composed its environment.

Landor’s combined interests in architecture and merchandising would be foundational for his movement into the field of industrial design.14

Design was a part of Landor’s everyday life in the Schwabing section of Munich, the artists’ quarter, where his parents would regularly take him to art galleries, and where the streets were filled with colorful posters, a newly expressive form of advertising. He loved to accompany his mother and sister on shopping trips as they would look but not buy, and he began to sense that his purpose in life lay somehow in the “process of looking” at things. An uncle of Landor’s was a Berlin publisher of art books and magazines, and he regularly gave them to the artistically-inclined boy. Landor remembered being enthralled by a book on Picasso; he was taken with Picasso’s idea that one could look at something “in a completely new way.” Landor also became fascinated by the highly simplified illustrations of Ludwig Hohlwein, and he was in awe of the work of the Swiss typographic designer Jan Tschichold, who could communicate ideas simply through layout and typography. Landor also learned art history from Fritz Kitzinger, his sister’s boyfriend, who would become a renowned art historian, and from lectures he

14 Walter Landor, “Personal History,” n.d., box 17.1, folder “WL Autobiographical, n.d.,” Landor Associates Collection, ca. 1930-1994 (No. 500) (Archives Center, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.) [hereafter, “Landor Collection”]; Ken Kelley and Rick Clogher, “The Ultimate Image Maker,” San Francisco Focus, August 1992, 65-7, 114-9; Lindsay Arthur, “Industrial Designer Turns His Talents To Own Use,” S.F. Call-Bulletin, Nov. 19, 1956; Jack Miller, “‘Torso’ Bottle Is So Pleasant to Handle,” The San Francisco News, August 4, 1952; “WL Reminiscences,” ed. David Howie, ca. June 23, 1986, box 17.1, Landor Collection.

334 attended given by the dean of art history at the University of Munich.15

There were indications, however, that associating with the world of modern art could be dangerous, particularly in Munich, where, Landor recalled, the “chief critic of decadent art” Adolf Hitler condemned it as degenerate, inspiring gangs of Nazi “rowdies” to manifest his aggression. Although Landor’s family had been “unimpressed” by

Hitler’s failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, the reactionary, hyper-nationalist element remained in Munich, and Landor sensed a “hidden danger.” He recalled a particular episode in which he was assailed by his teacher and classmates for a presentation that he gave on the modern artist Edvard Munch, whom the Nazis considered to be a “degenerate” artist who “depressed” the masses. But by the time of

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, which also signaled the end of the Bauhaus, Landor—ever the cosmopolitan—had already emigrated to England.16

Landor had first gone to London in 1931 as an exchange student at the age of 17.

His host family introduced him to the head of a leading “avant-garde” advertising agency,

W.S. Crawford Ltd., which was doing pioneering work in market research, then a new field, and Landor did an internship there for six months. He worked mainly in the art department, led by Ashley Hevendon, whom Landor remembered as “one of the great innovators in graphic design and art direction.” Landor was also exposed to market researchers and copywriters who impressed him deeply. He recalled learning that “it isn’t good enough to design something or to write a slogan unless it’s refined to the point

15 Walter Landor, “Chapter One” and “Chapter Two” [unpublished autobiography], ca. June 1986, box 17.1, folder “WL Reminiscences (ed. David Howie),” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher, “The Ultimate Image Maker.” 16 Walter Landor, “Chapter Three” [unpublished autobiography], ca. June 1986, Box 17.1, folder “WL Reminiscences (ed. David Howie),” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher, 67, Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection.

335 where the person, any person, at a glance, can get the meaning that needs to be expressed to motivate the public to respond positively.” He became increasingly determined to

“have something to do with” the marketing of products, and preferably some visual aspect of the process. He was interested in advertising, and particularly the psychological aspect of it, but he felt that it was too ephemeral, and that it would not satisfy his desire to make a “positive and permanent contribution to the everyday environment” of people.

A confessed Anglophile, Landor became resolved to continue his education in

England. His accent had become “more British than British,” and he wanted to be an

Englishman: he was completely charmed by the British manner and its emphasis on polite reasoning. “I wanted to wipe out my German background,” Landor recalled, “or at least the negative part of it.” He went so far as to change his family name, Landauer, effacing his German-Jewish heritage and adopting the surname of the nineteenth-century

English writer Walter Savage Landor. Landor returned to Germany with the idea of returning to England “as soon as possible,” staying only long enough to pick up some

“rudiments of business and industry” from an uncle who owned a weaving mill. He made it back to England just before Hitler assumed power.

While interning in London, Landor had expressed an interest in package design, and, upon his return, his colleagues at Crawford directed him to Milner Gray, a visiting professor who taught an industrial design course at the Goldsmiths College School of Art at the University of London. Landor enrolled, and Gray—a pioneering package designer with his own firm—was duly impressed with his student. After a couple of years, Gray told Landor that he was “too good” to be wasting his time as a student, and he invited him to come to work at his design firm. Flattered, Landor went along, and the two were

336 soon joined by a third colleague, Misha Black, who was a specialist in three-dimensional, exhibition design. Black preferred not to be merely an employee, so the three eventually formed a new firm in 1935: Industrial Design Partnership (IDP), the first company of its kind in England. By his own account, Landor soon became an “expert” in designing for the plastics industry.17

Emigration to the United States

Landor had become increasingly acculturated in England; he was, by his own account, “frightfully British in my attitude and in my language at that time.”18 But by the fall of 1938, Landor had become terrified by the prospect of war and Britain’s role in it.

Gray, who had been retained by the Royal House as a consultant on the crests of the

British Royalty, believed that the company could secure an assignment on some project to help the war effort, but Landor, who was not yet a British citizen, became determined to

“get away.” His colleague Misha Black had been commissioned to design interior displays for the “Persian Empire” sections of the British Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, and Landor resolved to accompany him. He took a leave of absence from his duties at IDP and crossed the Atlantic in February of 1939.

Beyond his desire to flee from impending war in Europe, Landor wanted to come

17 Landor, “Chapter Three,” Landor Collection; Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher; “Bassett Gray Becomes a Partnership,” Advertiser’s Weekly, May 23, 1935; “WL Reminiscences,” ed. David Howie, ca. June 23, 1986, box 17.1, Landor Collection; Véronique Vienne, “The Brand Named Walter Landor: Historical View,” in Graphic Design History, eds. Steven Heller and Georgette Ballance (New York: Allworth Press, 2001); Lindsay Arthur, “Industrial Designer Turns His Talents To Own Use,” S.F. Call-Bulletin, Nov. 19, 1956;“Interviews,” July 17, 1989, box 24.2, videotapes, tape 16, Landor Collection. 18 Indeed, many early accounts of Landor in the U.S. refer to him not as a German but as an Englishman, a description he likely encouraged. See, for example: “Industrial Designing,” JOBS in California, October 1950, box 3.7, Scrapbook #18, “1952-55,” Landor Collection; “The Birth of a Package Design,” Western Advertising, August 1955, 26-7.

337 to the U.S. in order to learn how American industrial designers had become “so successful” while their British counterparts had, by his estimation, struggled. Industrial design had emerged during the Depression as an exciting new method of “consumer engineering” that promised to stimulate consumer demand—through the magic of

“artificial obsolescence”—at a time when it was severely lagging. Landor’s mentor Gray had made him a co-founder of the Society of Industrial Artists in England, which provided Landor with an important credential in the U.S. Gray also supported Landor with letters of introduction to several masters in the field of industrial design—including

Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes, Walter Dorwin Teague, and Raymond Loewy— whom he was able to meet in the U.S. Landor was particularly influenced by Loewy, one of the pioneers of industrial design whose career blossomed during the Great Depression.

“He was a very brilliant man,” said Landor. “This is when the industrial design boom first started. People couldn’t sell products easily, so redesigning made all the difference.”

From New York, Landor embarked on a six-month tour of industrial design in the U.S., which included an invitation for two months of study at the plastics division headquarters of General Electric in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.19

By the fall of 1939 war was raging in Europe and Landor had made it all the way to San Francisco, a city that charmed him immediately; he thought: “this is the time, this is the place.” While he was in New York, Landor had met a San Francisco-based landscape architect who arranged a job for him as a design coordinator for a modern art exhibition. Just as his visa was about to expire, Landor scrambled for a more permanent

19 Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection; “New York Job for Misha Black,” unknown publication, n.d., box 17.1, folder “Articles about WL,” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher; Letter from Walter Landor to Alan Fletcher, January 13, 1991, box 17.1, folder, “W.C. Henrion,” Landor Collection; “WL: Macondray Lane Resume,” box 17.1, Landor Collection; Meikle, Design in the USA, 105-6.

338 position. He sought out the head of the art department at University of California, who directed him to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, which was about to establish an industrial design department. Landor benefited from his passionate advocacy for himself, and he was offered a position as an associate professor in industrial design and interior architecture. By his own account, he offered the first “comprehensive course in the design of everyday products, in terms of modern materials and mass production processes” to be offered in the Bay Area. He taught students practical methods in industrial design that could be applied to products such as radio cabinets and lighting fixtures. He also taught the fundamentals of interior design, particularly for commercial environments such as stores and restaurants.20

Establishing and Promoting a New California Design Firm

One of Landor’s students, a “very beautiful young Italian girl,” Josephine “Jo”

Martinelli—whom Landor remembered falling asleep during his very first lecture— would become his wife and business partner. In 1941, the two established their own industrial design firm, Walter Landor and Associates, out of a small apartment in the

Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. At the time, most American industrial design firms were based in New York, and Landor imagined himself as a Western pioneer in his field. From Landor’s perspective, the main industry in San Francisco, aside from finance, was in packaging, a business that ideally suited his skills and presented him with his first design contracts. Landor cemented his commitment to his new life on the West

20 Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher; “Noted Art Designer to Instruct in Bay,” [unknown publication, n.d.], box 17.1, folder, “Articles about WL,” Landor Collection; “Landor Goes to Oakland,” The Art Digest, n.d., box 17.1, folder, “Articles about WL,” Landor Collection.

339 Coast, becoming an American citizen in 1943.21

Landor’s earliest clients in the 1940s included S & W, a canning company, and

Spice Islands, a line of bottled spices and vinegar. Landor’s package designs for these companies’ products won awards in two regional competitions, which led to a profile in a prominent trade magazine that greatly helped Landor to publicize his work. Writing in the trade journals, Landor positioned himself as a specialist in designing for “mass appeal” who could reconcile majority consumer preferences with his unique ability to

“lead” and “predict for the future.” He claimed to have the skill to use design to express the character of a product: he could mold an inanimate object into a “salesman” for itself that could tell its “story” quickly while appearing to be worth its price. By 1947, Landor had his own column in the Western Advertising trade magazine, where he was credited as a leader in design developments for the British plastics industry. Landor wrote about the revolution in design that had occurred in the 1930s, when merchandisers increasingly relied upon design innovations to stimulate demand, and he reminded readers that, during the war years, advertisers had diligently pictured the good design that would come in the much-anticipated post-war world. He also trumpeted the design innovations that were specifically associated with the mystique of California and the West.22

By the late 1940s, Landor was doing design work for a number of small brewers and wineries on the West Coast. In 1949, his design for Sicks’ Brewing Company in

21 Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection; “THE HISTORY OF WALTER LANDOR AND LANDOR ASSOCIATES” [unpublished chronology, a rough draft], box 1.1, folder, “Landor History,” Landor Collection; “Interviews,” box 24.2, videotapes, tape 14, Landor Collection; “A few facts about Walter Landor,” [fact sheet, n.d.], box 17.1, folder, “Articles about WL,” Landor Collection; Lindsay Arthur, “Industrial Designer Turns His Talents To Own Use,” S.F. Call-Bulletin, November 19, 1956. 22 Landor, “Personal History,” Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “Good Design Does Not ‘Date,’” Designs, September 1947; “Look at These Packages: They Revolutionized a Sales Plan,” Sales Management, n.d. [ca. 1949], box 3.6, scrapbook #17, “1946-1951,” Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “In Explanation,” Western Advertising, January 1947; Walter Landor and Whitney Atchley, “West Coast Furniture,” Western Advertising, August 1947, 42-3.

340 Salem, Oregon won the grand prize in a beer label contest conducted by the Small

Brewers Association in Chicago.23 This was the first of dozens of awards Landor would win for his beer label designs throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In the brewing industry,

Landor became a minor celebrity.24

The focus of Landor’s work was in the packaging of consumable products like beverages and cigarettes. These were product areas in which brand identity was especially important for merchandising. Moreover, the diverse field of products presented Landor with an opportunity to serve a large, international roster of clients.

Landor Associates also offered a variety of design services, including interior designs of retail spaces like supermarkets, clothiers, and the firm even drew up one proposal for a fanciful laundromat. Landor saw himself as part-designer, part “merchandising man,” and he promoted his ability to produce “harmonious color schemes” that would flatter

“food and females alike.” He aimed to turn the chore of shopping into an all-around pleasurable experience.25

Landor was a talented designer, but just as important to his success was his ability to promote himself by convincing businessmen that his services were indispensable to their success. Landor combined his personal charm with a whimsical setting to woo clients: beginning in 1964, the offices of his firm were located on a decommissioned ferryboat called the “Klamath” that was docked in San Francisco Bay.26 He reminded

23 “Beer Label Winners,” Packaging Parade, December 1949. 24 “What Do You Buy? Pack May Decide,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 1, 1956, 6. 25 “Much Planning Represented In the New Lester’s Market,” San Mateo Times, October 15, 1946; Walter Landor and Whitney Atchley, “Super Markets,’ Western Advertising, March 1947; Walter Landor, “Consumer Research Aids Designer In Making Shopping More Pleasant,” Progressive Grocer, January 1962, 70. 26 Landor became famous for the parties he would host on the boat, which were attended by public intellectuals and luminaries in the broad field of “communications,” including the media critic Marshall McLuhan and the journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe. “The History of Walter Landor and Landor Associates” [unpublished chronology, a rough draft], box 1.1, folder, “Landor History,” Landor

341 potential clients of the “startling speed” with which package designs could become

“obsolete” in the face of the relentless design “breakthroughs” of the competition, and he insisted that design was a fundamental part of a total marketing program. Landor argued that his firm was on the cutting edge of consumer market research. By the mid-1960s,

Walter Landor Associates would be the largest industrial design firm in the U.S. outside of New York City.27

A Research-Based Method of Design

For each project, Landor and his team applied a research-based method of design.

Early on, Landor distinguished himself by his dedication to consumer research at a time when designers rarely tested their designs on consumer subjects before introducing them in the market. “Designers, in those days, felt that they knew best because they were designers—they were trained,” recalled Landor. But Landor was determined to understand the relationship of design to consumer motivations, and he implored his designers to understand and anticipate shifting mass tastes. As mass-produced consumer goods had become increasingly similar in their physical construction, their differentiation on the basis of packaging and presentation became all the more important to the merchandiser.28 Landor’s firm, which by the early 1960s would be among the top four

Collection; James V. O’Gara, “Landor can boast only office that once ran into a sub (damage slight),” Advertising Age, October 4, 1971. 27 “Designers See Trend Toward Mergers A Major Consideration for Packagers,” Food & Drug Packaging, ca. January 1962, box 3.9, Scrapbook, “1960’s, 61/62,” Landor Collection; “Free Cites ‘Lousy Experiences’ with Package Folk at Trademark Seminar,” Advertising Age, June 28, 1965; Letter from Walter Landor to Theodore Aarons, February 28, 1969, box 7.1, folder, “WL Files – Outgoing Correspondence, 1/69-5/69,” Landor Collection; Walter Blum, “Walter Landor,” People, The California Weekly, October 18, 1964. 28 On the development of the mass consumer market in the United States in the early twentieth century, see Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon, 1989).

342 package design firms in the country, studied not only consumer markets but also the specific marketing problems faced by its clients. A shrewd salesman of himself as well as others’ products, Landor was always careful to document and promote his design successes in the trade journals read by the marketers, merchandisers, and retailers who were his potential clients. Indeed, the consumer research findings that Landor promoted in the trade journals were carefully orchestrated to promote the value of his own business.

A 1962 study, for example, found that candy consumers were mainly motivated to buy particular brands on the basis of packaging alone.29

When Landor was starting out in the 1940s, he conducted rather rudimentary tests: he would simply wander through local supermarkets and randomly ask customers to indicate which designs they preferred. Eventually, however, he hired a professional psychologist to develop a more scientific method of pre-testing his designs. By the late

1950s, he had established an in-house consumer research organization, the Institute for

Design Analysis,30 which sometimes operated independently and sometimes coordinated with a client’s marketing department. The Institute was headed by Hugh Schwartz, a veteran of the New York-based design firm Lippincott and Margulies. Marketing concepts were always central to Landor’s designs, and one of his associates even argued that it would be better to call their business not industrial design but rather marketing design, since it was concerned with “every visual as well as functional aspect of the marketing of a product except for advertising.” Landor was not shy about expressing his

29 Walter Landor, “Consumer Research Part of Packaging Design,” Food Field Reporter, September 12, 1960; Walter Landor, “Interviews,” box 24.2, tape 14, Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “Good Design Does Not ‘Date,’” Designs, September 1947; “Mobilizing for 1950 Battle of Shelves,” Packaging Parade, December 1949; “Designing for Consumers, The Journal of Commercial Art, April 1961, 27- 35; “Study finds consumers buy packaging,” Candy Industry and Confectioners Journal, February 13, 1962. 30 The Institute for Design Analysis changed its name to the Communications Research Center in 1966.

343 belief that consumers’ decisions were motivated by emotions rather than “cold intellect.”

To Landor, the world was full of symbols that provoked emotions. “We are emotionally affected—I think that’s a better word than ‘influenced’—by the environment in which we live,” said Landor. He cheekily addressed critics who alleged that his method was a form of seduction: “Well, of course it’s seduction,” he frankly admitted. “What’s so immoral about a housewife being seduced by a package of cookies in a supermarket?”31

Landor’s research center included a model supermarket laboratory that served as the setting for a battery of tests on human subjects who were carefully selected to represent an accurate cross-section of consumers. (They were also enticed to participate by the prospect of free merchandise.) Every project began with these consumer studies, which would continue throughout the development of the design. Landor relied on this laboratory as a “proving ground” for the effectiveness of his designs, and he specifically sought female designers to help him understand how products were handled and actually used in the home. Unlike many of his competitors who—in Landor’s view, at least— wanted to maintain the purity of their art, Landor saw no conflict between consumer research and the creative process of design. He deliberately integrated teams of designers and market researchers who would conduct consumer research and evaluate the effectiveness of designs in the context of purchasing decisions. The laboratory supermarket proved to be the ideal space for such integration. The mode of consumer observation it offered helped Landor’s designers to better understand the specific role that the product played in the lives of consumers. The aim of this kind of study was to produce a package that could act more as a “friend” than as a salesman. “It is the

31 “New Name for Research Company,” Media Agencies Clients, November 21, 1966; Don Short, “Four Dimensions of Creativity,” The Rangefinder, August 1962, 20-1; Walter Blum, “Walter Landor,” People, The California Weekly, October 18, 1964.

344 integration of the designer into the analysis procedure which we find most valuable,” noted Schwartz, “for often the designer is able to grasp intuitively the significance of a spontaneous remark and interpret it graphically.”32

Working with Ernest Dichter

Landor used a variety of techniques in his market studies, and he sometimes relied on studies of consumer motivations conducted by psychological consultants. He maintained an advisor who informed him on research techniques and particular organizations that would be well-equipped to carry out certain kinds of research, and he occasionally hired Ernest Dichter, the émigré Viennese psychologist and motivational guru, as a consultant.33 In some cases, Dichter’s brand of research yielded very specific results with clear design objectives, such as a 1956 study for a laundry detergent that demonstrated the communicative qualities of “gay” colors like yellow when contrasted with “crisp and clean” shades of pale blue, dark blue, and white. Dichter’s consumer psychology tests provided the theoretical basis for Landor’s designs, which incorporated a “psychologically satisfactory” combination of colors to communicate a “fresh” result and a “happy wash-day” experience for the housewife. Landor’s research-based designs, which he promoted tirelessly in the trade journals, satisfied his clients’ desire to fashion a

32 Walter Landor, “Interviews,” box 24.2, tape 14, Landor Collection; Les Gilbert, “Designing Firm Developing New Type Super,” unknown publication, ca. Jan. 1962, box 3.9 scrapbook, “1961-1962,” Landor Collection; “Designing for Consumers,” The Journal of Commercial Art, April 1961, 27-35; Hugh Schwartz, “Motivation Studies are Package Design Oriented,” Candy Industry and Confectioners Journal, n.d., box 17.1, folder “Articles by WL,” Landor Collection; Dorothy Diamond, “The Woman’s Viewpoint,” Printers’ Ink, April 29, 1960; “A Career In Man’s World,” Valley Times [Beaver, Pa.], March 25, 1960; “Pre-Testing Package Design,” Sales Management, May 6, 1960; Walter Landor, “Consumer Research Part of Packaging Design,” Food Field Reporter, September 12, 1960; “Warning Signal Can Alert Firm To Need For Design Changes,” Drug Trade News, December 26, 1960; Walter Blum, “Walter Landor,” People, The California Weekly, October 18, 1964. 33 On Dichter’s career history and personal background, see Chapters 2-4.

345 “scientific” marketing regime—regardless of the designs’ ultimate effectiveness in the consumer marketplace.34

Different product categories required appropriate design strategies to match their particular psychological associations and a targeted market of consumer types. Landor believed that consumers’ actual, lived experience with products was relevant to his own decisions about package design. For many products, housewives were the imagined consumer audience, so their particular concerns and anxieties became paramount to marketers. For a 1955 design project for Crispie Potato Chips, Landor drew on findings from one of Dichter’s motivational studies. Many respondents in Dichter’s study considered potato chips to be a luxury item or a special treat, suitable for a picnic but not necessarily appropriate for daily use as part of a meal. Many housewives felt that they would be neglecting their responsibilities—taking the “Lazy Way” out—by including chips in a meal. As a ready-made, store-bought item, they were seen as a “quickie” meal for times when there was nothing else to eat. Dichter recommended the promotion of new uses for the potato chip that would allow the housewife the “moral permission”— one of Dichter’s favorite concepts—to incorporate them into her meals. She needed some kind of absolution for her guilt feelings over taking short-cuts. To combat the idea that potato chips were the “easy way out,” Dichter suggested that the product could be marketed as a component in the “wise utilization of the housewife’s day, rather than sly evasion of her rightful responsibilities.”

Following these recommendations, Landor’s package design emphasized an

34 “Guild Labels—Redesigned by Walter Landor,” Pacific Coast Review, May 1956, 214; “Design for sales,” The Glass Packer, July 1956, 25-6; “New Labels—Bow for Vano, Dura Starches,” Pacific Coast Review, February 1957, 20; “When Package Design is Based on Research,” Advertising Requirements, April 1959, 103-4; “The Successful Package—and how it gets that way,” Good Packaging Yearbook, 1958.

346 “atmosphere of gaiety” that would grant the imagined housewife a special pass to indulge in such a snack. His design strategically revealed the product between a “lush green” at the base, which suggested a freshly mowed lawn, and a “friendly” daisy symbol above to dramatize the product’s “Fresher than a Daisy” claim. This, as Landor would argue to potato chip merchandisers, was the perfect combination of imagery to communicate

“quality” to that elusive, fickle, and often illogical female consumer. “She, being a woman, still has a right to change her mind at that last crucial moment in the store,” warned Landor. “If she sees yours first and compares it with another, her instinct may tell her to have more confidence in the other—merely by the looks of it, for no logical reason.” Landor, armed with support from Dichter’s psychological studies, indicated to potential clients that he had access to the consumer’s unconscious in a way that they, perhaps, did not. He successfully made the case to marketers that he had developed a method for rationalizing the irrational through design.35

Dichter also conducted a battery of tests during the course of Landor’s 1959 redesign of S & W Fine Foods’ line of coffee. Dichter examined the idea that coffee was a “symbol of warmth and comfort and a way of life,” while Landor imagined the coffee can itself as an “active sales device” that could appeal to all senses of the consumer and reach “her on an emotional level.” Landor liked to suggest that his research methods allowed him to reach “deep down” to the consumer’s unconscious, where he could access hidden desires. Dichter’s psychoanalytic probes helped him to accomplish this task—or, at the very least, provided guidelines for his designs. For example, Dichter’s studies

35 “A Motivational Research Study on the Sales and Advertising problems of Crispie Potato Chips,” report submitted to Crispie Potato Chip Company by IRMM, January 1955, Signatur-Nr. 530 (IMR 444C), Ernest Dichter Archive (University of Vienna, Austria) [hereafter, “Dichter Vienna”]; Elsa Gidlow, “How a Successful Bag Was Developed,” Flexography, November-December 1956, 26-7, 57.

347 found that a red can was more desirable to a mass audience than a brown can, but that the latter was preferred by coffee connoisseurs. The final design integrated both colors, and

Landor also included gold and coffee-brown “aroma lines” that emanated from a row of cups along the bottom of the can. These elements were meant to suggest fragrance and flavor while doubling as “party streamers” to add a “cheerful note” to greet the waking housewife.36

The collegial relationship between Dichter and Landor was evident in a symposium, hosted by Landor in 1960, which took place in his own supermarket laboratory. The gathering was attended by some fifty “top executives” representing national brands as well as several leading marketing consultants, including Dichter, who sat on a panel at the event. Dichter observed that consumers were becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tastes, and that they were becoming more fearful of being manipulated by advertising. Such skepticism was on the rise, Dichter said, partly because of the quiz show scandals, but also because of the popularity of critical books like Vance

Packard’s Hidden Persuaders—which had portrayed Dichter himself as a kind of master manipulator. At the same time, Dichter claimed that many consumers were merely buying out of habit and were thus vulnerable to the temptations of new products, product improvements, and design innovations that may or may not change the essential quality of the product. Packaging, Dichter asserted, was, potentially, a powerful form of marketing in the age of increasing skepticism because it permitted a more subtle form of persuasion than did overt advertising. As the taste and aesthetic sensibility of the average

American had improved, Dichter argued that making a well-designed package became all

36 “When Package Design is Based on Research,” Advertising Requirements, April 1959, 103-4; “The Hidden Powers of Design,” ca. 1957, box 24.2, videotapes, Landor Collection.

348 the more important. Consumers demanded not quality, per se, but rather a quality story that could be subtly conveyed through packaging, according to Dichter. They also desired change, not necessarily in the physical content of the product, but as communicated by its identity vis-à-vis the consumer—that is, in its packaging. Finally,

Dichter claimed, consumers wanted a distinct product identity that somehow communicated to them on a personal level. They wanted to feel confident that they were

“in partnership” with the company whose products they purchased.37

Brand “Personality”

Dichter’s studies revealed the degree to which a product’s identity, or personality, was tied up with its packaging. The design elements of a package often carried very specific gendered associations. General Mills’s dry cereal Wheaties, for example, was well known for its orange-and-blue box and the bold tagline, “Breakfast of Champions,” which was often dominated by a picture of a heroic athlete. The effect produced by this juxtaposition of color and picture projected an overall image of “masculinity,” according to Dichter. (Dichter often claimed to have invented this particular usage of the word image, which was his translation of the German Gestalt.) So central were the elements of this total image that a manufacturer risked corrupting a product’s unique personality by changing its design too drastically. In another study, Dichter found that a new package for Philip Morris cigarettes was rejected by one smoker as too “soft and sweet,” like a ladies’ perfume package, relative to the old brown package, which had been appropriately

37 “Says Point-of-Sale Study Holds Key to Consumer Label Choice,” Food Topics, n.d. [ca. June 1960]; “Symposium Notes Packaging Must Satisfy Hidden Needs,” Food Field Reporter, n.d. [ca. June 1960], box 3.8 scrapbook “1947-1960,” Landor Collection; “Packaging Success Depends on ‘Hidden Needs’: Landor Survey Studies Battle of the Labels,” Good Packaging, n.d., box 3.8 scrapbook “1959-1960,” Landor Collection.

349 “masculine.” Some men also resented the flip-top cardboard pack, which did not fit in workers’ shirt pockets. Yet marketers could capture new segments with the right packaging: many women respondents felt that the brown Philip Morris package was “too strong,” indicating that it was “man’s cigarette,” but they were more amenable to the new design.38

As a packaging expert, Landor understood that products which were essentially commodities—like cigarettes, cereals, and detergents—could be transformed into branded goods with personalities through the creative alchemy of design. Even a commodity as humble and common as nails could be given an identity with the right kind of packaging. It was, furthermore, not difficult to craft national brands, Landor believed, because the mass media had softened many regional distinctions. He compared his packages to people with “individual personalities.” A particular wine, for example, could be given an air of “old worldness” simply by shaping its label like an arch. Landor maintained that, because people were not so much buying commodities as they were investing in images, they actually needed the attraction of a unique brand personality.

Such a personality could be very specific—such as Father Knickerbocker on a bottle of beer—or it could be a more subtle combination of colors, shapes, and textures.39

38 “A Psychological Research Study of the Sales and Advertising Problems of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex,” report submitted to Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, Inc. by IRMM, September 1954, Signatur-Nr. 543 (IMR 453C), Dichter Vienna; “Wheaties Package Test,” report submitted to Knox Reeves Advertising, Inc. by IRMM, December 1954, Signatur-Nr. 539 (IMR 450.1E), Dichter Vienna; “A Motivational Research Study of the Current and Indicated Future Impact of ‘Johnny’ Phillip Morris on the Advertising, Promotion, Merchandising & Sales of Philip Morris Cigarettes,” report submitted to Philip Morris Incorporated by IMR, January 1957, Signatur-Nr. 899 (IMR 736C), Dichter Vienna. 39 “Hard Selling Hardware,” Advertising Requirements [Chicago], n.d., box 3.4, Scrapbook #10, “Landor overview, Vol. 3,” Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “Design—And What It Means to You,” Baking Industry, July 28, 1956, 30-1, 76; “Recent Breakthroughs in Beer Package Design,” The Brewers Digest, n.d. [ca. 1960], box 3.8, scrapbook, “1959-1960,” Landor Collection; “Geographic Design! Geographic Design?” Consumer Packaging, December 1959; “Landor’s Design Features Ruppert Name on Package,” Food and Field Reporter, March 14, 1960.

350 Landor’s technique was particularly well suited to bringing personality to products like cigarettes. For Philip Morris’s “Commander” brand of cigarettes, Landor produced a package with a nautical motif that featured a curved stripe of “maritime blue” and three bright gold stars. Commander was an extra-long, or “king size,” tightly- packed, non-filter cigarette made possible by a new manufacturing technique. The brand was celebrated in an advertising campaign crafted by the man who famously flipped the gender of the Marlboro cigarette, Leo Burnett. Landor’s design for the new smoke included an “elegant” gold band running the length of the pack to emphasize its prodigious size. In a redesign project for Philip Morris’s Benson & Hedges line of cigarettes in 1961, Landor proved his ability to create a logic of social communication through brand association. The brand, which had originated in 1907 as a Fifth Avenue custom tobacco shop, catered to a relatively small, “premium” market of consumers who purchased higher-priced goods. Landor’s designers emblazoned a cellophane wrapper with the B&H logotype, but they left the slide-compartment box with only a small, subtle brand mark, so that the box appeared as a cigarette case with simulated wood paneling.

The top of the box also incorporated textured paper that was designed to evoke a “calling card” effect. This understated design—the “disappearing logo,” as it was called in promotional materials—was intended to add prestige to a product aimed at “people of good taste” who were, incidentally, also willing to pay more for their distinguished cigarettes. The added cost, presumably, was for the value of the status conferred on the user of the product.40

40 “Philip Morris Makes Candor Its Theme for New King Size,” New York World-Telegram and Sun, September 8, 1960; Joseph Kaselow, “Philip Morris Sets Drive to Launch Commander,” New York Herald Tribune, September 8, 1960; “Commander Enters National Market,” Printers’ Ink, n.d. [ca. Sept. 1960], box 3.8, scrapbook, “1947-1960,” Landor Collection; Robert Alden, “Advertising: Latest Call for Philip Morris,” The New York Times, October 14, 1960; “How Benson & Hedges finds sales,”

351 Philip Morris produced an even longer cigarette in 1965, Benson & Hedges

“100’s,” which were designed to be smart, sophisticated, and “with it” for an affluent, urban segment of the market. The elongated cigarettes succeeded in conveying a

“pleasing personality,” according to a Philip Morris executive. The same company that had changed the gender of its Marlboro cigarettes in 1955—creating the Marlboro man, a deliberate symbol of “rugged individualism”—also launched Virginia Slims in 1968, the first cigarette marketed exclusively to women. The new cigarette was thin in circumference, “for the feminine hand,” and contained in an “elegant” package called a

“purse pack” that was designed by Landor. The package was also designed to “play down” the commercial message, which many consumers were resisting by this time.

Landor had become an expert at packaging products with national and even international distribution that nevertheless communicated their particular identity to specific market segments. The new identity politics of the 1960s, which gave voice to oppressed and marginalized groups, was a progressive development that was, in fact, eagerly embraced by marketers.41 “With her freedom of expression in clothes, career and her home, today’s woman also seeks greater expression of her femininity in everything she does,” said the vice president of Philip Morris in 1969, referring to Virginia Slims. “Individual freedom of choice in the marketplace is an economic extension of the democratic system.

Furthermore, I believe it will help inspire greater individual freedom in our social, political and economic life.”42 Printers’ Ink, January 13, 1961, 44-5; “Philip Morris Plans Bid To Increase Its Sales Of Non-Filter Cigarets,” The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 1960. 41 On this topic, see Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 42 James C. Bowling, “The special problems of cigaret promotion,” Advertising and Sales Promotion, July 1969; Walter Landor, “Identity with Integrity: A Design Communications Plan for the ’70s,” Brewers Digest [adapted from a paper presented at the 1970 annual convention of the United States Brewers Association], box 17.1, folder, “Articles by WL,” Landor Collection.

352 Landor’s relationship with Philip Morris would last for more than thirty years, and he would go on to design packages for every major brand produced by the company through the 1980s. Landor made a name for himself primarily through his work in the beer, cigarette, liquor, and wine product categories, each of which had a set of characteristic visual motifs that expressed something about the “personality” of the product and the social position of its user. These products varied little, or not at all, from year to year, and so new packaging took the place of “new and improved” models which helped to sell technological products like automobiles.

Label designs for beer, for example, employed styling cues to indicate abstract and sometimes contradictory ideas: tradition suggested a deep knowledge of the brewing process, while modernity symbolized the brewer’s ability to adjust to the changing tastes of consumers and, at least, appear to be offering something new. Landor’s 1956 design project for the Blitz-Weinhard brewing company sought to convey a “feeling of tradition” associated with the hundred-year-old Pacific Northwest institution. But Landor’s label design, which was informed by consumer research done by Elmo Roper, also employed bright, sparkling colors to suggest “zest and youth.” Its “ultra-modern crispness” was specifically designed to look good on TV screens. And while the San Francisco brewers of Burgermeister had achieved, in their estimation, a feeling of “tradition” in their label design, the Teutonic imagery on the product packaging also carried the unfortunate connotation that the beer had a “heavy” and dark quality. Landor and his designers sought to “correct” this in 1960 through the use of colored cans—bright blue, silver and gold—and through the use of a more stylized, American-looking trade character in which

353 “the customer can see almost any face he desires.”43

Landor was a master of blending national essences in subtle design features.

Another of his successes was a project for the Japanese beer Sapporo, for which he created a package that was designed to look Oriental to Western eyes: the “S” logo was meant to suggest the yin yang symbol. At the same time, the design was meant to look specifically Western to Japanese and Chinese consumers. The character of the package, engineered through design, was thus appropriated as the essence of the product; it was intended to simultaneously express the “cultural origin” of the product and the personality of the designer. But even in a context where there was no brand competition

—as in Soviet Russia, where Landor visited as a trade ambassador at the invitation of

Nikita Khrushchev—there was a need to create packages that made products desirable.

Product “personality” often become mixed with national pride, as it was with Laika, the

Soviet space dog who appeared on cigarette packages.44

Corporate Identity

Landor specialized not only in creating personalities for particular brands, but also

43 “Complete Restyling for Blitz,” Brewer’s Journal, September 1956, 40-1; “Bright New Look Marks Opening of Brewer’s Second Century,” Good Packaging, October 1956, 15-8; “Design for Selling,” Western Advertising, August 1956, 40-4; “Burgermeister Revamps Its Symbol,” Food & Drug Packaging, September 1, 1960; Alvin Griesedieck, Jr., “Market penetration through packaging” [excerpted from a talk at the April 1965 AMA Packaging Conference], [unknown publication], May 1965, box 3.1, Scrapbook #2, “Corporate Identity Letter Head 1960s,” Landor Collection. Indeed, Landor’s great success in re-designing beer labels and packages made some regional brewers nervous about the relatively dowdy appearance of their products—which only encouraged them to hire Landor. Landor was quick to warn merchandisers that they had better keep up with the times by modernizing their packaging, and he himself was, of course, just the man for the job. “Brewer’s packaging freshened, modernized by design surgery,” Packaging Parade, August 1954; “beware packaging ‘D. A.’!” Coffee and Tea Industries and The Flavor Field, May 1956, 77; Kelley and Clogher. 44 “Simplicity Achieves Impact in New Sapporo Can Design,” The Brewers Digest, November 1959; Walter Landor, “Incipient ‘International Style?” CA, May 1961, 60; Walter Landor, “Subtle Design Gives Feel of Luxury,” Candy Industry and Confectioners Journal, n.d. [ca. 1962], box 3.9, Scrapbook, “1960’s, 61/62,” Landor Collection.

354 in producing identities for entire corporations, whether or not they engaged with the consumer through some kind of packaged product. As corporations became dominant

American institutions in the early twentieth century, they faced a crisis of legitimacy in their struggle against an American cultural suspicion of bigness that threatened to overshadow traditional institutions of family, church, and community. Specialists in public relations, such as Bruce Barton, assisted mammoth corporations like General

Motors and General Electric to personalize their relationships with the public to the extent that customers would come to love the company. For GM, Barton used the metaphor of the family in advertising that described the various divisions of the huge corporation, and for GE, he advised that the company take credit not just for light bulbs, but for light itself. Design was often an important element of this personalized presentation, the GE logo was meant to appear like the handwritten initials of a friend.45

Landor’s first corporate identity project, done in 1951 for the Trans-Mountain Oil

Pipeline Company, fused an abstract image of a pipeline into the letters TM. This combination of the literal and symbolic became a Landor trademark. He often produced a “family identity” to unify a range of products offered by a particular company, so that any one product could act as a “salesman” for others. A common color scheme or a symbol could unite a range of products under a common “umbrella” while being reproduced in advertising, on letterheads, delivery trucks, and even on water towers.

Some independent producers of a common product were too small to create a brand 45 On the rise of public relations and corporate identity campaigns, see Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). The German critical theorist Jürgen Habermas considers public relations, a concept which originated in the U.S., to be the exploitation of the accepted functions of the public sphere, where private people put “reason to use.” In their use of public relations as a form of communication, private corporations applied the notion of democratic citizenship to consumption decisions. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), 193-95.

355 identity of their own, but they could form associations to give a collective identity to their products. For example, Landor designed a “program of visualization” in 1960 to link 121 independent dairies in thirty-five states as the Quality Chekd Dairy Products Association.

Dairies that were part of the association kept their individual “home-owned” identities, but they were united by a shared Landor-designed mark that appeared on a range of milk products, ice creams, sour creams, butter, and other dairy products. The mark, which had the appearance of a stylized government inspection stamp, was designed to reassure consumers of the quality of particular products and brands that they might not be familiar with. Similarly, “private” labels that were associated with certain retailers—as opposed to nationally-advertised brands—had to rely even more on the appearance of the packaging to communicate the idea of quality.46

Landor made the case that a company’s “signature” encompassed not only its name but also its symbols, typography, and colors, which together produced an abstract concept—like the corporation itself. Images could carry a range of meanings, such as stagecoach used by the Wells Fargo bank, which simultaneously suggested tradition, progress, and the exciting frontier culture of the West. Similarly, for Bank of America,

Landor produced a logo that was at once “friendly” while projecting the “progressive attitude” of “forward thrust” by means of an abstract form of a bird in flight. The logo also had a look of a monogram that was intended to humanize the big corporation and suggest “softness and gentleness” in a non-threatening symbol. Americans admired

46 “Greater Markets for PABCO,” Good Packaging Year Book, July 1950, 69-76; “Quality Chekd creates national brand image,” Ice Cream Field, April 1960, 24, 28; Walter Landor, “Sunlite Bakery Shows Sunny New Face,” Bakers Weekly, April 23, 1962, 34-5; “Private Labels Design Seen ‘Limping’ Behind Nationally Advertised Brands,” Supermarket News, April 25, 1966; “The History of Walter Landor and Landor Associates” [unpublished chronology, a rough draft], box 1.1, folder, “Landor History,” Landor Collection; Kelley and Clogher.

356 success, Landor claimed, but they had doubts about bigness, so it was important to bring huge institutions down to a more human scale. Because, by the mid-1960s, technology and the spread of self-service were erasing many of the “warm human contacts” between a company and its various publics, Landor made the case that a well-managed, coherent image had to effectively communicate the “spirit” or “soul” of the company. Such integration was also essential for companies that traded in carefully-managed environments, such as airlines, which became a major client of Landor Associates in the

1970s and 1980s.47

Landor claimed to be able to present a coherent corporate identity while still addressing a company’s various market groups with particularity—to women, business executives, “young marrieds,” or any other narrowly-defined “social cluster.” In public relations materials, the company said that it could get to the “heart” of corporations and imbue them with qualities that would express their “unique character.” The firm of

Landor Associates, which would eventually eclipse the personality of Landor (it still exists today), went on to serve major international clients like Coca-Cola, General

Electric, Levi Strauss, Mercedes Benz, and British Airways.48

47 Walter Landor, “Corporate name changes,” letter to the editor, Business Management, May 1965; “Wells Fargo Insignia Updates Old Symbol,” American Banker, July 19, 1962; Carl Plain, “Skin-Deep Image Called Dangerous,” The San Diego Union, October 28, 1965; “Plus for computer society: Landor sees key design role ahead re company image,” Graphics: New York, January 1966; Philip H. Dougherty, “Corporations Are Playing the Name Game,” The New York Times, box 1.1, folder, “Landor Reprints & Publicity,” Landor Collection; “Bank of America receives BA as program’s 3rd degree,” Corporate Identity, n.d., box 1.1, folder, “Landor Reprints & Publicity,” Landor Collection; “International Airlines,” brochure, ca. 1989, box 1.1, folder, “Landor Brochures – 2,” Landor Collection; Joan Chatfield-Taylor, “Designing the World Around Us,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1979, 25; Kelley and Clogher. 48 “Walter Landor Associates, Industrial Designers” (brochure, ca. 1975-80), box 1.1, folder, “Landor brochures – 1,” Landor Collection; “Design Focus: Landor Associates,” exhibition, University of San Francisco, McClaren Center, April 21-June 1, 1992, box 1.1, folder, “Landor Brochures – 2,” Landor Collection.

357 Design, Taste, and “Quality”

Landor and his associates believed that consumers’ ability to judge the quality of the product was limited by their lack of knowledge and their tendency to make decisions based on impressions and emotions rather than as a result of rational consideration of the relative merits of products in the same category. Consumers could distinguish between brands, but Landor’s research showed that they generally lacked the sophistication to distinguish subtle differences in product quality. While they insisted that they acted rationally, they usually succumbed to the romance of the images on the package.

According to Landor’s studies, consumers’ judgment of wines, for example, was based almost entirely on labels and packaging. Wine bottles needed special treatment to achieve “that worth-the-price look” required of “quality” products. One way that Landor achieved this effect was by designing a label that simulated old steel engravings and depicted idyllic vineyard scenes. A sense of “Old World” heritage was the ideal “quality concept” for wines. Landor was able to convey such an impression through designs that incorporated the appropriate imagery, such as illustrations that were reminiscent of old manuscript illuminations, arch-shaped labels, and hand-lettered type “suggestive of the calligraphy of medieval monks.” With a wrap-around label, Landor could induce the curious shopper to pick up the bottle and turn it around, which led the prospective purchaser to a “selling” text that might explain the history of a vineyard and the “fine points” of a particular type of wine.49 49 “This repackaging program brought a 40% increase in sales,” Printers’ Ink [ca. February-April 1950], box 3.6, Scrapbook #17, 1946-1951,” Landor Collection; “New Packages Boost Petri Wine Sales,” Good Packaging, February 1950, 11; “How Unique Package Styling Aided Debut of New Italian Swiss Colony Wine,” Packaging Systems, February 1951; “How Unique Package Styling Aided Debut of New Italian Swiss Colony Wine,” Packaging Systems, February 1951; “Label Tells Story,” Packaging Parade, May 1956; “Christian Brothers Wine,” Food and Drug Packaging, June 7, 1962; “More Than Meets the Mouth,” Pacific Coast Review, November 1961; “Does the label ‘change’ the taste?” Printers’ Ink, January 12, 1962, 55-7; Hugh Schwartz, “What’s on the Package, Not What’s in It

358 The vague concept of “quality” was something that Landor tried to capture in his package designs for everything from candy, to whiskey, to beer. In 1956, for the brewer of Lucky Lager beer, Landor incorporated images of hop leaves projected onto a frosted gold field to communicate a “premium” quality, which was intended to broaden the acceptance of the brand beyond the “working class” niche that it had theretofore occupied. Ernest Dichter’s Institute for Motivational Research had found that, relative to the distant Falstaff beer brand, which had vaguely Shakespearean connotations, Lucky had a “warm familiarity” and a “psychological closeness” to the typical California beer drinker. For the Mexican brewer of Bohemia beer, Landor and his team designed a long bottle neck encapsulated in gold foil with the intent of achieving a similar “premium” effect. Landor would frequently employ shiny, sensual foil—which, his research showed, had a particular attraction for young and female segments of the market—to achieve this quality impression and provide an “up-to-date feeling.”50

This technique yielded significant design changes that were applied by merchandisers in an attempt to communicate distinct personalities that appealed to targeted markets. For example, Landor executed a redesign for the brewer of Falstaff beer in 1966 that sought to express several abstract qualities through design: “tradition,”

“cool refreshment,” “masculinity,” and “contemporary spirit.” This feat of abstraction was accomplished through Landor’s use of the heraldic symbols of shield-and-lion,

Prompts Consumer to Purchase Items,” Food and Drug Packaging, March 26, 1964. 50 “A Progress Report of a Motivational Research Study on Falstaff’s Position in the Northern California Beer Market,” submitted to Falstaff Brewing Corporation, December 1956, Signatur-Nr. 974 (IMR 787C), Dichter Vienna; Walter Landor, “The Image in Ferment,” Modern Brewery Age, April 6, 1964; Walter Landor, “Package Design Is Integral Part of Any Successful Candy Merchandising Program,” Candy Industry, May 6, 1952, 14; “The twin candlelight decanter,” The Glass Packer, December 1956, 29-31, 70; “Landslide for new foil labels,” Marketing, August 4, 1961; “For Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc, S.A.--a new package for a prestige product,” The Brewers Digest, November 1966, 66; “Landslide for new foil labels,” Marketing [Toronto], August 4, 1961; “Bonner’s bonanza,” Modern Packaging, July 1950.

359 which dominated the label. The image stood out against a white background that was highlighted with gold stars, and it was dramatically accompanied by a gold neck label.

The design was intended to have “manly appeal,” while still being attractive to female purchasers. Landor’s Institute for Design Analysis then tested the design in an effort to measure its “desirability.” Advertising for the product featured the beer in a variety of settings—at a picnic, on a fishing boat, at a baseball game, and at the dinner table—to encourage the notion that the beer was a social accessory as well as a beverage. Landor addressed the opposite connotative problem for Miller’s new “Lite” beer in 1975. The designer employed a baroque, Germanic-style typeface and illustrations of wheat, barley, and hops to communicate the abstract qualities of tradition, masculinity and “beeriness” for the low-calorie brew, which was suffering from the impression that it lacked flavor along with calories. That it communicated masculinity was essential, too, since men were wary of being seen as calorie-conscious. Consumer research showed that the beer was not sufficiently appealing to the “he-man” drinker, and so Landor resolved to produce an image that “had guts” and yet would not alienate women or occasional drinkers.51

Package Symbolism and Ergonomics

Landor’s designs were not limited to surface images: he also incorporated the shape and texture of packages as elements in their entire communicative Gestalt, and he was not shy about exploiting sexually suggestive shapes and textures to heighten the attractiveness of a package. He knew that materials carried their own meanings: in most

51 “Walter Landor Gives Falstaff New Look,” Good Packaging, July 1966; Mary C. Colburn, “Lite & Selecta XV: Two Beers with Designs on the Future,” Brewers Digest, October 1975; Joan Chatfield- Taylor, “Designing the World Around Us,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1979, 25; Kelley and Clogher.

360 contexts, consumers preferred glass to plastic, for example, which felt relatively “cheap.”

Some of Landor’s design innovations could be practical, such as a half-gallon wine jug with a “handle-neck” that made it easy for “feminine” hands to grasp, while still retaining its “quality” image. Other designs were more playful and suggestive, and even erotic, such as a wine bottle that was shaped like a woman’s torso. Landor’s designs were intended to stoke the desires of potential consumers, but they were also manufactured to draw media attention to the novelty of his art. “And as he fondled his firm’s creation,” wrote one expressive journalist in a 1950 piece on the designer’s sensational torso bottle,

“he groped for words to accurately express the subtle nuances of feeling so vital in his business.” The president of the Spice Islands company worried that, in the face of new competition, his bottle of fine vinegar had become “dowdy and old-fashioned,” and so he enlisted Landor to project “snob appeal” on the product by making the bottle more slender and elegant.52

Landor designed a special green-tinted holiday bottle for Old Fitzgerald, a brand of Kentucky bourbon. The bottle had a stopper that also served as a decanter and a candle holder, which was a “psychological symbol of gracious living,” according to

Landor. He also created a molded closure in an “aristocratic” shape for a half-pint whiskey bottle, intended to assuage consumers who might avoid smaller bottles on the belief that they were meant for those who could not afford larger ones. He added other

“aristocratic” touches in subsequent iterations of the holiday bottle. To indicate

52 “A BETTER half-gallon jug for wine,” The Glass Packer, October 1950; Jack Miller, “‘Torso’ Bottle Is So Pleasant to Handle,” The San Francisco News, August 4, 1952; “How to Reinstate a Quality Product,” Marketing Strategy, 1950; “The twin candlelight decanter,” The Glass Packer, December 1956, 29-31, 70; “Products and Packages: The Revolution Now Entering Phase Two,” Sales Management, November 10, 1963, 22; [article, unknown publication], April 10, 1959, box 3.8, scrapbook, “1959-1960,” Landor Collection.

361 “elegance and dignity,” Landor incorporated a heraldic shield (a favorite trope of his) and royal gold lions in the design, which also made the product suitable as a “prestige gift item” that connoted “quality and masculinity.”53

Landor was eager to exploit the possibilities of new postwar materials in packaging that had suggestive properties in their basic constitution as well as through their malleability into shapes and textures. Along with merchandising and advertising,

Landor believed that the new possibilities of packaging made it part of a “marketing triumvirate.” New plastics and synthetics allowed Landor to develop smaller unit packages of “sparkling” foil with evocative imagery for Sugaripe dried fruits. Landor re- imagined a product that had been sold only in bulk as a handy pack for the individual consumer. Landor’s “wrap-around” packages for Sunsweet and Calimyrna figs were designed to induce the curious shopper to pick up the package and turn it around, another

Landor trademark.54 Landor was also interested in the potential uses of cellophane, which he called the “femme fatale” of packaging, “a glamorous seductress who enhances what she chooses to show.” Cellophane, according to Landor, could tease consumers with tantalizing revelations, combined with a package design that communicated a unique brand identity. Landor was even featured in a 1956 advertisement for the Olin brand of cellophane, touting—somewhat disingenuously—the new demands of a more sophisticated, “show-me-or-else” consumer who needed to see the product for herself.55

53 “Old Fitzgerald Features Two Holiday Packs,” Beverage Retailer Weekly, September 18, 1961; “Holiday bottle for Old Fitzgerald,” Good Packaging, October 1963; Walter Landor, “Gift makes permanent decanter,” Good Packaging, November 1963. 54 “Foil for Sugaripe,” Good Packaging, November 1951, 24; “Sunsweet’s Switch,” Modern Packaging Magazine, February 1955; “Bonner’s bonanza,” Modern Packaging, July 1950. A Landor redesign in 1966 for the Libby line of canned fruits included a large pennant, pointing to the left, which provided a “feeling of movement” and produced “instant consumer involvement with the product on an emotional level.” Walter J. Barry, “How to change a label without losing status,” Advertising and Sales Promotion, September 1966. 55 “Olin Cellophane Sells The Truth,” advertisement featuring Walter Landor, Time, December 17, 1956,

362 The shape and texture of a package worked in concert with its symbolic imagery to communicate a total personality. Landor often used images that contradicted the essence of a package, such as a leaf to suggest the “field-fresh” quality of packaged, frozen vegetables, fruits, and juices. The daisy motif, which was shown to be highly desirable in consumer tests, was a favorite of Landor’s. He also used it for a redesign of packages for the Sunlite bakery to suggest freshness and the “natural origin” of the ingredients in the company’s bread and other baked goods. Bread had an intrinsically

“homey” quality, and it was essential to convey this idea through packaging, especially for a mass-produced good sold in supermarkets. “In this age of automation, the consumer yearns for the feeling that food products have not just been turned out by a machine,” said Landor in 1962. In the silence of the supermarket, the package itself had to “speak.”

More than a package design, the daisy imagery was used in a total corporate campaign, from delivery trucks to stationary, as the company’s “face” before the public.56

But as the postwar obsession with the acquisition of material possessions gave way to a growing emphasis on experiences and recreational activities in the early 1960s,

Landor argued that industrial designers had an even more important role to play in capturing the consumer’s “discretionary dollar.” Landor experimented with new

54; Walter Landor, “Empowered Visibility,” Creative Converter, n.d. (ca. 1962), box 9.9, scrapbook “1960’s, 61/62,” Landor Collection. Literature scholar Judith Brown, who has examined the semiotics of cellophane in this period, emphasizes its slick, modern character as a packaging “form without content” that could intensify consumer desire through selective product revelation while, at the same time, promising a clean, sanitized good. Judith Brown, “Cellophane Glamour,” Modernism/modernity 15 (2008): 605-626; “Getting the most out of paper, film, foil,” Paper, Film and Foil Converter, February 1961, 33. 56 “New Safeway Design Features Freshness,” Good Packaging, November 1955, 25-7; “Package Design...with meaning,” Labeling & Packaging, ar, December 1955, 57-8; Walter Landor, “Sunlite Bakery Shows Sunny New Face,” Bakers Weekly, April 23, 1962, 34-5; “How they designed packages with ‘heart appeal,’” Bakers Weekly, n.d., box 3.8, scrapbook, “1959-1960,” Landor Collection; Harold H. Berkin, “America’s Top Package Designers Describe the ‘Ideal Bread Package,” May 14, 1962, box 3.9, Scrapbook, “1961-1962,” Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “Fresh or Frozen—Are Your Design Concepts Stale?” Baking Industry, August 24, 1968, 45-50.

363 packaging techniques for old products in an attempt to project a feeling of newness. For

Philip Morris in 1963, Landor’s affiliate organization, Master Models, designed a

“Humiflex” plastic package embossed with the company crest; it was meant to transmit a

“feeling of quality,” for its Paxton brand of cigarettes. The package also included a green cap—to indicate that the cigarettes were menthol—and a series of vertical corrugations arranged to form a “ribbon of honor” designed to compel the consumer to obsessively stroke the package.57 Some product categories demanded exotic imagery and an overt sexualization. For example, “Burma Shave” cream, made by a Philip Morris subsidiary, was formulated with a “compound of exotic essences” to emanate “masculinity.” Landor complemented the scent of the product with a package emblazoned with “oriental” type lettering and a crown-and-swirl motif intended to suggest “prestige, adventure and masculinity.”58

But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, Landor recognized an increasing consumer skepticism and a growing suspicion of the slick and “superficial” language and imagery that dominated packaging in the 1950s and 1960s. Landor told marketers in 1970 that they needed to pay attention to the social issues defining the times, including pollution, race relations, urban decay, and the “generation gap.” This new consumer attitude was not, however, a fatal development for the new designer; it simply required a new strategy.

In a re-design for the brewer of Hamm’s beer, for example, Landor discarded the previous label, which had expressed “modernity,” the “mood of the early ’60s,” in favor of a newer label that expressed “truth” and “heritage.” What the new consumer wanted,

57 “Products and Packages: The Revolution Now Entering Phase Two,” Sales Management, November 10, 1963, 22; “How the Paxton package was developed by Walter Landor,” Good Packaging, February 1964; Shy Rosen, “Philip Morris,” Packaging Design, September/October 1963. 58 “Burma-Vita Alters Burma Shave Unit, Adds Exotic Lotion,” Drug Trade News, March 16, 1964; “Aerosol Containers,” Packaging News, March 1965.

364 Landor maintained, was not to be “modern,” but to be “genuine.” “The new emphasis on honesty and forthrightness that is sweeping the land leaves few places to hide,” Landor wrote to a client in 1971. “If this then is the mood of the times, why not be ‘responsive to’ (it’s too late to ‘anticipate’) it and benefit by riding the crest of public opinion.”59

Another challenge to the field of industrial design was the growing consumer movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the perceived burden that government regulation might have on the industry. The debate over “truth in packaging” heated up in the early- and mid-1960s in the context of President Kennedy’s “Consumer Bill of Rights” and legislation to tighten packaging regulations introduced by Senator Philip Hart of

Michigan. Research by Hugh Schwartz at Landor’s Institute for Design Analysis showed that younger, better-educated consumers were becoming increasingly skeptical of package descriptions, and that many of them espoused negative feelings toward certain manufacturers. By the early 1970s, the distinct cultural shift and the impact of

“consumerism” could not be denied, and Landor recommended that marketers anticipate government regulations by providing more factual information in their product packaging in an effort to develop consumers’ faith in the product. Landor Associates remained relevant through the cultural shifts, and the firm expanded internationally, maintaining offices in a dozen international cities—including London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong,

Paris, Stockholm, and Mexico City. The company employed more than 400 by the late

1970s, and it continued to expand in the 1980s, becoming the “world’s largest strategic

59 Letter from Walter Landor to Frank D. Kiewel, March 17, 1970, box 7.1, folder, “WL Files – Outgoing Correspondence – 3/70-6-70,” Landor Collection; Letter from Walter Landor to John Callahan, September 23, 1970, box 7.1, folder, “WL Files – Outgoing Correspondence – 7/70-12/70,” Landor Collection; Walter Landor, “Identity with Integrity: A Design Communications Plan for the ’70s,” Brewers Digest [adapted from a paper presented at the 1970 annual convention of the United States Brewers Association], box 17.1, folder, “Articles by WL,” Landor Collection; “Walter Landor and Automotive Research,” box 24.2, videotapes, Tape 17, Landor Collection.

365 design firm”—by its own account—until it was purchased by the New York-based advertising agency Young & Rubicam in 1989.60

The Selling Psychology of the Package

With the expansion of self-service retail merchandising in the postwar years,

Landor had seen his job as turning the package into a kind of salesman that could “do the talking” on its own. As products achieved a new degree of uniformity in quality, their differentiation on the basis of a branded package became all the more important. The new medium of television further elevated the role of the package by its ability to demonstrate its use in settings that mimicked its actual use. Landor had no qualms about using all available means to entice the consumer, and he suggested that the tools of merchandising had become a cultural expectation: “The American public likes to be sold,” he said. He saw his job, simply, as increasing the “enjoyment of everyday life.”

He experienced no ethical dilemma in designing packages for products that might be considered harmful, like cigarettes. He reasoned that his duty was simply to make a package appropriate for the product.61

60 “Law and Candymen Wrapped in Red Tape in ’62,” Candy Industry and Confectioners Journal, December 18, 1962; Hugh Schwartz, “Consumers Express Distrust of Information on Packages,” Food & Drug Packaging, December 19, 1963, 21; Hugh Schwartz, “Housewives Unaware of Hart Bill, Calif. Consumer Counsel,” Food & Drug Packaging, January 30, 1964; Walter Landor, “A Few Comments on Packaging for Today and Tomorrow,” press release for piece in San Francisco Business, August 31, 1972; Joan Chatfield-Taylor, “Designing the World Around Us,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1979, 25; Mar Olmstead, “Man of a Thousand Designs,” PSA Magazine, March 1980, 80-4; Carla Marinucci, “Designing man,” San Francisco Examiner, October 1, 1989, E-1; Carol Blitzer, “Creating lasting global identities for corporations,” San Francisco Business Times, March 13, 1992, 9; “Design Focus: Landor Associates,” exhibition, University of San Francisco, McClaren Center, April 21-June 1, 1992, box 1.1, folder, “Landor Brochures – 2,” Landor Collection. 61 Walter Landor, “Good Design Does Not ‘Date,’” Designs, September 1947; “Packages Must Speak for Selves,” S.F. Call-Bulletin, November 23, 1954; “Getting the most out of paper, film, foil [part two],” Paper, Film and Foil Converter, March 1961, 48-9; Walter Landor, “Impression of Quality Must Be Designed Into Candy Packages, Regardless of Price,” Candy Industry, July 1, 1952; Kelley and Clogher,.

366 Landor shared Ernest Dichter’s impressionistic, qualitative conception of the consumer experience that was informed by Gestalt psychology, which stressed the analysis of the functional qualities of thought and perception, experienced holistically and not in constituent parts.62 When applied to the world of marketing, Gestalt meant the immediate and unconscious visual impact of the total image of the package—not its respective elements in isolation. “Why expect the eye to focus first on a trademark, then take in the brand name, and finally get the product story,” reasoned Landor, “when superior design skill can contract these three impressions into one single image—and convey it with triple force, in a third of the time.” “Landor-created images have an instantaneous impact,” noted one observer, “speaking to us without words, crossing national borders and language barriers.”63

For Landor, good design with emotional appeal could only be produced by designers who could translate the findings of consumer research into powerful, affective forms and images. Those images became the symbols through which consumers identified with a product. Landor argued that consumers had become so “visual-minded” that they responded more to the overall appearance of a package than to the written or spoken word. As the art of salesmanship disappeared in the age of the self-service supermarket, the package became the only “physical and tangible means of communication between the manufacturers and the consumer,” according to Landor. The

“new consumer” of the 1960s was believed to be so busy and affluent that she could not

62 Jean Matter Mandler and George Mandler, “The Diaspora of Experimental Psychology: The Gestaltists and Others,” in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, eds. Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1969). 63 Walter Landor, “More Power to the Package,” Art Direction: The Magazine of Creative Advertising, February 1957; Joan Chatfield-Taylor, “Designing the World Around Us,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1979, 25.

367 be bothered with returnables or bulk items, and so “one-shot, throw-away” packaging became increasingly common, and Landor was eager to design it.64

Landor argued that packaging appeals could fulfill not just known but also hidden consumer desires, making life more enjoyable by creating a pleasant environment.65 He was unapologetic about the power of packaging to influence consumers’ decisions, and he even celebrated it for increasing the consumer’s enjoyment of a product that would otherwise be “sterile and humdrum.” Attractive packages, Landor claimed, engaged the consumer in an exciting game of seduction that she actually enjoyed.66 The imagined consumer—who was typically female in the mind of the package designer—longed for an emotional engagement in her world of consumption, according to Landor. He believed that design injected a needed human, personal, and emotional element into the often homogenous realm of mass consumption and that “grim, gray mother Automation.”67

“Skillful design can increase anticipatory enjoyment which adds to the actual enjoyment of the product,” reasoned Landor, alluding to the sexualization of the consumer marketplace. “It can also heighten the consumer’s evaluation of the flavor and even the aroma of the product.” Landor justified his profession’s capacity to produce imagined

64 Walter Landor, “Predictions...of Things to Come in Packaging,” Sales Management, November 10, 1959, 15-6; Walter Landor, “Is Redesign Needed? Answer is Yes—Unless Package Answers 8 of 10 Requirements,” Candy Industry Packaging, April 17, 1956; “[Landor] Sees One-Shot Package Field Untapped By Cosmetic Firms,” Drug Trade News, May 1, 1961. 65 “The Hidden Powers of Design,” ca. 1957, box 24.2 tape 25, “16 mm Transfer, Part II,” Landor Collection. 66 “The Package Makes All the Difference,” World-Telegram & Sun, December 7, 1961; Donald K. White, “The Art of Seduction By Fancy Packaging,” San Francisco Examiner, September 28, 1962. At a 1962 forum on packaging regulations in California, Landor was confronted by the consumer rights advocate Helen Nelson, a member of President Kennedy’s Consumer Advisory Council and a principal drafter of the Consumer Bill of Rights. Nelson took issue with Landor’s “seduction” claim, and argued that the standardization of sizes and the proper labeling of contents would not preclude aesthetic creativity in package design. Richard L. Vanderveld, “State Consumer Counsel Praises Packaging Bill,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1962. 67 Walter Landor, “Packaging for Retail Impact,” AMA Management Bulletin, No. 85, 1966; Walter Landor, “The Angry Young Computer,” CA, November 1961.

368 differences between products that were virtually identical on the basis of his belief that the consumer’s psychological relationship to a product could actually change the sensory experience.68

But while consumers had been conditioned to be more sensitive to the cues of visual stimuli, their capacity to judge products on the basis of qualitative criteria had, perhaps, diminished. In a 1961 speech before an association of confectioners, Landor noted that his firm’s testing showed that package design determined choice more than taste, and that people’s taste buds had become “careless.” “To the mass consumer, everything tastes good,” observed Landor with a slight note of condescension.69 A 1962 study by Landor’s research institute found that beer drinkers were remarkably insensitive to differences in taste, but very sensitive to differences in label design, which altered their taste impressions.70 As massive, self-service supermarkets become the norm, Landor made the case that the consumer needed products differentiated on the basis of shape, surface design, and other criteria so that she could make a choice based on a product’s personality.71 This would help her to overcome what Dichter called the “misery of choice,” the overwhelming burden of consumption in the constantly-changing modern world. Puritanical resistance to enjoyment and indulgence threatened the health of the free enterprise system, warned Dichter, and it was the duty of the marketer to employ the techniques of persuasion to overcome these damaging moral cathexes.72 Dichter and

Landor had a stake in offering this moral and practical defense of their profession, but 68 Walter Landor, “Is there a MORAL ISSUE when there is no difference?” CA, July 21, 1961. 69 “Needs Emotional Appeal to Eye,” Candy Industry, ca. March 1961, box 3.9, scrapbook “1961-1962,” Landor Collection. 70 “Does the label “change” the taste?” Printers’ Ink, January 12, 1962, 55-7. 71 Walter Landor, “Empowered Visibility,” Creative Converter, n.d. (ca. 1962), box 3.9, scrapbook “1960’s, 61/62,” Landor Collection, 72 Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 264.

369 their experience as market researchers seeking to understand the motivational psychology of consumers lends validity to their claims.

To the extent that they encouraged consumer indulgence and product personality,

émigré market researchers like Dichter and designers like Landor contributed to the commercial mission of “progress engineering” in the radically different cultural context of their adopted home. Their qualitative, Gestalt approach to marketing and design problems probed consumer psychology in a manner unfamiliar to most American businessmen. They knew that marketers needed a psychoanalytical comprehension of unconscious, irrational consumer motivations, but they also understood that training in taste and ideological massaging were achievable goals, even on a mass scale. The methods of motivational research developed by Dichter and others provided new knowledge about consumer behavior, but designers like Landor were able to translate that knowledge into a coherent marketing program that gave products personalities. For

Dichter, marketing and merchandising helped Americans to accept the “morality of the good life,”73 and for Landor, the well-designed consumer landscape made daily life more enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing. While the world of consumption was rationalized in mid-twentieth-century America, as scholars like Jackson Lears have observed, these

émigré marketing specialists insisted that encouraging hedonism against the cultural grain of puritanical restraint was a major part of their profession. Landor saw himself as a designer with a social conscious who performed a public service by respecting “visual sensitivities” while at the same time heightening the general “aesthetic sensibility.” “Our job is to make the everyday environment as pleasant as possible,” boasted Landor. “It is

73 Dichter, Strategy, 263.

370 in this sense that we are contributors to the public’s emotional well-being.”74 74 Walter Blum, “Walter Landor,” People, The California Weekly, October 18, 1964; Mar Olmstead, “Man of a Thousand Designs,” PSA Magazine, March 1980, 80-4; Walter Landor, "Personal History,” n.d., box 17.1, folder, “WL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, n.d.," Landor Collection.

371 Chapter 6: An Austro-Marxist in American Suburbia: Shopping Mall Architect Victor Gruen and the Ideology of Planning

In the spring of 1949, the Warner Brothers studio assembled about 250 architects in Los Angeles for a preview screening of its new film, an adaptation of the 1943 Ayn

Rand novel The Fountainhead.1 Among those in attendance was Victor Gruen, a

Viennese émigré who would become best known as the inventor of the regional shopping center. The architect was appalled by what he believed to be a gross misrepresentation of the work and values of his profession, and he was disgusted by the antisocial, egotistical message of the film and book. Gruen channeled his anger into a devastating review of the film, which was published in the May 1949 issue of Arts and Architecture.2 The dramatic high point of the film occurs when a jury finds the protagonist, architect

Howard Roark, to be not guilty for the crime of destroying a large housing project that failed to conform to his design. According to Gruen, the author knew absolutely nothing of contemporary architecture, which she had, apparently, confused with “contemptuous” architecture. Gruen charged that Rand did not know that the very purpose of the contemporary architect was service to society and to the client; his mission was to fulfill the needs of a community—not to erect monuments to his ego that stood in complete disregard to human needs. Gruen worried that the non-conformist ideology of Rand’s hero would be so deeply attractive to young people that they would overlook the “antisocial, anti-democratic and anti-human message” of the novel. “Nonconformism, as such, is not a laudable quality,” Gruen argued. “Nonconformism is positive only when its basis is ethical. […] True nonconformity is constructive. Roarke’s nonconformity is

1 “Hollywood’s Fountainhead: all dynamite will be charged to clients,” The Architectural Forum, June 1949, 13-4. 2 Victor Gruen, “Mountain Heads from Mole Hills,” Arts and Architecture, May 1949.

372 destructive and anarchistic.” Gruen concluded by finding the author Rand to be guilty of a state of mind which he called “contempt of mankind.”3

Gruen reacted so strongly to the message of The Fountainhead because it was a perverse representation of his profession, but also because Rand’s libertarian ideology was an affront to his deepest values as a social democrat.4 Gruen had come of age in the heyday of Austro-Marxism in interwar Vienna as a director of agitprop political cabaret, which was forced underground when fascism took hold in the 1930s. As a Jew and as a socialist, he had no choice but to flee Vienna in the wake of Hitler’s Anschluss of Austria in 1938, finally emigrating to the U.S. Although his most famous invention, the regional shopping center, would become an emblem of American postwar consumer capitalism,

Gruen himself always retained the sensibilities of a specifically Viennese Social

Democrat: he believed in the potential for large-scale social planning enterprises—either in physical forms as architecture or in institutional forms as social programs—to improve the lives of the masses of working people and contribute to the common good.5 He

3 Like Gruen, Rand was a Jewish émigré, but she was a refugee from Russian Bolshevism, not from German Nazism. Rand’s extreme individualism grew out of her deep hatred for Communism, which had consumed her father’s business in a wave of nationalization. She was among the first intellectuals to articulate a moral defense of capitalism, which she disseminated not only through her novels, but also through her position as a public intellectual who wrote syndicated columns, lectured at college campuses, and frequently appeared on radio and television programs. See Jennifer Burns, “Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement” in American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). 4 Rand would end up associating with members of that other, more famous Austrian School of economics, including the anti-welfare economist Friedrich von Hayek, who became the principal adversary to Keynes after he left Vienna for the London School of Economics in 1931. See Juliet Williams, “The Road Less Traveled: Reconsidering the Political Writings of Friedrich von Hayek” in American Capitalism, ed. Lichtenstein, 213-27. 5 On municipal socialism in interwar Vienna, see Helmut Gruber, Red Vienna: Experiment in Working Class Culture, 1919-1934 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Anson Rabinbach, The Crisis of Austrian Socialism: From Red Vienna to Civil War, 1927-1934 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). On the experience of the Jews in Vienna, see Bruce F. Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Charles A. Gulick, Austria from Habsburg to Hitler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948); Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and George E. Berkley, Vienna and Its Jews: The Tragedy of Success, 1890s-

373 chafed at the ideology of “free enterprise” and its concomitant celebration of the individual independent from society. Although he submitted to the postwar predominance of transportation by automobile in his American shopping center designs, he generally regarded automobiles as very inefficient means of public transit, and he felt that cars were a hazard to the health and happiness of the pedestrian. His shopping centers were intended to create a centralized community space, free from the interference of automobile traffic, in a place where there had been no center: the sprawling, unorganized suburbs. Similarly, Gruen’s plans for downtown urban renewal—many of which never came to fruition—were designed to reclaim the space for pedestrians against the tyranny of the automobile.

Gruen’s socialist, Jewish background and his experience in the world of Vienna’s agitprop theater have been noted in secondary accounts of his life and work in the United

States, notably in book-length biographies by Jeffrey Hardwick and Alex Wall.6

Hardwick observes that Gruen’s belief that Americans would come together at his shopping centers to fulfilled his “nearly utopian socialist dream”; and like other European modern architects, he saw no irony in using the tools of capitalism to manifest this dream.

Consumerism was merely a means to achieve social and cultural reform.7 Hardwick also notes Gruen’s devotion to an ethos of planning in a Cold War business environment in which the mere word seemed to conjure a basic antipathy toward communist social engineering.8 While Hardwick focuses principally on the social and cultural impact of

1980s (Cambridge, MA: Abt Books, 1988). 6 M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Alex Wall, Victor Gruen: From Urban Shop to New City (Barcelona: Actar, 2005). 7 Hardwick, 134-5; 139. 8 Hardwick, 179.

374 Gruen’s work, Wall is most interested in Gruen’s design innovations in architecture and urban planning. He does, however, note Gruen’s theater experience and life in Vienna, which became the basis for his “philosophy of what it meant to live in a city, his model of urbanity.”9

Other accounts have tended to focus on Gruen’s achievements as an architect, or they have considered him as one of several important shopping mall developers or urban planners.10 Relative to Hardwick, Wall, and other secondary considerations, this chapter takes a closer look at Gruen’s personal history in Vienna in forming a social-democratic ideology that found an application in the context of postwar consumer capitalism in the

United States. I argue that Gruen was able to channel his vision of social democracy into the construction of shopping centers, which were intended recreate the best aspects of urbanity in a suburban “desert” that lacked any community center. Gruen was fortunate to have found clients who were willing and able to execute his vision—most notably department store magnates Oscar Webber of Detroit and the Dayton brothers of

Minneapolis. Gruen referred to these men as “merchant princes” because their retail businesses had become such local institutions that the reputation of their family became their abiding commercial interest. They were enmeshed in the world of American consumer capitalism, but they had a deep connection to their respective communities that directly correlated with Gruen’s idea of using the shopping center as an instrument of

9 Wall, 24. Wall, however, is chiefly concerned with Gruen’s technical innovations and his success as a planner of urban spaces. His first large shopping center, Northland near Detroit, was not really about architecture, according to Wall: “it was above all an ensemble of urban spaces and a shaper of public experience.” Wall, 89. 10 See, for example, Richard Longstreth, City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); and chapter 6 in Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003). More recently, Gruen’s achievements as a specifically modern architect have been examined by David Smiley in Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925-1956 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

375 cooperative enterprise. The postwar consumer boom and the rapid growth of the suburbs created the ideal conditions for the unlikely cooperation of these American retail kings and an émigré social democrat from Vienna.

Gruen’s Early Years in Vienna

Viktor Grünbaum was born on July 18, 1903, the son of Adolf Grünbaum and

Elizabeth Lea Levy.11 His was a liberal, modern, well-to-do Jewish family that did not regularly practice its religion. His mother came from a posh family from Hamburg, and his father was a prominent lawyer and a lover of art, theater, and satire who instilled his passions in his son. Young Viktor would accompany his father on foot or by horse-drawn carriage as he traveled around the Innere Stadt, Vienna’s central district, on business.

Many of his father’s clients were involved in the theater, and while he was consulting them backstage young Viktor would watch rehearsals of plays and musical comedies,

“letting the theatrical life of Vienna soak into my bones,” he later recalled. This experience in the dense, vibrant city of Vienna was fundamental to Gruen’s philosophy of urban living. He had fond memories of staring out the window of his family’s home, watching the street scene and observing the construction of a building from cellar to roof.12

The physical environment of the Vienna that Gruen grew up in was, in many ways, characterized by the vision of two prominent architect-planners who straddled the

11 “Geburts-Befugnis,” August 5, 1903, box 22, folder 4, Victor Gruen Papers (Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) [hereafter, “Gruen LOC”]. Although on all other official documentation and publications from Gruen’s time in Vienna his first name is spelled with a “k,” it is in fact spelled with a “c” (“Victor”) on his birth certificate. 12 Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 1-15, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Walter Guzzardi Jr., “An Architect of Environments,” Fortune, January 1962.

376 nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Camillo Sitte and Otto Wagner. Like Gruen, they were both architects and visionaries, and in many ways they represented the poles of

Gruen’s ambivalent relationship to the technologies and trends of modernity. As the medieval city wall and glacis that had surrounded the Innere Stadt of Vienna were torn down and replaced by the modern Ringstraße in the latter half of the nineteenth century,

Sitte protested that the great new boulevard produced a radical disjunction between people and the built environment. Sitte, who published his philosophy of city planning as

Der Städtebau in 1889, pleaded for the integration of people and architecture on the scale of the pedestrian. In contrast to Sitte’s traditionalism, Wagner was a functional futurist who, like the modernist architect Adolf Loos (whom Gruen greatly admired), disdained ornamentation as antithetical to a radically utilitarian form of construction. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, Wagner produced the plan for Vienna’s system of ring roads, which were centered on the Ringstraße and intersected by radial arteries that provided the means of transit for the new municipal railway system. Gruen’s later interest in planning efficient, functional cities and buildings that lacked ornamentation would echo Wagner’s modern vision, but his reverence for the city square as a site of human interaction—which Gruen would translate into the shopping center’s pedestrian mall—was inherited from traditionalist philosophy of Sitte.13

The architectural environment and intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was complemented by Gruen’s institutional training. He was a good but not excellent student, and he graduated from the Realgymnasium in 1917.14 Inspired by the work of Adolf

13 Camillo Sitte’s son later taught Gruen in architecture school and encouraged his interest in city planning. Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 50, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage, 1981), 25-100. 14 Hardwick, 9; Box 23, folder 8, “School Papers, July 1910-May 1925, n.d.,” Gruen LOC.

377 Loos and others, Gruen went on to study architecture at the Technological Institute, where he was trained in the Advanced Division for Building Construction. Gruen remembered that many of his classmates at the technical college were “proto-Nazis” who regularly subjected him and his close friend, Rudi Baumfeld, to anti-Semitic harassment.

As a boy, Gruen’s Jewish heritage had made him a target for beatings, an unfortunately common experience for young Jews. But even as a student of architecture, where he was required to do the manual work of bricklaying as part of the program, he endured the attacks of fellow students and even bullying by some teachers who mocked him for his diminutive stature and lack of physical dexterity. School authorities noticed a political poem that Gruen had published in a newspaper, which they deemed to be anti-German, and threatened him with expulsion if he published another such poem.15

Indeed, Gruen’s Jewish identity was a key factor in his politicization as a Social

Democrat—the only party that lacked an explicitly anti-Semitic platform—which began when he was a teenager.16 As a young man, Gruen had participated in a left-wing youth scouting organization, the Pfadfindergruppe. Although his father was initially a patriotic supporter of the Habsburg Empire in the First World War, he was also a liberal who advocated for social progress. Gruen remembered that his father responded “positively”

15 “Victor Gruen, Developer of U.S. Malls,” International Herald Tribune, February 16-17, 5; Susanna Baird, “Fatherland: Victor Gruen, A Return Home, 1968-69,” May 20, 1996, box 10, folder “Biographical Information – Manuscript by Susanna Baird, 1996,” Gruen AHC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., Early Life to 1938 (1 of 6),” box 20, folder 20, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 26-8, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 196. 16 Hardwick, 11-12. Historian David Morrison has called the Austrian Social Democratic Party the “natural home” for Jews, because it facilitated a connection to the working classes and endowed its members with “an ideology of brotherhood and internationalism which acted as a buffer against the expression of anti-Semitism.” David E. Morrison, The Search for a Method: Focus Groups and the Development of Mass Communication Research (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998), 26. For a more detailed discussion of the philosophy of Austro-Marxism and the reign of the Social Democratic Party in Vienna, see Chapter 1.

378 when the leftist Social Democrat Friedrich Adler assassinated the minister-president Karl von Stürgkh in an effort to bring about the end of the war. The death of Gruen’s father in

1918 coincided with the end of the war and the declaration of the new Austrian republic, and Gruen became thoroughly politicized and committed to the movement for social democracy.17 Indeed, there was considerable overlap between the philosophy of “Austro-

Marxism” that motivated the Viennese Social Democrats—which emphasized the power of physical environments to shape social conditions—and Gruen’s later ambitions as an architect.

The Social Democrats governed Vienna from May of 1919 until the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss assumed dictatorial powers and outlawed the party in 1934.

In that halcyon period the city was known as “Red Vienna,” and it became the site of an ambitious experiment in “municipal socialism.” The centerpiece of the Socialists’ reforms was a massive project in public housing that would ultimately result in the construction nearly sixty-four thousand new apartments for workers, mostly in the form of large housing blocks, the Wiener Höfe. This huge undertaking began in 1924 and was financed largely through luxury taxes. It relieved a severe shortage in the stock of housing after the war, and the construction provided jobs for nearly twelve thousand workers each year. More importantly, these “people’s palaces,” with their shared interior courtyards, were part of an effort to create an environment of proletarian socialization that was based on the prewar educational ideal of Bildung. The new architecture embodied more than just buildings: it was designed with the explicit purpose of instilling in its inhabitants communitarian values and a socialist consciousness in preparation for a

17 “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., Early Life to 1938 (1 of 6),” box 20, folder 20, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 21-31, 177, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

379 socialist future that would extend beyond Vienna. The housing complexes featured a variety of communal living facilities, including laundries, bathhouses, kindergartens, playgrounds, swimming pools, meeting rooms, medical and dental clinics, libraries, lecture halls, and shops.18 The complexes were part of the project encourage the

“ordentliche Arbeiterfamilie” that would be the foundation for the neue Menschen of a new socialist society.19

As the new political order came into being in a postwar Vienna, Gruen—who, along with Baumfeld, had won a design competition for a public housing project—began a course of study at Vienna’s Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) in

1918.20 An architect friend of his father, Edmund Melcher, had advised Gruen to enroll on the promise that, when he had earned his degree, he could come to work for his firm.

At the Academy’s Master School for Architecture, Gruen studied under the modernist architect Peter Behrens, known for his AEG Turbinenfabrik in Berlin, a “Cathedral of

Work” that enclosed a functional factory within the envelope of a classical temple.

Behrens, however, was only a sporadic presence in the classroom, and Gruen instead drew inspiration from Loos, Josef Hoffmann, and the master, Le Corbusier, for whom he would write an obituary in the Wiener Arbeiterzeitung. Gruen was deeply impressed by the drawings and models of Le Corbusier’s “Contemporary City” and the Voisin Plan, which he would see on a later visit to Paris.21 In a review of Le Corbusier’s La Ville

18 Indeed, the Wiener Höfe had many of the characteristics that Gruen’s idealized vision of the shopping center would later have. 19 Rabinbach, Crisis, 18-29; Gruber, Red Vienna, 45-80. 20 Gruen passed the very entrance exam that Adolf Hitler had failed a few years prior, and Gruen would often later wonder what might have been if he had failed and Hitler had passed. Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 30, 51, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 21 Hardwick, 9-10; Wall, 24; Roland Marchand,Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 34. “Victor Gruen: Designer, Artist, Architect,” Building News 4, no. 26 (March 2, 1950); “Pencil Points,” The Store of Greater New York, August 1939, 498, box OV11, “Scrapbooks: General, Dec. 1935-Nov.

380 Radieuse, Gruen was struck by the insight that the advent of the automobile would produce dramatic changes to the architectural environment of the modern city.22

But politics were always at the top of Gruen’s mind in the exciting, radically democratic period in Vienna after the war. Gruen was part of a group of young socialist intellectuals, the “Jahoda-Kreis,” who met in the home of Marie Jahoda, the youth group leader who would later produce the famous Marienthal study of the unemployed along with her first husband, the social researcher Paul Lazarsfeld.23 Lazarsfeld was an actor and one of the leading intellectual figures behind the Politisches Kabarett, an agitprop, antifascist political cabaret which began around 1926, having grown out of the social milieu of the Jahoda-Kreis. Gruen served as an actor, manager, and producer, and one of his tasks was to translate the impossibly grand ideas of Lazarsfeld, the “great intellectual,” into what was possible for the stage. Initially, the political aim of the group was to use satirical theater to move the Social Democratic Party further to the left in the fashion of its younger members. Gruen was proud to have performed before the likes of

Otto Bauer, the intellectual leader of the Party, whom he revered. The group also published its plays and songs in a magazine, Die Politische Bühne, which printed as many as 3,000 copies of each issue at its peak. Gruen’s first wife, Alice “Lizzie” Kardos, whom he married in 1930, was a staunch comrade in the socialist movement and a fellow writer and actor in the Politisches Kabarett. Over the years, the group performed before a total of 500,000 people, by Gruen’s estimation, and it was boldly political, employing 1965,” Gruen LOC; “Victor Gruen: Biographical Data,” n.d. [ca. 1963], box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Victor Gruen Papers (American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie) [hereafter, “Gruen AHC”]; “Victor Gruen Associates: Planning, Architecture, Engineering,” general brochure, July 1, 1957, box 69, folder 1, Gruen LOC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., Early Life to 1938 (1 of 6),” box 20, folder 20, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 49-51, 65, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 22 Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments.” 23 For a discussion of Jahoda and Lazarsfeld’s Vienna years, see Chapter 1.

381 an actor with a Hitler-like mustache to satirize the dictator despite a ban on portraying heads-of-state onstage.24

But the cabaret was mortally threatened when the quasi-fascist Engelbert Dollfuss came to power in Austria in February of 1934, igniting a civil war. He dissolved the parliament, ended the republic, declared himself dictator, and outlawed the Social

Democratic Party. Dollfuss and his successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, effectively banished the political cabaret from the legitimate stage by refusing permits for such performances. But the members of the Politisches Kabarett improvised by forming

Kleinkunstbühnen, or “little art theaters,” which staged performances on makeshift stages in the cellars of coffeehouses throughout years of fascist oppression. These little theaters were the only venues where social or cultural issues could be addressed in public, because Viennese playwrights of the legitimate stage were terrified of the repercussions of any performance with the slightest political content. The underground cabarets were the last refuges of wit and satire in Vienna, and they were tremendously popular—known throughout Central Europe—right up until Hitler’s Anschluss in 1938.25

Indeed, architecture was but one manifestation of Gruen’s artistic inclinations in this period: in addition to being a writer and master of ceremonies for the satirical theater, and he also published humorous poetry, playing a “walk-on part in the bohemian-literary

24 Baird, “Fatherland,” 2; Hardwick, 11. Several copies of the group’s magazine, Die Politische Bühne, are extant in box 71, folder 12, Gruen LOC; “Separation Agreement: Alice Kardos Gruenbaum with Victor Gruenbaum,” March 1941, box 22, folder 16, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 30-44, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 25 The new Nazi government promptly destroyed all of the stage settings and properties of the theaters, forcing the members of the theater troupe to flee. George E. Berkley, Vienna and its Jews: The Tragedy of Success, 1880s-1980s (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1988), 216; Hardwick, 12; H. B. Kranz, “All Is Not Waltz Time in Vienna,” The New York Times, February 6, 1938; “And Now ‘From Vienna,’” New York Times, June 18, 1939; “From Vienna and To a Reunion in New York,” New York Times, March 10, 1940; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 44-45, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. Nazis had long resented the prominent role played by Jews in the cultural life of Vienna, and they particularly despised Jewish influence in the theater. Pauley, Prejudice, 198.

382 scene” of Vienna, according to one account.26 “I was in the thick of the revolutionary movement—acting and writing social commentaries for the little theatres, very anti-

Hitler, anti-Dollfuss, anti-clerical,” Gruen recalled. He was “deeply involved” in the

“highly urbanized atmosphere” of Vienna, not only as an architect but also in the political, cultural, artistic, and theatrical life.27

Design Work in Vienna and Forced Emigration

While Gruen’s passions were in the theater and in the ideals of social democracy, he made his living as a designer and architect. Just as planned, he began working in 1923 for the firm of his father’s friend, Melcher and Steiner in Vienna, a position he would hold for nine years. Gruen worked as a furniture designer and supervisor of residential and commercial construction. Because it was a time of economic depression in Austria, most of the firm’s work was in home and facade renovations. Large building projects were a rarity, with the important exception the Social Democrats’ municipal public housing projects, some of which Gruen supervised. Working in the city’s proletarian districts, Gruen claimed to have learned much about the “human condition,” and he also learned how to manage very large construction projects.28

As the economic slump dragged on, Gruen was laid off by Melcher in 1932, and he decided to establish his own, independent architectural and design office in 1933. He had already been designing apartment interiors for fellow Social Democrats, including

26 Wolf Von Eckardt, “The Urban Liberator: Victor Gruen and the Pedestrian Oasis,” Washington Post, February 23, 1980. 27 Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; Victor Gruen, “Light and Shadow of the European Metropolis,” notes on “Vienna speech,” June 11, 1963, box 2 (Speeches), Volume XII, 1963, Gruen AHC. 28 Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 67-8, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

383 Paul Lazarsfeld and Otto Bauer, and many of his first clients were from that milieu of socialist intellectuals and bohemian artists from the political cabaret. He completed about fifty projects altogether, mostly in apartment remodeling and furniture design.

Gruen also began to take a greater interest in urban planning, and he took study trips to international exhibits and wrote articles on imagined cities of the future. Gruen he also began taking contracts to design storefronts and interiors, a new direction that would set the trajectory for his career.29

Gruen’s first commercial design job was for the Bristol-Parfumerie on Vienna’s famous Ringstraße. Gruen’s design overcame the tiny dimensions of the shop. Though its frontage was a mere eleven feet across, Gruen’s all-glass front turned it into a display that merged the street and store. He also amplified the tight interior by installing a long band of mirrors on the ceiling—an old theater trick to visually enlarge a space, he said— and he added a modern flair by encasing the furniture in white lacquer. It received much attention in the trade press, including a favorable notice in the August 1935 issue of the trade journal Display.30 In 1936, Gruen designed a recessed “arcade” entrance for a fabric shop that allowed pedestrians to step to the side of the flow of sidewalk traffic and into an “intermediate” zone between shop and street that showcased the store’s wares—

29 Christian Fleck, “Introduction to the Transaction Edition,” in Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community, eds. Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Hans Zeisel (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002), xx; “Arbeitsverzeichnis,” box 75, folder 10, Gruen LOC; “Life Facts About Names from the News: Gruen, Victor,” The Monthly Supplement (adjunct to Who’s Who), June 1953; “Victor Gruen Associates: Planning, Architecture, Engineering,” general brochure, July 1, 1957, box 69, folder 1, Gruen LOC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., Early Life to 1938 (1 of 6),” box 20, folder 20, Gruen LOC; Joyce Haber, “Victor Gruen: Architect, Dreamer and Doer,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1966; “VERZEISCHNIS DER IN DEN JAHREN, 1924-1937, DURCHGEFÜHRTEN ARBEITEN,” May 15, 1937, box 75, folder 10, Gruen LOC; “Victor Gruen: Biographical Data,” n.d. [ca. 1963], box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC; “Biographical Data,” Outline to Public Relations Material for Book, n.d., box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC. 30 “Initials in the Decorative Scheme,” Display, August 1935, 233.

384 with the intent of transforming curious passersby into customers. Gruen became well known for his skills in retail architecture, and he designed several other shops, including a bookstore, a haberdashery, and a candy shop.31

But just as Gruen was achieving new success in his business, having received a commission in 1937 to design a department store on Vienna’s main shopping avenue,

Mariahilferstraße, the threat of German expansion and Nazi repression became graver.

While he was overseeing the construction of this project in March of 1938, Adolf Hitler marched from the Westbahnhof down the Mariahilferstraße to announce Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria—the Anschluss. For the next three months, Gruen faced the bizarre situation of having his former employee, who revealed himself to be an eager Nazi, as his boss; he badly mistreated Gruen and even forced him to produce designs for halls decorated with swastikas. Gruen was suddenly subjected to all kinds of abuse and arbitrary authority, and he frantically plotted his emigration.32

Gruen was forced to pay a bribe to a Nazi lawyer so that he could get an exit permit and passport, and he compiled a stack of flattering letters of recommendation from his many clients that would serve him in exile. He received word on May 6th from the

American Consul General in Vienna that his request for immigration had been approved, and it appears that he was given permission to leave the city on the 13th. He booked a ticket on an ocean liner from England to the U.S., and he packed a suitcase with his and

31 Wall, 27. The use of arcades—also called the “recessing” system—had appeared in the U.S. in the early-twentieth century and had become increasingly common by the 1920s. David Smiley, Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925-1956 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 25-27; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 51-3, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 32 For example, Alois Reichmann, in a letter to Viktor Gruenbaum dated April 15, 1937, applauded Gruen’s good taste and speedy work schedule. Box 75, folder 9, Gruen LOC; Jerry Belcher, “Victor Gruen, Architect and Environmentalist, Dies,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1980; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 53-4, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

385 his wife’s clothes. He also packed a few small pieces of furniture and the tools of his trade, but while he was staying with his mother-in-law he received a frantic phone call from a friend who told him not to return to his apartment, which had been broken into by the Gestapo. He managed to enlist a brave friend to return to his apartment, dressed in the uniform of a Nazi stormtrooper, to retrieve his few belongings, declaring that he was under orders to confiscate the Jew’s suitcase. When Gruen finally did leave the country on May 28 on a one-time exit visa, he was not forced to give up his Austrian citizenship

—but that fact was moot since the state of Austria “ceased to exist,” as Gruen put it. “I left Vienna on my Austrian passport, and was forced to declare that I would never enter

Austria again by the German authorities,” Gruen would later explain in a letter to the U.S. attorney general in a declaration of allegiance his new country. “[I]n fact, as I am of the

Jewish race, I could never have become a German citizen.”33

Gruen went with his wife first to Zurich, then to Paris, and then to London, where many of his friends from the socialist political scene and theater world of Vienna were staying temporarily. He took the time there to learn English, which he had only a rudimentary knowledge of from school. By July, Gruen and his wife Lizzie (his mother would later join them in the U.S.) were making their way across the Atlantic to New York as refugees aboard the S.S. Statendam on the Holland-America Line. They were joined by several friends and acquaintances from the Kleinkunstbühnen, and they played games and enjoyed themselves. Despite the difficult circumstances—and a last-minute panic

33 John C. Wiley, letter to Harry Lowry, May 6, 1938; “Amtsbestätigung,” May 13, 1938, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruenbaum, letter to Mr. Francis Biddle, January 30, 1942, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for Petition for Naturalization,” form N-400, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (Edition of 1-13-41), box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 54-60, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Reisepass, Republik Österreich” [Passport, Republic of Austria], no. 633571, Viktor Grünbaum, box 23, folder 4, Gruen LOC.

386 about arriving penniless—Gruen remembered the journey fondly, and he felt optimistic about the future.34

Exiled in New York

Before their arrival on July 13, 1938, Gruen and his wife had two main contacts in

New York: Gruen’s uncle, Harry, whom he had imagined as his “rich uncle in America” who would occasionally send what had seemed to be extravagant gifts of five or ten dollars; and Ruth Yorke, an American actress whom he had met by chance and befriended on a railway car from Paris to Vienna. It turned out that Gruen’s uncle was merely a low- level employee at a second-rate hotel in Manhattan who could do little to help Gruen.

But Yorke’s boyfriend, Paul Gosman,35 was a well-connected businessman who was able to promise Gruen a job and thus secure him an affidavit to immigrate to the U.S. as a permanent resident. Gruen and his wife first stayed in the Upper West Side apartment of

Yorke, the star of a long-running radio serial whose personal connections and contacts in the theater world would prove very useful to Gruen. She soon found the refugee couple a

“pleasant” apartment in Central Park West. Gruen looked forward to the future and was annoyed by some of his fellow refugees who bemoaned their fate. He accepted his new

34 Hardwick, 15; “Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for Petition for Naturalization,” form N-400, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (Edition of 1-13-41), box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., Early Life to 1938 (1 of 6),” box 20, folder 20, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 73-8, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 35 Gruen remembers Yorke’s boyfriend as Paul Gosman in his autobiography, but in some other accounts he is remembered as Paul Goodman. See Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 78- 9, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1938-50 (2 of 6),” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC. Gruen’s autobiography was never published during his lifetime, but it has recently been published in the original German as Victor Gruen, Shopping Town: Memoiren eines Stadtplaners (1903-1980), ed. Anette Baldauf (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2014).

387 life in America, and he immediately set about making his place in it.36

By August, Gosman was able to get Gruen a job at the Ivel Corporation Display

Company—so named for its owner, a Mr. Levi, spelled backwards—which specialized in designing exhibitions for large conferences. It was there that he met a beautiful young girl, Elsie Krummeck, the most talented designer in the firm who earned a wage more than three times higher than Gruen’s. Only in her mid-twenties, she was an up-and- coming artist who was already gaining wide recognition for her metal sculptures. Gruen was smitten, and a romantic affair ensued, which was more or less sanctioned since he and his wife had agreed that they would divorce after arriving in America; by the fall, they were already living apart. Gruen liked the work at Ivel and was friendly with his boss, for whom he would translate Hitler’s speeches, but when Levi refused his request for a salary increase, Gruen jumped at another opportunity across the East River.37

Like many other designers who emigrated to New York in the same period, Gruen found a job working on exhibits for the 1939-40 World’s Fair in Queens. Gruen’s position was with the G. Wittbold Company, which employed about 200 designers, almost none of whom were native-born Americans. At the time, Gruen saw himself more as a designer than as an architect, and the Fair would become a showcase for the emerging field of industrial design. The Fair was also a massive public relations opportunity for major U.S. corporations, which sought to counter the New Deal by

“educating” the public about their value as institutions that could imagine a better future in a free-enterprise system. The Wittbold firm was producing Norma Bel Geddes’s

36 “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1938-50 (2 of 6),” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; “May 17 1974,” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 78-81, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 37 Victor Gruenbaum and Elsie Krummeck, “Face to face,” Apparel Arts, June 1940, 52; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 81-4, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC

388 spectacular “Futurama” exhibit for General Motors, which included as its climax a full- scale city model that segregated pedestrian and automobile traffic, which would become a central principle of Gruen’s later plans for shopping centers. Gruen, who shared with Bel

Geddes a background in theatrical staging, worked on a section called “Highways and

Byways of the Future,” thus playing a part in the invention of a national network of inter- state freeways. The exhibit demonstrated the ways in which urban planners and corporations could work in concert to refashion cities—but, as Gruen later lamented, it may have succeeded too well in selling the public on highways and cars.38

Gruen and the Refugee Artists Group

Gruen’s job with Wittbold, however, only lasted a few months, and by the winter of 1939 he was unemployed. But he was still busy: at the same time that Gruen was laying the foundations for his professional career in the United States, he was also attending to his theatrical passion by working to reconstitute his cabaret troupe from the

Kleinkunstbühnen (“Little Art Theaters”) in Vienna. The group would become the

“Refugee Artists Group” when its members reconvened as exiles in New York. Its members, who were mostly Jews, were sincere about the political potential of the theater:

“We felt that the catastrophe would come and raised our voices,” the group later recalled in a New York Playbill for one of its performances. “We hoped satire and pointed ridicule would kill the adversary.” Several members of the group were not as lucky as

38 Hardwick, 17-20; “Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for Petition for Naturalization,” form N-400, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (Edition of 1-13-41), box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Victor Gruen Associates,” Interiors, July 1960; “Biographical Data,” Outline to Public Relations Material for Book, n.d., box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; “Biography of the Founder," box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980," Gruen AHC; Marchand, Corporate Soul, 283- 310; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 83-5, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

389 Gruen. One of Gruen’s close friends, the writer Jura Soyfer, for example, was captured by the Gestapo while attempting to cross the Austrian border into Switzerland on skis; he was held in a concentration camp, Buchenwald, where he died in 1939 at the age of twenty-six.39

But for those who made it out of Austria—smuggling scripts and scores with them through Italy, Switzerland, and Prague—and to New York, there was a community of fellow refugees and sympathetic American Jews eager to welcome them, teach them

English, and integrate them into their community. Among their early supporters was

Albert Einstein, who knew Gruen personally, and who believed in the political power of the theater to help the American people in their “battle against the forces of fascism and race hatred.”40 Their supporters also included Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor,

Orson Welles, Harpo and Zeppo Marx, and the American lyricist Irving Caesar, who put new lyrics to music by the Viennese composer Rudolf Sieczyński in 1938. In counterpoint to the nostalgia of “Vienna Dreams,” Caesar wrote the heartbreaking

“Vienna Cries”: “Weep while the soul of Vienna dies, Out of her life the joy has fled,

Even the Blue Danube turns to red; Hushed are her melodies, Stilled are the hearts of the

Viennese, Night rides the skies, The world hides its eyes, While old Vienna dies.” Gruen kept a copy of the sheet music with a handwritten note from Caesar on the cover.41

39 “From Vienna,” Playbill, The Music Box, July 24, 1939, box 71, folder 6, Gruen LOC; “The Legacy of Jura Soyfer, 1912-1939,” promotional pamphlet for book (Engendra Press, Spring 1977), box 71, folder 23, Gruen LOC; “From Vienna and To a Reunion in New York,” New York Times, March 10, 1940; Sophie Steinbach, “From Jobless Refugee to Stage Manager,” Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 1940; “Friends of ‘Reunion in New York’” [stationery], n.d., box OV59, “Scrapbooks: Refugee Artists Group, Dec. 1939-June 1940, n.d.,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 39-45, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 40 Albert Einstein, letter to Refugee Artists Group, September 28, 1938, box 71, folder 4, Gruen LOC. 41 “Vienna Dreams (1937)/Vienna Cries (1938),” sheetmusic, English lyric by Irving Caesar, music by Dr. Rudolf Sieczynski (New York: Harms Inc., box 71, folder 6, Gruen LOC; “And Now ‘From Vienna,’” New York Times, June 18, 1939; “The Refugee Artists Group in Their Own Musical Revue, ‘From Vienna,’” [program] Music Box Theatre, June 20, 1939, box 71, folder 5, Gruen LOC.

390 In November 1938, the newly-incorporated Refugee Artists Group announced its plans for a theatrical revue to premiere in January of 1939—though the performance would not be ready until June.42 The group promised to “puncture, through the medium of satire, the spiritual decadence of race hatred, war, fascism and dictatorship.” The social-democratic ideology of the group was clear in its promotional manifesto, which promised a “unity” with the audience as well as a unity among the actors, dancers, musicians, directors, authors, and scene-builders: that is, among each member of the theater ensemble. They would produce their ideal form of theater, constituted by a

“union of workers, all equal and no one a star.”43 “We are a group,” said one of the members to a New York reporter. “We don’t star a single actor—we are starring the idea of a group and what you in America call teamwork, which means the ideal of the modern theatre to us.”44 Defying the American tradition of listing “Who’s Who” in the show program, a spokesman for the group explained: “Personalities don’t count with us.”45

Gruen, who at the time still went by the name Gruenbaum, was the general manager of the group in New York. He was among the first to arrive in the city, and he quickly set about assembling the members together and arranging their English lessons.46

They secured a playwright, George S. Kaufman, and a director, Herman Berghof, who arrived in February 1939. A fund had been arranged to take care of living expenses for

42 “Refugee Artists to Give Play Here,” Daily Mirror, November 3, 1938; “Program for Refugee Theatre,” The New York Times, November 10, 1938; “Refugee Artists to Produce Play,” Sunday Mirror, November 13, 1938. 43 “Refugee Artists Group: Aims and Purpose of the Refugee Artists Theatre,” [promotional brochure], n.d., ca. 1939, box 71, folder 6, Gruen LOC. 44 “‘All for One and One for All’ In Force at the Music Box: Viennese Refugee Artists Sign Agreement to Stick Together Two Years,” New York Post, June 23, 1939. 45 “ ‘Vienna’ Cast Puts Unity Before Ego,” New York Journal American, July 2, 1939. 46 Gruen recalled that he was the only one among the theater group who was completely unable to shed his thick Viennese accent. Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 89, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

391 the performers—who had taken a variety of jobs to make ends meet—while rehearsals were in progress.47 The Group, which claimed twenty-four members, even managed to get an exemption from the actors’ union. The special exemption allowed its players to pay a small fee in lieu of the normal dues and initiation fees, and given that it was a non- profit venture, the proceeds would partially go to aid other refugees.48 The Group began rehearsals in April, and by May they had secured a venue for their revue, the Music Box

Theatre, and announced the opening night: June 12.49

The reviews of the Group’s first revue, From Vienna, where generally positive, but they tended to focus on the lighthearted and comedic nature of the performance despite the difficult circumstances of the players, who were exiled from “what was once the center of European culture, Vienna,” according to one reviewer.50 It was, according to

The Nation, the first “successful appearance” of a refugee theater on Broadway.51 Like many reviews, the Daily Worker complimented the performers’ good English, and noted that the revue had no star; it was truly an ensemble production.52 The Wall Street Journal took pleasure in America’s acquisition of talented artists and intellectuals as a result of their forced exile from Germany and Austria.53 The New York Post was in awe of this

47 One of Gruen’s main incentives in arranging the performances was to provide much-needed jobs to his fellow refugees. “May 17 1974,” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; “And Now ‘From Vienna,’” New York Times, June 18, 1939; Michel Mok, “When Viennese Meets Viennese in Exile, They Turn Their Experience Into a Revue,” New York Post, June 14, 1939; “It’s Gemuetlich—Like Vienna,” New York World-Telegram, July 1, 1939; Joseph T. Shipley, “Keep It Up!” [review of “From Vienna”], unknown publication, n.d. [ca June 1939], box 71, folder 5, Gruen LOC. 48 “ ‘Wuthering Heights’ to Be Fourth Saturday Closing—Equity Sanctions Last Refugee Acting Group,” The New York Times, May 3, n.d. [probably 1939], box OV59, “Scrapbooks: Refugee Artists Group, Dec. 1939-June 1940, n.d.,” Gruen LOC; “Reunion in New York” [program for performance], box OV59, “Scrapbooks: Refugee Artists Group, Dec. 1939-June 1940, n.d.,” Gruen LOC. 49 “Refugee Actors of Vienna to Present Revue June 12,” New York World-Telegram, May 24, 1939; “Reunion in New York,” The Playbill, Little Theatre, February 21, 1940, box 71, folder 23, Gruen LOC. 50 Sidney B. Whipple, “Fine European Revue is Given by Exiled Actors,” New York World-Telegram, June 21, 1939. See also Wolcott Gibbs, “From Vienna,” The New Yorker, July 1, 1939. 51 Review of “From Vienna,” The Nation, July 22, 1939. 52 John Cambridge, “ ‘From Vienna’ Is Lively Revue by Refugee Group,” Daily Worker, June 22, 1939. 53 R. P. C., “Reunion in New York,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 1939.

392 group of “gay spirits” who had, according to the New York Times, “lost everything except their integrity as human beings.”54

The show ran for eleven weeks that summer of 1939, and on February 21, 1940 the Group premiered its second revue, Reunion in New York, at the Little Theater.55 The second show was as warmly reviewed as the first; many reviewers noted the good spirits of the troupe despite their difficult circumstances, as well as the players’ improved

English. While there were occasional jabs at “Hitlerism,” the show featured a bittersweet tribute to their lost city, including a stage set in a Viennese wine garden and a song-and- dance number called “A Party With Our Memories.”56

Getting Established in New York

Gruen’s first major commercial design job in the U.S. was for Ludwig Lederer, a fellow Viennese émigré who had fled the Nazis. The appropriately-named Lederer owned an eponymous chain of high-end leather goods retail shops in Europe, and he was looking to open his first store in the U.S. on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Lederer had admired Gruen’s storefront designs in Vienna, and he had been trying to track him down for weeks—but Gruen had no telephone. By chance, Lederer managed to hail the unemployed Gruen as he was wandering along Fifth Avenue, where he commissioned him on the spot. Because Lederer’s landlord insisted that the job be performed by a certified architect—a credential that Gruen lacked in the U.S. at the time—Morris

54 Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, “Strike a Balance,” New York Post, July 11, 1939; Brooks Atkinson, “The Revue ‘From Vienna,’ Adds to the Resources of Our Theatre,” New York Times, July 2, 1939. 55 “Vienna Exiles Find Broadway More to Liking,” New York Herald Tribune, February 18, 1940. 56 Richard Watts Jr., “Exiles,” New York Herald Tribune, February 22, 1940; Arthur Pollock, “‘Reunion in New York’ Is a Gracious Show,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 22, 1940; Wolcott Gibbs, review in The New Yorker, March 2, 1940.

393 Ketchum was brought on as Gruen’s partner. Ketchum agreed to put his name on the project as architect on the condition that Gruen assist him with another commission he had just received for a jewelry shop, Ciro, right next to the Lederer shop on Fifth Avenue.

Gruen rented half of Ketchum’s drawing table at his office, where the two designed the shops, both of which opened in 1939 to much acclaim from the architectural press.57

As he had done in Vienna, Gruen recessed the storefront of the Lederer shop, which he preceded with a deep arcade that was “dramatically lit” with a ceiling of ripple glass. Both sides of the mini-arcade were lined with glass display cases, and there was also a “table-type” case in the center.58 Famed architecture critic Lewis Mumford, writing for the The New Yorker, scoffed at the design as a “mousetrap” plan that would likely have “few imitators,” but Architectural Forum celebrated it as a “highly original interpretation” of the arcade-type of retail store that would distinguish the shop from the typical flush fronts along Fifth Avenue.59

The positive publicity from the Lederer job led to a series of other design jobs for

Gruen and Ketchum, including a menswear shop, a women’s wear boutique, and several candy shops. Gruen became known as a designer who blurred the lines between exterior and interior. For a furnishings shop on the Upper West Side, Gruen used an all-glass front and an illuminated interior to distinguish the storefront from others on the street that merely relied on “surface brilliance” to attract attention. In contrast, Gruen’s design

57 Hardwick, 23; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; “Biography of the Founder” [manuscript], box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1938-50 (2 of 6),” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 90-2, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 58 “‘Sets’ Star in New Accessor[y Shop?],” Women’s Wear Daily, June 9, 1939; “Lederer de Paris Front Is New Departure,” Women’s Wear Daily, June 16, 1939. 59 “The Sky Line: New Faces on the Avenue,” The New Yorker, September 9, 1939, 62-3; “Stores,” Architectural Forum, December 1939, 427.

394 looked “as though it had been picked up at some ultra-Continental spot and transported to this neighborhood section of New York,” according to one review.60 Gruen’s recessed storefronts and arcades, meanwhile, were both attractive and functional, from a sales point of view, by merging street with store—in effect “pulling” the sidewalk right into the store. Passersby were free to gawk without obstructing sidewalk traffic, and the arcades provided as much as three times as much display space as a flush store front. The design was highly economical for shops with little frontage, which was very common in New

York. Such displays also did a better job attracting the pedestrian’s eye than windows that were parallel to the street.61

Given their success, Ketchum had proposed that he and Gruen form their own architectural firm. However, after a discussion with his “blue-blooded” wife, Ketchum decided that he—as a native American of old Protestant, New England stock—could not become an equal partner with an immigrant like Gruen. He offered to hire Gruen as an employee, but Gruen declined, and the two went their separate ways.62 In November of

1939, Gruen instead formed a business partnership with the New York-born, Parsons- educated artist and designer Elsie Krummeck, whom he had met while working at Ivel.

Because neither of them had license to practice architecture, they called their firm

Gruenbaum & Krummeck, Designers.63

60 KEW, “Glamour in Glass...” Men’s Wear, November 1939, 24. 61 “What Makes a 1940 Store Obsolete?” Architectural Forum, August 1950. 62 Gruen’s Jewish identity was also likely a factor in Ketchum’s hesitation to establish an equal partnership. Ketchum himself went on to become a prominent designer of shopping centers, and he also became president of the Institute of American Architects. In that position, he bestowed upon Gruen the honorable title of “fellow.” Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 92-4, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 168-9, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC. 63 Victor Gruenbaum and Elsie Krummeck, “Face to face,” Apparel Arts, June 1940, 52; “Recent Work by Gruenbaum, Krummeck & Auer,” The Architectural Forum, September 1941; “Wives, February 26, 1974,” box 20, Gruen LOC; ; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1938-50 (2 of 6),” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; Guzzardi, “An Architect of

395 Several of Gruen and Krummeck’s earliest commissions came from fellow

Viennese émigrés, beginning with Stephen Klein, the proprietor of a chain of confectionery shops called “Barton’s Bonbonniere.” Gruen and Krummeck designed the first six stores for a chain that would grow rapidly in the 1940s. Their color scheme was intended to set off the color of the chocolate itself and produce a “playful state of mind” conducive to candy-buying. The “Continental decor” of the first store was designed to attract the patronage of recently-arrived Europeans in a Jewish neighborhood on the

Upper West Side, but the charming character of the store drew a broad clientele. Another of the new firm’s early jobs was for a Fifth Avenue candy shop, Altman & Kühne, which was also owned by Viennese refugees and right across the street from Gruen’s first shop,

Lederer. Gruen and Krummeck completely illuminated the interior of the shop by indirect fluorescent lighting, a novelty at the time. It was, according to one of many positive reviews in the architectural trade press, an example of the new trend toward using an entire shop interior “as the show window.”64

Gruen and Krummeck emphasized the theatrical elements of their storefront designs, which also functioned as a “constant advertisement” for a business. The retail merchants of New York put on “ten thousand glamorous little shows,” the stages of which

Environments”; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 95-6, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 64 “How a small chain grew,” Chain Store Age, March 1952, 27; “Gruen, Functional fantasy in a desert setting,” Interiors, June 1959; “Candy Shop for Altman & Kuhne, New York City,” The Architectural Forum, February 1940; “Fifth Avenue Candy Shop: Very Sweet,” The Store of Greater New York, n.d. [ca. 1939], box OV11, “Scrapbooks: General, Dec. 1935-Nov. 1965,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 95-9, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. An early innovator in the use of light in commercial settings was Frederick Kiesler, another Austrian émigré designer and architect famous for his simplified, “spotlighted” windows at Saks Fifth Avenue in the late 1920s. Kiesler was part of a group of designers inspired by the German Werkbund and Bauhaus movements who sought to improve the aesthetic quality of American mass-produced goods. William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 305-6; David Smiley, Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925-1956 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 40-43.

396 were the store fronts.65 Gruen and Krummeck believed that the purpose of their designs was to catch the interest of the “window-shy” shopper and bring her unconsciously into the shop. The arcade fronts, one of their trademark designs, were intended to create a sense of continuity between inside and outside. “The psychological effect of this system,” wrote the designers, “to overcome the ‘phobia’ of entering a store by minimizing the difference between the room where the customer stands already and the one he has to enter, should not be underestimated.”66 The designers employed glass doors and large windows to dispel the notion that the building was being entered, and the display cases in the arcade were generally on the same plane as the interior displays, furthering the illusion that there was no barrier between inside and out.67

To Los Angeles

Gruen’s business partnership with Elsie Krummeck was simultaneously a romantic partnership. His marriage to Lizzie Kardos had fizzled by the time they had arrived in the United States, and they had already been living apart for years when they legally separated in March of 1941. After staying a few weeks at a “Dude Ranch” in

Nevada, Gruen’s divorce was finalized in May, and by June he and Krummeck were married.68

65 The theatrics of merchandising, where spectacle took precedence over substance, was also a specialty of L. Frank Baum—best known as the author of the children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—who entered the discursive world of American commerce with his journal of shop display, The Show Window, which first appeared in 1897. Leach, Land of Desire, 56-61. 66 Victor Gruenbaum and Elsie Krummeck, “Face to face,” Apparel Arts, June 1940, 52. 67 Earl W. Elhart, “Novel Design Proves To Have Customer Pulling Power,” Women’s Wear Daily, February 24, 1941; Victor Gruenbaum, “The Case of Displayman Versus Store-Designer,” Display World 39, no. 3 (September 1941). 68 “Separation Agreement: Alice Kardos Gruenbaum with Victor Gruenbaum,” March 1941; “Victor Gruenbaum, plaintiff, v. Alice Kardos Gruenbaum, defendant,” decree of divorce, May 8, 1941; “We take great pleasure...” wedding announcement [ca. 1941], box 22, folder 16, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 104-7, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

397 By that time, the couple had moved from New York to Los Angeles to work on a large design commission for the California-based Grayson chain of ready-to-wear women’s apparel shops (known colloquially as “Grayson’s”). Gruen and Krummeck had accepted an offer from the company’s flamboyant owner, Walter Kirschner, to redesign the Grayson store in Seattle in 1940. They produced a dramatic, three-story, sleekly modern storefront capped by a giant “Grayson” sign. As they had done in New York,

Gruen and Krummeck fronted the store with an arcade of glass display cases, but on a scale unlike anything they had done before; it achieved the effect of “bringing the interior of the store outward,” according to one review. The team duplicated the Seattle design, complete with a “majestic entrance arcade,” in Santa Monica in November of 1940, the second of dozens of stores that Gruen and Krummeck would design for Grayson in the

1940s.69 The firm established a principal office in Hollywood and a branch in San

Francisco, and it added several associates, including Michael Auer, Karl Van Leuven, and

Rudi Baumfeld, Gruen’s childhood friend and longtime partner.70

As the United States entered the Second World War in December of 1941, Gruen applied for naturalization as a U.S. citizen. Yet as an “Alien Enemy” from a country that had become part of Germany, he was initially compelled to carry a special permit simply to travel by car in the Los Angeles area. However, in a letter to the U.S. attorney general in January of 1942, Gruen declared that he did not intend to register as an “enemy alien.”

69 Hardwick, 49-50; Wall, 37; “Design and Features of New Grayson Shop Delight Women,” Seattle Times, October 30, 1940; “Grayson’s ‘Most Unique Store In America’ Opens Here Tomorrow!” Evening Outlook [Santa Monica, California], Novermber 29, 1940; “Statement of Facts To Be Used by the Clerk in Making and Filing My Petition for Naturalization,” form 16-1131, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “May 17 1974," box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC. 70 Gruen was so close to Baumfeld that he listed him as a contact in case of death on his passport. “Passports—Gruen, Victor David, July 1961, Mar. 1966 (2 of 3),” box 23, folder 5, Gruen LOC; Hardwick, 49; Wall, 41; “Recent Work by Gruenbaum, Krummeck & Auer,” The Architectural Forum, September 1941; “the practical touch,” Designs, August 1947.

398 He claimed, quite correctly, that he was a “victim of the Nazi system,” and that he was in

“full agreement” with the fight against Hitlerism and Fascism. Gruen pleaded: “I desire to become a citizen of the United States as soon as possible.”71 Having married an

American citizen, his application for U.S. citizenship was expedited and approved on

June 25, 1943, at which time Viktor Grünbaum legally changed his name to “Victor

David Gruen,” truncating his Jewish surname but adding “David” to acknowledge that heritage.72

As the nation mobilized for war, Gruen and Krummeck mobilized for commerce.

Despite wartime restrictions on “strategic” building materials, they transformed the storefront with their bold designs for Grayson, which managed to attract customers traveling by automobile as well as those on foot. For a new Grayson store in Inglewood, for example, Gruen and Krummeck designed the store’s rear with equal attention to its front, given that so many customers traveling by car entered from the rear parking lot.

The front, meanwhile, was so spectacular that it “would not fail to attract the attention of a single passer-by, whether a pedestrian or a motorist,” according to one account: it featured a sixty-foot tower of chartreuse and white, accented with gold and sloping inward to an “island” showcase for pedestrian passersby. The Grayson contract was a blessing for Gruen and Krummeck, allowing them to get through the war years with a steady income.73

71 “Alien Enemy Permit to Travel,” issued by Wm. Fleet Palmer, United States Attorney, Department of Justice, Southern District of California, Los Angeles, January 12, 1942, box 22, folder 4, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruenbaum, letter to Mr. Francis Biddle, January 30, 1942, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 72 Hardwick, 57; Certification of Naturalization for Victor David Gruen, United States of America, No. 5677980, Petition No. 103272, signed by John A. Howe, June 25, 1943, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 107, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC. 73 “Famed Architect Embodies Unique Design in Grayson’s,” Inglewood Daily News, August 20, 1942; “Grayson’s, San Francisco, Calif.,” Chain Apparel Shop, October 1944, 89-91, box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 106, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

399 It was in the context of the war that Gruen first articulated the idea that he would become most famous for: the shopping center. In February of 1943, Gruen and

Krummeck were invited by Howard Myers, the publisher of the trade journal

Architectural Forum, to imagine the postwar future of retail architecture. The issue appeared during a “rather hopeless time period” during the Second World War, Gruen recalled, and it called on contributors to prophesy new buildings types for the year

“194X”—some more hopeful year in the near future. George Nelson, the managing editor of the Forum, shared Gruen’s enthusiasm for pedestrianization, but Gruen’s initial proposal for a large, regional shopping center exceeded the neighborhood scale that

Nelson had in mind. A revised proposal from Gruen and Krummeck maintained the essential pedestrian elements of the shopping center but brought it down in size.74

Just as they were designing the big and bold storefronts for Grayson, Gruen and

Krummeck imagined something very different in the shopping center, which they illustrated in a series of sketches submitted to the Forum. In contrast to the garish signs that were appearing in commercial strips along major highways, the exterior of the shopping center would be “modest” in character with the exception of its main entrance.

Rather than projecting its advertising appeals toward the street, the shopping center would be introverted: it would preserve the quiet sanctity of the residential streets and instead position its storefronts toward a landscaped courtyard surrounded by covered walkways—something like a cloister. Each shop would be permitted to express its individuality through its storefront, within agreed-upon limits, but their appearance would

74 Smiley, Pedestrian Modern, 148-59. Toward the end of his life, Gruen pointed to this opportunity to bring his vision “to paper” as the moment that he “invented” the shopping center. Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centres, Why, Where, How?” speech for Third Annual European Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centres, Hilton Hotel, London, February 28, 1978, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1978,” Gruen AHC.

400 be unified by the line of columns and common canopy. The shopping center was designed to protect the shopper from the hazards of automobile traffic and provide a

“restful atmosphere” for shopping. Parking spaces would be reserved on the periphery of the center, and all deliveries would occur “behind screen walls” so as not to disturb the pleasantness of the shopping experience. All of the stores would be connected by a covered walkway that would protect the shopper from the elements and integrate the stores. “Shopping thus becomes a pleasure, recreation instead of a chore,” wrote Gruen and Krummeck. Furthermore, the center would not be exclusively commercial: it would also include such things as a post office, library, dentists’ offices, and rooms for “club activities.” It would, in short, be more than a shopping center; it would be a community center.75

Gruen’s grand vision, however, would remain unrealized for another decade. In the meantime, Gruen and Krummeck continued to design stores for Grayson, which expanded beyond the West Coast with the purchase in December 1945 of Robinson’s

Women’ Apparel, a chain of 17 “popular-priced” dress shops.76 Gruen and Krummeck boasted that, because of their work, “no other chain can pride itself on a similar amount of publicity for the architectural features of their stores.” Yet they severed their

75 “Shopping Center: Gruenbaum & Krummeck, Designers, Hollywood, Calif.,” The Architectural Forum, May 1943; Victor Gruen, “The Shape of Things to Come,” speech at Chain Store Age 14th Annual Seminar, Marriott Motor Hotel, Philadelphia, February 26, 1968, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVI, 1968), Gruen AHC. 76 For the Philadelphia branch of Robinson’s on Market Street, Gruen and Krummeck dramatically remodeled the facade of an “ancient” (probably nineteenth-century) five-story dime-store building. They completely replaced the brick front with a sloped concrete face set with hundreds of thousands of pieces of glass mosaic which were illuminated by built-in louvered lights set in a canopy above. Upon this surface they placed a giant neon “Robinson” sign, the first letter of which was thirty-two feet high. The billboard-like storefront was designed to draw the attention of passing motorists as well as pedestrians on the opposite sidewalk. For passersby on the near side, Gruen and Krummeck included an arcade of glass display cases, which had become one of their trademark design features. “Dress Shop on Philadelphia’s busy Market Street makes its name a dramatic merchandising feature,” Architectural Forum, July 1947, 111

401 relationship with the company in 1948 as the result of a dispute over a design for a suburban store on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. Because they believed that the shop would receive very little foot traffic, Gruen and Krummeck proposed a simple, striking street front designed to catch the attention of drivers in automobiles. They planned an “open front treatment” for the rear parking lot elevation that would have made visible the entire store’s interior from the parking lot. But executives at Grayson-

Robinson insisted on arcades and show windows on the street front, as Gruen and

Krummeck had done in previous store designs. On principle, Gruen and Krummeck refused to comply, and they resigned from the project, ending their long relationship with the company.77

Gruen and Krummeck continued to design retail shops, including both their storefronts and interiors, throughout the 1940s and into the early 1950s, particularly in

California and the West. Their modern designs for Joseph Magnin shops—in such places as Sacramento, Oakland, and Palo Alto—integrated striking storefronts for passing motorists and intriguing street-level displays for pedestrians.78 In a 1947 design for a Los

Angeles furniture store on a major suburban boulevard with light pedestrian traffic,

Gruen and Krummeck produced a storefront with a colorful, angular design featuring a

“huge vertical fin” that served no purpose other than to attract the attention of passing

77 “Facade with a Flourish,” Business Week, September 14, 1946; Gruen & Krummeck Associates, “Architect Bites Client,” letter to the editor, Architectural Forum, February 1948; “Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1946, Grayson-Robinson Stores, Inc.,” March 31, 1947, box OV14, “Scrapbooks: General, Dec. 1935-Nov. 1965,” Gruen LOC. 78 “Public Is Bid To Preview Of Joseph Magnin Store,” The Sacramento Bee, September 3, 1946; “Modern Architectural Design for Sacramento: The Joseph Magnin New Store,” Architect and Engineer, December 1946, 12. A later Gruen design for a Las Vegas Magnin shop managed to incorporate the “vertical sweep of palm trees” into its architectural scheme, which resembled an Indian Pueblo. “Gruen, Functional fantasy in a desert setting,” Interiors, June 1959; “Another Novel Store Is Born in JM Family!” Oakland Tribune, November 25, 1948.

402 motorists.79 The designers were highly skilled at producing eye-catching facades that were, at the same time, tasteful and modern-looking. Their signs attractively integrated lettering and backgrounds, rather the focusing on large lettering alone—the “literary approach” that Gruen detested. And rather than treating the facade and interior as entirely separate features, Gruen made the case that modern architecture, as opposed to traditional architecture, integrated the two.80

Gruen and Krummeck were as attentive to interiors as they were to exteriors. For the men’s department of a California shoe store, Gruen and Krummeck affected a

“clubby” atmosphere that employed dark colors and carpet treatments to “strike a strong masculine note.” Their “easy-to-look-at” lighting fixtures had the effect of putting a shopper “in the mood to buy,” according to one reviewer in a menswear trade magazine.81

Gruen, a former manager of the theater, knew well how to use light to produce emotional effects, which were responses to environmental conditions that might arise naturally or artificially. He claimed to know how to use light to create a variety of sensations, “from awe-filled admiration to homey coziness, from cool efficiency to sweet romance.” New and more widely-available technologies, such as air conditioning and fluorescent lighting, aided designers in their efforts to produce the right environmental conditions; the retail space of the 1940s was transformed into the optimum platform for selling. In order to better showcase the merchandise, designers were able to cloak the functional elements of the shop, which disappeared or receded into the background.82 79 “Furniture Store in Los Angeles is designed for motorist attention and minimum cost,” Architectural Forum, April 1947, 88; “Modern store is roadside display case,” Chain Store Age, October 1947, 212. 80 Victor Gruen, “Debunking the Fads in Store Design With Some Grains of Common Sense,” Building Supply News, April 1948, 38-40. 81 “New C. H. Baker Store To Open in Glendale,” Valley Times, March 3, 1948; Joe Bevash, “Kutler’s: A Store that Sells Itself,” California Men’s and Boys’ Stylist, February 1949. 82 Victor Gruen, “Architects and Lighting Engineers Use Similar Approach to the Problem of Suitable Lighting,” Southwest Builder and Contractor, April 28, 1950; “What Makes a 1940 Store Obsolete?”

403 When addressing audiences of retailers and designers, Gruen was philosophical about the theatrical elements of the store, but he also expressed an intimate knowledge of the technical requirements to produce an almost magical effect on the shopper. He said that stores led a “double life,” as “factories with machinery” that were concealed by their

“gayer” side as showplaces for merchandise, designed inside and out with the intent of arousing consumers’ desires. Gruen maintained that the work of the designers of a commercial structure was not so different from the business of the theater in that it required a keen attention to “showmanship.” Gruen believed that an intelligent design could create the right “atmosphere”—a feeling of restfulness, luxury, and good taste— which would encourage shoppers, who were usually women, to linger longer and spend more money.83

The most complete realization of Gruen and Krummeck’s design ethos, which incorporated elements of their storefront and interior designs while, at the same, time nodding to Gruen’s later, more ambitious planning of shopping centers, was a new branch of the Milliron’s department store. The architects designed not only the building itself but also the store’s entire merchandising layout, including its furniture, fixtures, and a

Architectural Forum, August 1950; Victor Gruen, “The Case for The Flexible Ceiling,” Electrical West, September 1949. 83 This could be accomplished through technical means, such as “flexible” paneled ceilings which hid the purely functional “arteries and veins” of the building’s electrical, plumbing, and ventilation systems. Such ceilings also allowed the interior designer to arrange lighting systems exactly where they were needed, and to move them if necessary. This permitted merchants to arrange their goods without the interference of structural or mechanical impediments. Gruen would later apply this “flexible” design to other building types, such as supermarkets like Penn Fruit in Audubon, New Jersey, which employed “soaring, 114-ft laminated wood arches” to create a huge open space completely unobstructed by columns. “Commercial Buildings: Prototype Supermarket,” Progressive Architecture, July 1956; Victor Gruen, “Modernized Store Layout,” speech at Store Modernization Show, July 8, 1947, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Modernization for More Efficient Operation,” speech at N.R.D.G.A., San Francisco, June 14, 1948, ox 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Notes for Talk to Be Delivered to the Southern California Display Club,” May 26, 1949, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC.

404 color scheme that designated the departments. The large, one-story building, which opened in 1949, was located in the rapidly-developing suburban community of

Westchester in southern California. The municipality was only eight years old, spurred into existence by the nearby harbor and by the war-related industries of greater Los

Angeles. Unlike Grayson’s and the other stores that Gruen and Krummeck had designed, most of the customers at the new Milliron’s were expected to arrive by car. Attracting the attention of foot traffic was of secondary importance, and so there were no show windows in the building proper. Instead, there were four free-standing display cases, angled at thirty degrees to catch the attention of passing motorists. One of the building’s most striking features, hailed when the project was announced in 1947, was its distinctive rooftop parking lot with space for 220 cars. The rooftop was lined with shops on the periphery, and it featured a “penthouse” through which auto-borne shoppers would enter the store. The single-story design—though the building appeared to be two stories high from both street fronts—allowed the developer to save money on the “vertical transportation” (elevators and escalators) that would have been required for a three-story structure without loosing any parking space due to the larger footprint.84

The positive publicity from the novel design for Milliron’s, which “splashed large in architectural magazines all over the country,” coupled with ecstatic coverage of the

84 “Future Westchester Development of Milliron’s Department Sore to Feature Roof Parking,” Southwest Builder and Contractor, May 23, 1947, 16; “Milliron’s Reveals Plans for Store at Sepulveda, La Tijera Blvds.,” California Apparel News, June 20, 1947; “Notes Concerning ‘Economy in Design,’ Milliron’s Department Store,” Gruen and Krummeck, February 15, 1949, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Milliron’s – Modern at a Price” Stores, March 1949, 20- 1; Victor Gruen, “A New Kind of Department Store is Born,” speech at a private showing of Milliron’s Westchester Store, March 29, 1949, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; “New L.A. Store Has Parking Lot on Roof,” Business Week, April 23, 1949; “Something New in Stores,” Architectural Forum, June 1949, 105-11; Hardwick, 93; Victor Gruen, “Modernized Store Layout,” speech at Store Modernization Show, July 8, 1947, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC.

405 striking storefronts for Grayson-Robinson, made Gruen and Krummeck rising stars in the world of commercial architecture.85 But the partnership of Gruen and Krummeck would not last. As the firm’s contracts grew larger, Gruen’s personal and professional relationship with Elsie Krummeck began to deteriorate. By his account, although

Krummeck was an excellent artist and drawer, she began to feel “inferior” to Gruen as his celebrity status as a visionary architect grew, and in her devotion to their two children she lost interest in professional activities. They kept separate bedrooms and drifted apart, and

Gruen first suggested divorce in 1949. He believed that they would separate amicably, but when he confessed to an affair, Krummeck got a lawyer and managed to get a divorce on terms that Gruen believed to be unreasonable. Gruen was quickly remarried to the new object of his affections, Lazette Van Houten, an American fashion editor for the furnishings trade paper Retailing Daily.86

Gruen’s habit of mixing the business and personal sides of his life carried over to his new architectural firm, which, as a condition of its founding, jointly bore the responsibility of his rather substantial alimony payments to Elsie Krummeck. While

85 They would win other major contracts to redesign large department stores, such as the R.H. Macy & Co. store in Kansas City, where they introduced their “total flexibility” ideas in redesigning the ceilings, lighting fixtures, walls, and merchandising fixtures on several floors. Relative to the “frozen architecture” of the past, the new interiors made it easier for retailers to hide utilities and change displays based on the season, and to adjust to evolving consumer tastes. “Constructed for quick change,” Chain Store Age, January 1950; “Total Flexibility at Macy’s, Kansas City,” Stores, January 1950; “Branch Stores,” Stores, February, 1951, 44-5; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments.” 86 In this position, Van Houten had been a “prime mover” in the postwar home furnishings field, and she had covered Gruen’s work in the course of writing a series of articles in 1949 on how architectural changes were affecting home-goods production. Morris Pfaelzer, letter to Mrs. Elsie Gruen, March 14, 1951, box 66, Gruen LOC; “Modification Agreement,” July 20, 1951, box 22, folder 16, Gruen LOC.; “Marriage Certificate,” New York State, box 22, folder 16, Gruen LOC; “Life Facts About Names from the News: Gruen, Victor,” The Monthly Supplement [adjunct to Who’s Who], June 1953; “Simplicity of Forms Marks Selections for ‘Good Design,’” Retailing Daily, December 8, 1953; Mary Morris, “How Miss Van Houten Became Mrs. Gruen,” The Detroit News, February 15, 1954; “Miss Van Houten, 1st Fashion Editor, Of ‘Retailing’, Dies,” Home Furnishings Daily, July 17, 1962; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 109, box 76, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 114-18, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC.

406 Gruen had been working in the field of architectural design since his arrival in the U.S., he lacked a proper license until 1948, when he was finally certified as an architect in the state of California. The new credential, along with the severing his partnership with

Krummeck, made possible the founding of Victor Gruen Associates in 1950. Gruen conceived the new organization not as a traditional architectural firm, but rather as a team devoted to “environmental planning” that would be composed of specialists in a variety of disciplines. His partners included his old friend from Vienna, Rudi Baumfeld, who specialized in design; Edgardo Contini, a structural and civil engineer who was a refugee from fascist Italy; and Karl Van Leuven, a California-born draftsman and designer who had worked as an artist for Walt Disney, producing training and educational films for the

U.S. military.87

As his partnership with Krummeck headed toward dissolution, Gruen had been cultivating his public persona as a prophet of the suburban shopping center. Along with his former New York colleague Morris Ketchum, Gruen became one of the first planners and perhaps the most articulate advocate of a new concept: the regional shopping center organized around a pedestrian mall. In a series of trade journal articles and speeches in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Gruen laid out his idealistic vision for the postwar shopping center with much greater detail than he and Krummeck had done in their 1943 sketch in The Architectural Forum. Gruen lamented the loss of the pleasant character of the old, European-style marketplaces with the advent of the automobile, and his plan for 87 The other partners were Ben Southland, a planner; Herman Guttman, an industrial architect; and Beda Zwicker, a Swiss designers and architect. “Wives, February 26, 1974,” box 20, Gruen LOC; “Biography of the Founder” [manuscript], box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; “Victor Gruen Associates: Architecture, Planning, Engineering” [brochure], n.d. [ca. 1967], box 74, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Biographical Material – Gruen, Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1938-50 (2 of 6),” box 20, folder 18, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 214-5, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC.

407 the shopping center was designed to ameliorate this loss under the conditions of contemporary society.

Selling the Idea of the Shopping Center

Gruen was unimpressed by what passed for a “shopping center” in the late 1940s, and in 1949 he claimed that no center “in the real sense of the word” had yet been constructed. The so-called shopping centers that had been developed merely used the

“old formula” of “more or less correlated” stores on two sides of a busy highway.

Postwar suburban shopping areas were typically located in strips or “Miracle Miles” along main thoroughfares. These strips taxed shoppers’ nerves with noise, gasoline odors, the danger of crossing busy streets, and even by the steady reflection of moving objects—cars—in the show windows of stores. They were, Gruen said, nothing more than newly-created Main Streets with all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of the Main Street setup. While the downtown stores were designed to serve the pedestrian, suburban stores served only the driver, yet developers had failed to change the design of shopping centers for the suburban context. They made no attempt to incorporate themselves into the character of the residential neighborhood, and they employed garish designs in a “never-ending race” to attract the attention of shoppers. “A suburban store wants to become part of the community,” Gruen maintained. “It should fit into the community by its architectural treatment, just as well as by its neighborly merchandising methods.”88

The main design feature of the shopping center was to segregate pedestrian traffic

88 Victor Gruen, “What’s Wrong With Store Design?” Women’s Wear Daily, October 18, 1949, 62; Victor Gruen, “What to look for in shopping centers,” Chain Store Age, July 1948; Victor Gruen, “Yardstick for shopping centers,” Chain Store Age, February 1950.

408 from automobile traffic, parking, and store deliveries in order to create “psychological comfort” for shoppers. The stores of a shopping center did not face the street; instead, they lined colonnades that surrounded a central courtyard or landscaped area—the mall that would later become a synecdoche for the total idea of the shopping center. The mall would be “enlivened” by such things a kiosks and juice stands, and it would be landscaped with trees, shrubbery, flower beds, and fountains, giving it the character of a large park. “It is difficult to prove that a tree ever sold one penny’s worth of merchandise,” said Gruen, but “the eye needs respite from observing thousands of cars and large groups of buildings.” The communal atmosphere would be encouraged through benches, walkways, and public announcement boards, which would invite “leisurely shopping.” This “inward-looking” orientation was intended to create a restful atmosphere in which patrons would spend long periods of time strolling, socializing, having meals, and, of course, purchasing goods. Rather than a strip of individualized stores, patrons would tend to think of the complex as a whole, and the mall plan with shops on both sides had the advantage of doubling the frontage along any particular strip.89

From the perspective of the shopper, nothing was to interfere with the pleasantness of the shopping experience. All of the service areas, utilities, and functional elements of the shopping center were to be hidden from the shopping areas. Service roads would run on a lower level to underground receiving areas, and in no place would the service roads cross any roads or walkways that were used by customers. Foot traffic

89 Victor Gruen, “What to look for in shopping centers,” Chain Store Age, July 1948; Victor Gruen, “Yardstick for shopping centers,” Chain Store Age, February 1950. See also chapter 11, “No Automobile Ever Bought a Thing,” in Richard Longstreth, City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997).

409 would be directed from the parking lots to the center, and direct access to individual stores would not be permitted from the parking areas. This was an important element of the plan: shoppers would be exposed to other shops even if they only intended to visit one, and the single entrance and exit to shops facilitated the proper display of “impulse” items. The shopping center was imagined to be more than the sum of its parts: individual stores would benefit from being part of a collective, and they would also be served by the co-location of a large department store, which would serve as an “anchor.” The entire development would have a cohesive architectural treatment, and tenants would be subject to certain restrictions on the size of signs, the use of neon, and the choice of colors and materials in storefronts. Yet they would be given the freedom to express their individuality so long as they did it in a “harmonious and esthetically pleasant manner.”

Gruen proposed other amenities such as theaters, exhibit halls, public meeting rooms, and even nurseries where mothers could deposit their small children as they shopped.

Overall, the center was designed to be more that just a place for suburbanites to shop; they would associate it with “all activities of cultural enrichment and relaxation,” according to Gruen.90

Gruen’s innovative plans began to attract the attention of developers. He was hired in 1950 by the Houston developer Russel Nix to design a very large shopping center in Houston that was to be called “Montclair.” Gruen’s ambitious design for

Montclair, which he completed with Houston architect Irving Klein, featured a covered, air-conditioned mall that was seventy feet wide and nine hundred feet long. The fully enclosed mall would be entirely separated from automobile traffic. Montclair was to

90 Victor Gruen, “What to look for in shopping centers,” Chain Store Age, July 1948.

410 have an underpass that would eliminate pedestrian crossings and would provide a service function by permitting access for trucks. The center was to be anchored by a “major” department store and a “junior” department store, along with several variety stores.

However, the design was, perhaps, too forward-looking, and its financing ultimately fell through. In the process, though, Gruen met Lawrence Smith, a real estate analyst and economic advisor who would become a key partner of Gruen’s in the coming years.91

With the help of Smith, Gruen’s concept of the shopping center would evolve to become a social theory and a financial arrangement as well as an architectural plan.

Writing in 1952 in the journal Progressive Architecture, Gruen and Smith defined the shopping center as a “conscious and conscientious cooperative effort by many private commercial enterprises to achieve a specific purpose: more and better business.” But while the center was a cooperative commercial enterprise, it would also serve a social function to fill the “vacuum” created by the absence of civic “crystallization points” in the suburbs. Gruen and Smith acknowledged that the city centers were shrinking, both in terms of population and social importance, while the suburbs were expanding. The regional shopping center would serve as a “satellite” downtown area to provide the social function of a city center for suburbanites. But it was also an opportunity to build a better downtown, designed “scientifically” to disguise the “ugly rash” on the body of cities: the utilitarian elements—smoke stacks, electrical lines, roadways and their signage—that had been put in place ad hoc. In contrast, the shopping center would be a planned, coordinated design that would produce a pleasing atmosphere with “magnetic powers” to attract people and keep them there. It would be a pedestrian oasis in an automobile age,

91 Hardwick, 111-15; Mickey Jones, “109-Store Houston Shopping Center Of 1952 to Feature Pedestrian Mall,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 3, 1951.

411 with conformity—but not uniformity—as its aim. Gruen drew inspiration from his native

Vienna as well as Turkish and Arabian bazaars and the commercial arcades of nineteenth- century Paris, which were the product of a cooperative effort by merchants to create a safe, weather-protected space for shoppers.92 While he accepted the dominance of the

“auto-borne” consumer in postwar suburban life, he ultimately aimed to extract that consumer from her car for a pleasant stroll along a shopping mall.93

The idea of a shopping center, which was sometimes referred to by other names such as a “suburban retail district,” began to take hold in the trade press. Its advantage over existing arrangements was that it facilitated “one-stop” shopping for suburbanites.

The deliberate placement of competitive stores in the same district was based on the belief among many retailers that American housewives liked to compare prices at several shops before committing to a purchase. Gruen wanted to create a “balanced store grouping” and a “harmonious interplay between stores,” but he also recognized the role of “private initiative” in the American system. The counterintuitive idea of “planning for competition” was intended to produce efficiencies in the distribution of retail goods that would, ultimately, benefit all vendors at a particular site. Gruen argued that such centers

92 Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish intellectual and associate of the “Frankfurt School” scholars, became engrossed in the topic of the Paris arcades—as well as other commercial and urban ephemera from the nineteenth-century world—mostly during the period that he spent exiled in Paris in the 1930s. What would probably have been his masterpiece was never completed (Benjamin committed suicide in 1940 in a failed attempt to flee France via Spain), and the sheaves of organized notes that composed the work were hidden in the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris by Georges Batailles during the Second World War. The manuscripts were later recovered by Benjamin’s friend Theodor Adorno, and they were eventually published as the Passagen-Werk, finally translated into English as the Arcades Project in 1999. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans Howard Eiland and Kevin Mclaughlin [prepared on the basis of the German volume edited by Rolf Tiedemann] (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999). 93 Victor Gruen and Lawrence P. Smith, “Shopping Centers, the New Building Type,” Progressive Architecture, June 1952; Victor Gruen, “The Planning of Shopping Centers,” Michigan Society of Architects Monthly Bulletin, February 1952, 15-25, box OV19, “Scrapbooks: General, Dec. 1935-Nov. 1965 (9 of 32),” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “The chains’ stake in planning the center,” Chain Store Age, May 1954; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 14.

412 should be anchored by a “branch” department store—that is, a suburban outpost of a downtown store. The theory was that the co-location of a diverse assortment of shops around a large, well-known department store, would be beneficial for both the shops and the department store. The specialty shops would benefit from the draw of the department store, while the department store could exert control over surrounding commercial developments in the context of the shopping center.94

Northland

By the late 1940s, Gruen was commuting frequently between Los Angeles and

New York on business, and one day in 1948 he found himself stranded in Detroit, where his plane had made an emergency landing due to bad weather. He decided to make use of his time by visiting the famous J.L. Hudson department store. The mammoth Hudson’s was a landmark in downtown Detroit: at a block square and twenty-five stories high, it was the tallest store in the world. Yet even an institution like Hudson’s was threatened by the new wave of postwar suburbanization and the trend to decentralization, driven by the democratization of automobile transportation. Though he was warned that it would be impossible for an outsider, and particularly a Jew, to get a meeting with Oscar Webber, the president of the company, Gruen was persistent in engaging Webber’s subordinates, and eventually, on a later visit to Detroit, Gruen got a meeting with Webber himself.

Although Webber was a conservative Republican and, by some accounts, an anti-Semite,

Gruen managed to convince him of the wisdom of planning suburban branch stores

94 “Suburban Retail Districts,” Architectural Forum, August 1950; Victor Gruen, “New Trends in Branch Store Design,” address at the National Convention of the N.R.D.G.A., New York City, March 3, 1953, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Twelve Check Points for Regional Planned Center,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 28, 1953; Victor Gruen, letter to Peggi, received from Vienna, October 13, 1964, box 4, folder “Speeches – Jan 1964-Nov 1965,” Gruen AHC.

413 around his own “shopping towns,” and that Gruen was the man for the job. This gave

Webber the opportunity to take on the role of more than a merchant: he could become a civic leader. Gruen called Webber “one of the greatest men” he had ever met, explaining that he was one of the “merchant princes” of America whose business was also an expression of family pride, handed down like an empire from generation to generation.95

Webber’s shopping centers would be named for their location relative to Detroit:

Northland, Eastland, Westland, and Southland. The plan for the first of four branch stores, Eastland, was announced in the summer of 1950, and it was originally scheduled to open in 1952. The plan called for a Hudson’s store with a circular layout at the end of a ring of shops upon colonnaded walkways facing an inner parking lot. Gruen’s cylindrical design for the Hudson’s store was intended to conceal stock rooms on the periphery, while the parking lot at the center of the ring was intended to put shoppers close their destination. This design, however, contradicted Gruen’s ideal of an automobile-free pedestrian mall at the heart of the shopping center. Fortunately, for

Gruen’s legacy, progress on the Eastland development was stalled in late 1951 because of zoning obstacles and the onset of the Korean War, which introduced new restrictions on building materials. Instead, work proceeded on the Northland development, which had been approved by municipal officials. The plan, which included an interior courtyard rather than a parking lot, was much truer to Gruen’s ideal of the shopping center.96

95 Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 121-8, 181 box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC. 96 “Huge New Shopping Center Sets Detroiters Buzzing,” Automobile Facts XII, no. 9 (December 1953): 4-5; Hardwick, 106-11; “Biographical Material – Gruen Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1951-68 (3 of 6),” box 20, folder 19, Gruen LOC; James E. Boynton, “J.L. Hudson to Build Huge Shopping Area On Detroit East Side,” Detroit Sunday Times, June 4, 1950; “Ends and Beginnings,” Stores, July 1950, 40-1; Victor Gruen, “Circular Store for Traffic Flow,” Chain Store Age, July 1951; “Hudson Shifts Its Shopping Center Plans,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 26, 1951; “Shopping Cluster Near a Defense Center,” Progressive Architecture, December 1951, 15; Victor Gruen, “Regional Shopping Centers and Civilian Defense: A Memorandum With Special Reference to the Eastland Shopping Center in Detroit,” Gruen and Krummeck, 1953, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches,

414 Gruen introduced his plan for Northland to the Detroit Chapter of the American

Institute of Architects in January of 1952.97 The plan called for sixty different types of merchandising and service facilities, ranging from dress shops to cigar kiosks, with parking space for 5,500 customers’ cars and 900 employee cars. The entire center would cover eighty acres, but an additional 100 acres surrounding the plot would be held “in reserve” as a buffer against the residential area, and for the future expansion of the center’s shops and parking lots. Northland was designed specifically for the customer behind the wheel, but the design strictly segregated customer car traffic from delivery truck traffic, which was directed to underground tunnels. Each store would have access to these basement loading docks. The shops would also be integrated by a central heating and air conditioning system.

Gruen also designed a space for pedestrians at the core of the center that would be completely free of automobiles—the signature feature of his centers. Covered colonnades would provide protection from the weather for shoppers. The spaces between buildings would follow the pattern of European cities: they were landscaped as parks, courts, plazas, and malls that would provide a commercial-free respite from shopping.

The Hudson’s branch store—at 470,000 square feet, it would be the largest ever built— would be at the heart of the store group, surrounded on three sides by tenant buildings.

The idea was to direct customers through the inner malls with the hope of creating an intensity of pedestrian traffic “comparable to downtown streets.” While each shop along the mall would be free to express its own character, all would be subject to certain

Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 23; Smiley, Pedestrian Modern, 190. 97 Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centers,” address delivered before the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in Detroit, January 16, 1952, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC.

415 controls designed to create a pleasant harmony rather than a “dissonant” relationship between adjacent shops.98 A standard lettering type for all signs, set in Mondrian-like frames, was created by a graphics consultant to further integrate the collection of shops.

Gruen also believed that the shopping center should be a community “focal point,” and so his plans included club rooms, meeting halls, a public auditorium, a common kitchen, public toilets, and a nursery “where children can be checked while Mother shops.”99

The opening of Northland in March of 1954, six years after Webber’s decision to build the four regional centers, was a major event. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had been given a preview tour, marveled that the designers of Northland had maintained a park- like atmosphere, complete with large-scale modern artworks, despite the center’s

“combination of every type of shop which can be found in the center of town.”100 At a press review of Northland a week before its opening, Gruen acknowledged that it was not the first shopping center to be built, but it was the largest: it featured the biggest branch store and the greatest number of shops on the largest site ever acquired. More importantly, though, Northland was the first true realization of the shopping center concept. Almost as important as the buildings were the spaces between the buildings: the courts, malls, terraces, and lanes that resembled the market squares of European cities or the commons of old colonial towns. Distinct from the few existing shopping centers, such as John Graham’s Northgate center near Seattle, Northland employed a “cluster”

98 Gruen claimed that tenants initially resisted the restrictions on their signage, but they ultimately expressed relief that they had been freed from the obligation of trying to outdo each other. Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 31. 99 “Northland Center” [planning book], n.d., box 22, folder “Shopping Centers – Northland Center (Detroit, MI), 1954”), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 28. 100Eleanor Roosevelt, “ ‘Model’ Suburban Town at Detroit Interesting,” New York World-Telegram & The Sun, February 9, 1954; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 26.

416 organization of buildings that avoided long, linear malls and great walking distances.

Also important was the space around the center—300 acres owned by the developer to control future developments that would create a “harmonious link” between Northland and the surrounding area.101

When it opened on March 22, the $22.5 million, 80-store Northland center was an immediate sensation for the shopping public, exceeding all sales expectations with daily visits averaging 40 to 50 thousand customers. It was also revelation for architects and developers. Architectural Forum called it a “planning classic” on the level of Rockefeller

Center in New York; it was the “first modern pedestrian commercial center” based on the

“market town” plan that was both physically and psychologically suited to shopping. In this sense, it was a “rediscovery” rather than an invention; it had all of the “visual vigor” of downtown but with an architectural unity imposed by Gruen. Even the center’s public sculptures were, according to Gruen, an “integral portion” of the architectural treatment of the outdoor space. Northland was immediately recognized as a potential model for city planners looking to revitalize “blight-spotted decaying shopping districts” downtown. “The things we learn in building shopping centers are the things that can save the cities,” said Gruen.102

Reviews in the popular press were equally enthusiastic. The journalist Dorothy

Thompson, writing for the Ladies Home Journal, called Northland a “tiny city” and a

“model of enlightened planning.” It was a the perfect example of “social co-operation” between merchants, architects, sculptors, artists and civic-minded citizens, and yet it was

101Victor Gruen, speech at press review of Northland, March 15, 1954, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Smiley, Pedestrian Modern, 196-216. 102“Northland Center, Detroit,” Michigan Tradesman, March 24, 1954; “Northland: a new yardstick for shopping center planning,” Architectural Forum, June 1954; Sterling Soderlind, “Architect Says Southdale Planned as ‘Cultural Center’ for Its Patrons,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, March 14, 1954.

417 “entirely the creation of private enterprise” While shopping had been typically regarded as an exhausting activity—a job—Thompson managed to shop at Northland for six hours, she claimed, without feeling any fatigue. The labor of shopping was transformed into the pleasure of consumption.103 Life magazine called it the “most elegant” of the new shopping centers in the U.S., having the air of a bazaar with its fanciful sculptures, fine architecture, music, and “pure gaiety.” Family Circle observed that this “spirit of gaiety” created an atmosphere friendly to children and adults alike. McCall’s profiled a resident of suburban Detroit who exclaimed that Northland was “like a park with stores!” that made shopping “fun” to the extent that even her husband was eager to join her on

Saturday shopping trips. About a year into its operation, the New York Times called

Northland a “fabulous success” that was projected to have sales of $80 million for the first year, $30 million more than initial projections. By 1960, the 50,000 shoppers who daily visited Northland—accommodated by 10,000 parking spaces—would be driving more than $100 million in annual sales.104

The project was such a success that Hudson rushed ahead with plans for its second center in suburban Detroit: Eastland. Unlike the Northland project, which had been an unproven concept, Eastland faced virtually no community opposition. Like many shopping centers that Gruen would design, Eastland was built on the Northland paradigm: the planning principle that “clusters” or “human activity nuclei” were a solution to the “false” living pattern of roadways flanked by human structures, which had

103Dorothy Thompson, “Commercialism takes—and wears—a new look,” Ladies Home Journal, June 1954. 104“20th Century Bazaar,” Life, August 30, 1954; “Adventure in Shopping,” Family Circle, September 1954, 49; Eleanor Pollock, “The $290 Pair of Shoes,” McCall’s, March 1955; “Sales of Center Surprise Owners,” The New York Times, February 22, 1955; “Victor Gruen: Biographical Data,” n.d. [ca. 1963], box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC.

418 developed organically, not purposefully, in cities. But while Northland served a mostly middle-class suburban community, the Eastland area was adjacent to relatively high- income and relatively low-income communities. Such diverse groups could mix harmoniously in the informal atmosphere of the shopper center, according to the ideal.

Indeed, class distinction was antithetical to the community atmosphere that mall was supposed to create.105

Shopping Center Evangelism

Even before Northland opened in 1954, Gruen had become an evangelist for the concept of the shopping center through his appearances in the popular media, his writing in trade publications, and through his speaking engagements at professional conferences.

On a daytime television program broadcast in New York in 1953, Gruen explained his shopping center design, with its many pedestrian malls and courts, to an audience of housewives: “We can really shop in a park. And you can imagine what that means to the housewife who doesn’t have to worry that she has kids all over the street and get run over, who doesn’t hear the noise of automobiles and smell the fumes they make.”106 The shopping center concept was a revelation for the suburban housewife: not only did it

105Mike Kraft, “Eastland....The Multi-Million Dollar Shopping Center,” Michigan Architect and Engineer, August 1957 10-15; “Three successful shopping centers,” Architectural Forum, October 1957, 110-8; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 182, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC. 106“ Victor Gruen Shows Model Shopping Center of the Future,” transcript, Radio Reports, Inc., January 25, 1953, box 71, folder 2, Gruen LOC. On a New York radio program, Gruen emphasized his aim to strictly segregate pedestrian and automobile traffic in order to create spaces where people could “promenade like people used to promenade in the old days and as they still do in some of the European cities.” Gruen introduced the concept of a fully enclosed shopping center he was planning in Minneapolis, where the pedestrian malls were heated in winter and air-conditioned in summer to create a climate of “eternal spring.” “Future on File,” radio broadcast over WEVD, New York, 11:00 p.m., February 26, 1953, transcript for Ruder & Finn Associated by Radio Reports, Inc., New York, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC.

419 bring downtown to the suburbs, but it was a better downtown, allowing her to park in one spot and stroll through arcades and plazas that were completely free of the congested motor traffic that had come to plague downtown. The New York Times Magazine called it a “woman’s dream world: an isolated, coordinated, well-designed, comfortable arrangement of nothing but shops and service.” It was a national “retail revolution” in the suburbs, where developers were creating completely new business districts in the form of shopping centers to serve the new population.107

Gruen was not the only shopping mall designer. The first shopping center implemented in a “completely planned fashion” was Seattle’s Northgate, designed by

John Graham, which opened in 1950. Gruen’s former colleague Morris Ketchum was also busily designing centers, and his Shoppers’ World opened near Boston in 1951. But

Gruen was, perhaps, the most articulate and visionary, and his firm had completed fifteen shopping center designs by the fall of 1954.108 By the fall of 1955, in addition to the large regional centers like Northland, there were an estimated 1,000 smaller shopping centers in operation with another 2,000 under construction or in the planning stage. The new centers served a surging suburban population, which was growing at four times the rate of the country as a whole.109

From 1954 to 1955, the American Federation of Arts sponsored a traveling exhibition in the U.S. and Canada, “Shopping Centers of Tomorrow,” which was prepared by Gruen’s firm, Victor Gruen Associates (VGA). The exhibit was designed to 107C. B. Palmer, “The Shopping Center Goes to the Shopper,” New York Times Magazine, November 29, 1953, 15; “Suburban Mart Starts Retail Revolution,” New York Herald Tribune, October 31, 1954. 108“Living by Design,” television broadcast over WOR-TV, 10:00 p.m., January 19, 1954, transcript prepared for Ruder & Finn Associates by Radio Reports, Inc., New York, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Shape of Things to Come,” speech at Chain Store Age 14th Annual Seminar, Marriott Motor Hotel, Philadelphia, February 26, 1968, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVI, 1968), Gruen AHC. 109Genevieve Smith, “Shopping centers: more, bigger, better,” Printers’ Ink, November 25, 1955, 21.

420 educate the public, as well as businessmen and community planners, on the commercial potential and social value of future shopping center developments. It featured twenty- two display units of photographic murals, architectural drawings and renderings, scale models, and a slide film narrated by Gruen. The exhibit clearly served the business interests of Gruen’s firm by traveling to cities where Gruen had commissions, including

Minneapolis, Detroit, Oakland, and Wichita. It included models of VGA-designed centers and previews of in-the-works projects like the indoor “Southdale” shopping center in suburban Minneapolis. Despite its future-orientation, the exhibit also examined the town marketplaces and bazaars that were the historical precedents for the concept of the modern shopping center. Gruen, as spokesman for his firm, insisted that shopping centers would serve a social and civic function as well as a commercial purpose; they were a form of democratized architecture for the people.110

The development of shopping centers presented an opportunity for businessmen like Oscar Webber to take on the role of community leaders responsible for fashioning the public life of the suburbs as they integrated it with their own commercial interests.

They could also claim to be serving the national interest through the Cold War-era ideal

110The exhibit’s promoters promised that shopping centers would provide “more leisure through greater efficiency plus cultural and social facilities” that would become centers for suburban family social and community life—as well as shopping. Shopping centers were described as satellite downtowns that offered the full range of retail outlets without the trouble, noise, and danger of downtown. Unlike downtown, the shopping center provided a safe, car-free place for mothers to take their children. “Exhibition Charts a Better Way of Life,” American Federation of Arts presents Shopping Centers of Tomorrow: A Group of Architectural Studies by Victor Gruen Associates [advance press release], ca. 1954, Box OV-1, Gruen LOC; “Shopping Centers of Tomorrow,” American Federation of Arts Traveling Exhibitions, 1954-1955 [brochure], box OV-1, Gruen LOC; “Victor Gruen Associates, Shopping Centers of Tomorrow: An Architectural Exhibition” [exhibition brochure], circulated by American Federation of Arts, 1954, box OV-1, Gruen LOC; “Model Shopping Center Coming Here This Summer,” Boston Globe, February 7, 1954; “Traveling exhibition brings design to the public,” Progressive Architecture, July 1954; “Shopping Center Birth Told At Art Institute,” The Dayton Daily News, August 8, 1954, box OV-1, Gruen LOC; “Exhibit of Shopping Centers,” New York Times, October 19, 1954; “Future Shoppers to Buy in Ease,” Newsday [Garden City, N.Y.], October 29, 1954; Sterling Soderlind, “Architect Says Southdale Planned as ‘Cultural Center’ for Its Patrons,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, March 14, 1954.

421 of “decentralization,” the process of preparing for the threat of bombing attacks by dispersing the population to the lightly-populated suburbs. Gruen explained that the growth of the suburbs was, “from a defense point-of-view, a desirable factor as it spreads the population of our big cities over a large area, less vulnerable to bombing attacks than crowded city areas are.” But Gruen argued that the suburbs still needed “crystallization centers” that could be used as relocation, evacuation, and welfare service centers in the the case of emergency. It would be unlikely, Gruen argued, that public funds would become available for such centers, but regional shopping centers—which were useful in peacetime as well—could serve this purpose. They were built with very large parking lots and basements for utilities and deliveries which could double as fallout shelters in the case of nuclear warfare.111

Gruen was more than an architect or contractor—he was the spokesman of a movement for a “truly new building type.” Because the shopping center was a new concept, he had to convince town planners, developers, financiers, and the general public that the idea had both commercial and social value, and that there was a right way to do it that required “conscientious, scientific planning.” He spoke out against the “archaic hodgepodge” of unplanned, “anarchistically-growing” shopping districts in favor of his planned, integrated shopping centers which avoided the “honky-tonk” appearance of such

“helter-skelter” developments. Rather than one long mall, Gruen’s many malls and courts made more efficient use of space and increased customer traffic. Gruen sometimes

111“Tomorrow’s Landscape: The Planned Shopping Center,” California Stylist, January 1956, 260-1, 287. Victor Gruen, “Notes for a Regional Conference on the Effect of Current War Conditions on Real Estate Market and Valuation Problems; Notes for the introduction of Mr. Foster Winter by the Chairman,” speech, n.d., ” “Defense on the Periphery,” speech at the National Convention of the A.I.A. in Chicago, May 8, 1951; Victor Gruen, “Regional Shopping Centers and Civilian Defense: A Memorandum With Special Reference to the Eastland Shopping Center in Detroit,” 1953. Box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1, Gruen AHC.

422 also “stacked” his shopping streets with two-levels of storefronts facing his malls, effectively doubling the selling space. The centralization of services and utilities, furthermore, made operations cheaper for tenants and allowed them to devote their space completely to merchandising.112

Gruen understood the shopping center as the organization of separate architectural elements into an integrated whole that was coordinated with the surrounding area and its sociological composition. He made the case for “premerchandising”: the deliberate selection of tenants to produce a balanced retail market that maintained competition while avoiding redundancies. Premerchandising was one of many ways in which the planned shopping center relied on the studies of economic analysts, traffic consultants, and other specialists who lent their knowledge to the planning of the center. Gruen did not withhold his disdain for the unplanned, haphazard suburban development of the postwar years, and he laid much of the blame for the “vast desert” of unhappy shopping on the

“tyranny” of the automobile. When Northland was built and its success was proven,

Gruen had a ready example of his ideal of the planned shopping center that was predicated on the separation of automobile and shopper and the pleasant atmosphere of the pedestrian malls. Despite the prevalence of the automobile, Gruen insisted that people still were not only willing but happy to walk—so long as they were in a pleasant environment. Centers like Northland were, according to Gruen, the natural heirs the

Greek agora and European and New England towns where commerce, culture, and society were woven together in a town center. And the shopping center idea was not just

112Victor Gruen, “Financing Shopping Centers,” address delivered at the Annual Savings and Mortgage Conference of the American Bankers Association at the Statler Hotel, New York City, March 4, 1953, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; “$25 Million Shopping Center Is Announced,” Independent [Pasadena, CA], May 3, 1953; Victor Gruen, “Twelve Check Points for Regional Planned Center,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 28, 1953.

423 for the suburbs: Gruen immediately recognized the shopping center as a model for the redevelopment of American downtowns, a mission that would come to define his later career. He distanced himself from architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, who had, he claimed, all but abandoned the city.113

Gruen was well aware that his arguments for the planned shopping center went against the grain of a dominant American ideology that resisted the idea of planning, which he understood as the “application of wisdom and heart to the task of organizing and regulating the relations between people and people, people and nature, people and machine.”114 Gruen noted that Americans were, despite this ideology, excellent planners: they planned their suburban homes, their assembly lines, and their office buildings. Yet these were relatively contained entities, and a persistent idea of “rugged individualism” often frustrated attempts to plan on a grander scale, so that “our homes receive pure air by air conditioning and the public air becomes more polluted; our private garden plots bloom while our public parks wither; and as our TV screens grow larger, audiences in theatres and museums dwindle.”115 But business leaders’ resistance to planning was not only misguided, according to Gruen; it was a willful negation of the real history of planning. “Few people seem to realize that all of our American cities are the products of

113“Northland: A Regional Shopping Center for Detroit, Michigan,” Michigan Society of Architects Monthly Bulletin, March 1954, 33-48, box 27, folder “Shopping Malls – Northland (Detroit, MI), 1954- 1955,” Gruen AHC; “Shopping Centers,” Art Digest, November 15, 1954; Victor Gruen, “Dynamic Planning for Retail Areas,” Harvard Business Review 32 (November-December 1954): 53-62. 114Victor Gruen, “City Planning for the Year 2000,” address at Cooper Union, New York City, January 9, 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC. 115Victor Gruen, “The City in the Automobile Age,” Perspectives USA 16 (Summer 1956): 45-54. A couple of years later, the Canadian-American John Kenneth Galbraith famously observed the disharmony between American conceptions of public and private goods: “The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground.” John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998 [original 1958]), 187-8.

424 planning,” insisted Gruen. “Thus, we planners are not suddenly proposing to force organically grown human environment into the strait jacket of planning; we are only suggesting that it is imperative to bring old, out-moded plans up to date.” For Gruen, the architecture of the shopping center was a way to exert discipline on the individual expressions of shop owners who, when left unrestrained, produced “the ugly rash of blatant signs, blinking cascades of neon, paper streamers” that lined suburban commercial strips. The suburbs were not the prewar, pastoral ideal; they had been littered by the “ugliness and inconvenience” of the commercial strip. In contrast, the shopping center was the “first large scale, conscious planning effort made by the forces usually considered as upholders of rugged individualism.” By developing a “planning consciousness” and by submitting to certain rules, individual business interests could promote their own welfare.116

Southdale

Gruen’s work for Oscar Webber on the Northland and Eastland shopping centers led directly to another major contract with the Dayton Company of Minnesota, which operated the Dayton’s department store. Like Webber, the Daytons were what Gruen called “merchant princes”: they were were motivated by a desire to improve the reputation of their family “empires,” and for that reason they felt a responsibility to future generations and tended over their stores in a “paternalistic” manner. These were the ideal

116Victor Gruen, “Cityscape and Landscape,” speech at International Design Conference, Aspen, June 1955, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Planning for Shopping,” speech at Boston Conference on Distribution, October 18, 1955, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Shopping Center: A Responsibility of the Local Official,” County Government, Summer 1960, box 27, “Shopping Malls – general, 1960-1963,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Can Your Neighborhood Survive the Suburban Sprawl?” New Homes Guide, June 16, 1965, box 9, folder “Clippings, 1960-1965,” Gruen AHC.

425 clients for a designer of shopping centers.117

In June of 1952, the Donald C. Dayton, president of the company, announced plans for a $10 million “shopping and residential project” to be located in the

Minneapolis suburbs of Edina and Richfield. As a “satellite downtown” serving a population of 250,000 within a fifteen-minute drive, it would be similar to Northland and other Gruen-designed projects with its emphasis on its social and cultural integration in the community. It was to be the first of several suburban centers ringing the city. In addition to the shopping center, the development called for a school, a park, a playground, and amusement center, restaurants, nurseries, office buildings, a medical center, an auto service station, and a fire station. The center would only occupy 86 acres of a 500 acre-plot purchased by the Dayton Company. The “buffer” zone surrounding the center was designed control future development and prevent parasitic “commercial slum areas.” Indeed, the Dayton Company planned to profit from this “blight-proof” area by leasing the property whose value will have increased due to the very presence of the center.

But Southdale included an important innovation that distinguished it from

Northland: in the harsh Minnesota climate in which there were only 126 “ideal weather shopping days” a year, the center would be connected by malls and a central plaza that were completely closed from the outdoors. While working on another department store

117According to Gruen, Webber had had a longstanding, secret affair with the Dayton family matriarch, and he became a kind of guardian to her boys who ran the business. They referred to him as “Uncle Oscar” after their father died, and he took on a paternalistic role. Gruen said that Webber virtually “ordered” the sons—the third generation to operate the store—to build a suburban shopping center with a new Dayton’s branch store as its anchor, and to hire Gruen to do the job. “Biographical Material – Gruen Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1951-68 (3 of 6),” box 20, folder 19, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 33; Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centres, Why, Where, How?” speech for Third Annual European Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centres, Hilton Hotel, London, February 28, 1978, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1978,” Gruen AHC.

426 project for Dayton’s in Rochester, Gruen had experienced the extreme climate of

Minnesota—very cold winters and very hot summers—and he became convinced that a covered and “climatized” public area was required for Southdale. Gruen called this an

“introvert” design, and he made comparisons to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan and the nineteenth-century arcades and classic department stores in European cities.

Open shopfronts would face malls and courts that would be centrally heated in the winter and cooled in the summer to maximize efficiency. The glass enclosure would be

“scientifically lighted” to give visitors the illusion of being out-of-doors in a paradise of

“perpetual spring.” Gruen’s central market square would be surrounded by “stacked” streets—two levels of store frontage.118

Dayton’s faced another shopping center development planned by its chief rival, the L. S. Donaldson Company, but Dayton’s convinced its competitor to locate its new branch store at Southdale so that both firms could avoid cannibalizing each other at competing centers. This gave Southdale two department store anchors to complement its

72 stores. When the $20 million shopping center finally opened in the fall of 1956, it was a “shopper’s dream” come true, celebrated in local papers like the Minneapolis Tribune with large sections devoted to the opening. Life magazine called it the “splashiest” shopping center yet to open, and the world’s largest under one roof. One of the Dayton brothers, Bruce, was an art patron who commissioned prominent contemporary artists to

118“Dayton Company Announces $10,000,000 Shopping Center Project in Edina-Richfield,” The Minneapolis Star, June 17, 1952; “Dayton’s Again Takes The Lead With Southdale,” The Dayton News, July 1952, box Box OV-4, “Scrapbooks: Dayton Company, June 1952-July 1965 (1 of 2),” Gruen LOC; “The New Southdale Center” [promotional brochure], n.d., ca. 1952, box Box OV-4, “Scrapbooks: Dayton Company, June 1952-July 1965 (1 of 2),” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, pp. 220-3, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC; “New Thinking on Shopping Centers,” Architectural Forum, March 1953; Sterling Soderlind, “Architect Says Southdale Planned as ‘Cultural Center’ for Its Patrons,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, March 14, 1954; Untitled document, n.d., ca. 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 33.

427 produce original modern artworks for Southdale, including large sculptures that decorated the plazas and malls. The center court—with its fountains, sidewalk cafe, benches, and landscaped gardens with California flora including orchids, Eucalyptus and Magnolia trees, and aviary—was compared to a public square. The aim was to create a

“psychological connection” with nature.119

The architectural and retail professions were generally very kind to Gruen’s

Southdale design. Architectural Forum marveled at the success of the artificial environment, which “uncannily” conveyed the feeling of a metropolitan downtown within the confines of a single building. Yet Southdale was not downtown, precisely; it was an “imaginative distillation” of the magnetic elements of downtown: the variety, the lights and color, the business and the bustle. It actually improved on downtown by eliminating the dirtiness and chaos, and by adding sidewalk cafes, art, plants, attractive pavements, a charming central court, and the many quaint lanes leading to it. While other shopping centers had fallen short in their efforts to mimic downtown, Southdale made the real Minneapolis downtown appear “pokey and provincial” relative to its manufactured metropolitan atmosphere. It was, somehow, more than the sum of its parts.120

119Amidst all the praise, a lone dissenting voice came from the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who compared Southdale to a military “barracks.” “The very appearance of the place repels me,” he said, comparing the exterior to a “cardboard box ready to ship something in.” Indeed, in Gruen’s “introverted” center, the exterior was intentionally plain. Carl Spielvogel, “Shopper’s Dream Near Completion,” New York Times, September 24, 1956; “Southdale is 11th of Its Kind in Nation,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, October 7, 1956; John K. Sherman, “Center Breaks Art Barrier With Sculpture, Murals,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, October 7, 1956; “40,000 Visitors See New Stores,” The New York Times, October 9, 1956; “Retail Trade: Pleasure-Domes with Parking,” Time, October 15, 1956, 96-8; “The Splashiest Shopping Center in the U.S.,” Life, December 10, 1956, 61-5; Joe F. Kane, “Minneapolis Crucified By Architect,” Rapid City Journal, November 19, 1956; “Write ‘Condemns’ Mill City Structures,” St. Paul Pioneer-Press, November 28, 1956; “Brisk Business for a Bright Shopping Center,” Fortune, February 1957, 141-4; Victor Gruen, “The Future of Planned Shopping Centers,” Tobe Lectures, Retail Distribution, Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, April 17, 1957, box 4, folder “Speeches – Oct 1956-May, 1957,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), 36. 120“Southdale Shopping Center,” Architectural Forum, April 1957.

428 The opening of Southdale in the fall of 1956 coincided with a national eruption of new regional shopping centers that was presumed to have resulted from “pent-up” demand after the downturn in building during the Korean War. There were about 2,500 shopping centers operating in the U.S. by 1958, grossing roughly $35 billion annually, and they would continue to open at a rapid pace before plateauing in the mid-1960s.

They were occupied mostly by chain stores, which landlords presumed to be less risky.

Smaller retailers in downtowns began to feel the harsh effects of lost business.

Downtown became the new frontier for urban planning visionaries like Gruen.121

The Fort Worth Plan as Catalyst for Urban Renewal

In the fall of 1954, Gruen published an article in the Harvard Business Review in which he blamed the “tyranny of the automobile” for “hardening the arteries” of

American cities.122 Gruen presented his recently-opened Northland shopping center, where automobile and pedestrian traffic were strictly segregated, as an ideal alternative to the car-clogged downtown. He posited that the the lessons of planning suburban shopping centers could be applied to downtowns, which could be organized into various

“land-usage” elements with their own parking and green areas. The entire downtown would be surrounded by traffic arteries, but the city center itself would be an exclusively pedestrian zone, just like Gruen’s shopping centers. Gruen, who had become increasingly outspoken on American social problems, made a moral case for this kind of

121 “Too Many Shopping Centers?” Business Week, November 17, 1956; Art Zuckerman, “America’s Shopping-Center Revolution,” Dun’s Review and Modern Industry, May 1958, 36 ; Michael Creedman, “New Shopping Centers Open at Slower Rate As Competition Grows,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1963. 122Victor Gruen, “Dynamic Planning for Retail Areas,” Harvard Business Review 32 (November- December 1954): 53-62.

429 urban renewal, calling it a “democratic responsibility.” “The time has come,” Gruen wrote, “for action on a broad scale: slum clearance, creation of green areas within our city cores, provision of parking areas, improvement of traffic arteries, and enrichment of our social, cultural, and civic life.”

J. B. Thomas, the president of the Texas Electric Service Company in Forth

Worth, was deeply impressed by Gruen’s article. Thomas had been pondering the problems of downtown Fort Worth, and upon reading the article he promptly invited

Gruen to “prove his words with deeds” and develop a revitalization plan for Fort

Worth.123 Gruen began to publicize the idea of downtown revitalization on the model of his shopping centers, both in general terms and with reference to a specific project called

“City X,” as the Fort Worth plan was known before its identity was revealed in the spring of 1956.

Gruen said that the lessons learned in developing his regional shopping centers could be the “salvation” of downtown if properly applied. The trees and benches of

Gruen’s suburban shopping centers were just as applicable downtown, which Gruen wanted to redesign as an integrated architectural space. He had already begun work on a redevelopment project near downtown Detroit called Gratiot, which strove for an ideal integration of races, classes, and commercial and residential buildings. Gruen believed deeply in the concept of urban planning, but he struggled to convince “men in the business world” that it was essential to progress and not antithetical to the “free expression of individual initiative,” as they seemed to believe. He also called for a public

123“Master Plan for Revitalizing Ft. Worth’s Central Core,” Business Week, March 17, 1956, 70-4; “Typical Downtown Transformed,” Architectural Forum, May 1956; “Biography of the Founder” box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; William Percival, “We Can Build A Better City,” World-Telegram and Sun Saturday Magazine, March 18, 1956, 10.

430 relations campaign to educate the public about the problems of downtown and the potential of revitalization. In a sense, Gruen wanted to pay back a debt he felt he owed to the downtown districts, which had been suffering as his suburban shopping centers had flourished.

In his plan for “City X,” the entire downtown district would be integrated as pedestrian island, surrounded by a multi-lane belt highway that would feed six multi- level parking garages—complete with helicopter landing pads—on the periphery. (The basic design evoked Vienna’s Ringstraße, which encircles the pedestrian-friendly Innere

Stadt, the central district.124) Much like a shopping center, it would be completely free of automobiles and any uses that were “uneconomical or inconsistent” with its purpose as a business district. Besides the occasional fire truck or ambulance, the only vehicles that would be permitted would be “small, quiet, rather slow-moving electrically powered shuttle cars” similar to those used at recent world’s fairs, and all service and delivery traffic would be directed to underground tunnels. Gruen sought to revive civic pride and integrate commercial and non-commercial activities, and he would make the pedestrian

“king.” With the additional space gained from eliminating “cluttered” surface streets, he planned pedestrian malls, courts, plazas, parks, flowerbeds, sculptures, fountains, and reflecting pools. It was, in short, the ideal of the suburban shopping center applied to downtown.125

124Gruen admitted that the ring roads of Vienna benefited from historical accident: the Inner Ring was built where the former city wall, fortifications, and a glacis had been. Victor Gruen, “Highways and the American City,” speech delivered at a symposium sponsored by the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, “The New Highways: Challenge to the Metropolitan Region,” Hartford, Connecticut, September 9-11, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume V, 1957, Gruen AHC. 125“Downtown Needs a Lesson From the Suburbs,” Business Week, October 22, 1955, 64-6; Samuel Feinberg, “Master Plan for ‘City X,’” Women’s Wear Daily, November 18, 1955; Victor Gruen, speech before the San Francisco Planning and Housing Commission, Commercial Club, San Francisco, January 31, 1956, box 1, Speeches, (Volume III, 1956), Gruen AHC; “A Greater Fort Worth Tomorrow” [redevelopment plan], Victor Gruen Associates, 1956, box OV80, Gruen LOC; “Master Planning Study

431 After months of publicity, Forth Worth was finally revealed as “City X” in March of 1956. Victor Gruen Associates (VGA), which had grown to a staff of about 200, had been working on the project for more than a year. To address the problem of downtown,

Gruen applied the lessons learned from designing shopping centers in cities including

Oakland, Indianapolis, and San Jose. Gruen and his partner Edgardo Contini, an engineer, presented their plan for a “Greater Fort Worth Tomorrow” in a three-hour presentation before 150 civic and business leaders, who sat “spellbound” before congratulating the presenters with an enthusiastic ovation. “Hard-headed men and women stood up and cheered when the presentation was over,” reported Business Week.

Gruen was exceedingly confident that the plan would work, because the success of his shopping centers—an “experimental workshop” for the salvation of downtown—had proved it. The “breath-taking,” “revolutionary” plan to turn Fort Worth into the “dream city of America” was met with great interest by the local press and members of the business community who were impressed by the “Texas-like immensity” of the project.

Gruen’s benefactor J. B. Thomas announced that a group of thirty Fort Worth leaders, who were motivated partly by a keen competition with nearby Dallas, had banded together to figure out how to finance the plan—estimated to cost $100 million—without the help of the federal government, in true Texas-style.126

for the Central District of the City of Fort Worth, Texas,” descriptive outline by Victor Gruen & Associates, ca. 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The City in the Automobile Age,” Perspectives USA 16 (Summer 1956): 45-54; “Basic Plan To Vitalize Fort Worth District,” The American City, June 1956. 126“Planners Kept City X Identity Under Wraps,” Fort Worth Press, March 11, 1956; “Pattern for Vigorous City Growth,” editorial, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 11, 1956; Jim Vachule, “Plan for ‘City of Tomorrow’ Outlined to Civic Leaders,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 11, 1956; “City Leaders Throw Solid Support Behind Futuristic Municipal Plan,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 11, 1956; “Gruen Hopes Plan Will Shock People,” Fort Worth Press, March 11, 1956; “City Free to Follow Gruen Plan,” Fort Worth Press, March 11, 1956; Dick Johnson, “J.B. Thomas: West Texas Seer,” Dallas Morning News, March 18, 1956; “Master Plan for Revitalizing Ft. Worth’s Central Core,” Business Week, March 17, 1956, 70-4; “Footpaths in Fort Worth,” Time, March 19, 1956, 26.

432 The “Gruen Plan,” as it came to be known, was warmly embraced by many in the

Fort Worth community, and the architecture and urban planning professions hailed it as visionary. One local mother looked forward to the “leisurely walking” that the plan would allow, in contrast to the noise and confusion that she tolerated on trips downtown.

In the months after the plan was announced, the citizens’ planning committee became an official city body, which drafted legislation to authorize a parking authority. Gruen and J.

B. Thomas proved to be deft managers of public relations, explaining the plan in a series of meetings and reaching tens of thousands of citizens through specially-arranged “slide- tape” presentations. The local newspapers provided daily coverage, and civic pride swelled as the “imagination-stirring” Gruen Plan drew the attention of the national and international media, including Time and Life. Even Jane Jacobs, one of the foremost critics of so-called “urban renewal” projects, praised the “excellent” Gruen plan, which would make the streets “more surprising, more compact, more variegated, and busier than before.”127

Yet the Gruen Plan for Fort Worth met resistance from entrenched business interests, and it would never come to fruition.128 Although the plan was never executed, it

127Harley Pershing, “Women Predict Downtown Business to Gain by Gruen Plan Development,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 9, 1956; “Typical Downtown Transformed,” Architectural Forum, May 1956; “Gruen Plan Wins Fort Worth Title ‘City of Tomorrow’ in U.S., Abroad,” Fort Worth Star- Telegram, July 29, 1956. 128The leader of the opposition movement was George Thompson, the president of a large Fort Worth bank and the part-owner of two downtown parking garages. Thompson and his allies argued that the proposed public parking garages—a main source of revenue for the project—would decimate the business of the private garages. Another opposition group was composed of small-property owners with no interests in downtown property who feared rising taxes to pay for the project. A bill in the Texas legislature that would have given cities the power to condemn and clear “blighted” areas and then resell them for redevelopment—a common practice in cities pushing for federal urban renewal funds— was defeated by legislators who feared that it would infringe on the rights of property owners. The citizens of Fort Worth, finally, voted down a series of civic improvements and bonds in the fall of 1958, which seemed to doom the project. Gruen later reasoned that the project was ahead of its time, but he remained bitter about the “violent” opposition it faced from powerful “economic forces” and “people who believe that the automobile is the only means of transportation.” Jeanne R. Lowe, “What’s happened in Fort Worth?” Architectural Forum, May 1959, 137; Bernard Judy, “Fort Worth’s $100

433 became highly influential among urban planners who used it as a model for urban renewal projects. One well-known city planner, Edmund Bacon of Philadelphia, later referred to it as “the only unborn child I know which has dozens of grandchildren.” The project made Gruen famous not only as an architect of shopping centers, but as a visionary urban planner. The Fort Worth Plan was also an early iteration of Gruen’s

“cluster” or “cellular” model of urban planning that was analogous to biological and astrological systems, but it also recalled Otto Wagner’s “modular” plan for cities. The

“cells” were composed of residential, commercial, and social activities, which had

“nuclei” of greater density and “protoplasm” of lesser density. Each cell was a functional community, but it would be grouped together with other cells to form “clusters” that were, in turn, part of greater “constellations” that would be separated by “agricultural greenbelts.” Each cellular formation would contain working places, shopping centers, and civic and recreational facilities, but specialized activities of the “higher order” that require greater populations would occur at the center of larger clusters, forming a metropolitan core. Gruen imagined “planetary” systems in which these metropolitan centers were the stars around which satellite “clusterizations” orbited, which had their own smaller moons. Each formation would be connected by public transit and auto freeways, but within them walking would be the predominant mode of transport.129

Million Rebuilding Project Stalled,” Toledo Blade, July 15, 1959; Hardwick, 188-9; Victor Gruen, letter to the editor of U.S. News & World Report, January 16, 1968, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XV, 1966-1967), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centres, Why, Where, How?” speech for Third Annual European Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centres, Hilton Hotel, London, February 28, 1978, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1978,” Gruen AHC. 129It should be noted that Gruen’s progressive vision almost never included the bicycle as a transportation option. Victor Gruen, “Who is to Save Our Cities?” Harvard Business Review 41, no. 3 (May/June 1963): 107-15; Edward T. Chase, “Future of the City,” The Commonweal, October 11, 1957, 39-42; Victor Gruen, “The City as Designed Structure,” speech at the Urban Design Series, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, December 6, 1961, box 5, folder “Speeches, 10-3-47,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “New Forms of Community,” speech at Princeton University Conference on Design in America, May 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975,

434 Gruen contrasted this modern vision to the outdated “pattern of the string” that prevailed in most cities. In this old model, the streets were like strings that together formed a spiderweb-like structure (or a grid in American cities): they were both the guidelines along which buildings were constructed and the means of transportation between them. These functions were in “violent conflict” with one another, Gruen argued, because the rushing stream of vehicles interfered with the safety, health, and

“quietude” of the people in the adjoining structures. The inhabitants those structures, moreover, interfered with the “congested torrents of mechanized traffic” in their movement between the banks, crossing the street and moving their vehicles in and out of the structures. The “pattern of the string” was a largely organic development, but the cellular plan—although it mimicked nature—would be created through conscious and conscientious human planning. Gruen called his planned shopping center, as a product of the automotive age, “the only new architectural and planning concept created in our time and of our time.” It provided a formula for the cellular approach to regional planning, and it was the best example of the theory translated into practice.130

Although there was a utopian, futurist element to Gruen’s plans,131 he freely acknowledged, and many commentators noticed, the European heritage of many of his

p. 188, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC. 130“Victor Gruen Discusses the theory of City Planning and Applies the Theory to Valencia,” Highrise 1, no. 2 (May 1966): 18-22, box 39, folder “Manuscripts, 1963-1966,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Future of Planned Shopping Centers,” Tobe Lectures, Retail Distribution, Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, April 17, 1957, box 4, folder “Speeches – Oct 1956-May, 1957,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centers, Suburban and Urban,” 1960 Appraisal and Valuation Manual of the American Society of Appraisers (Washington, D.C., 1960): 287-94, Box 31, folder, “Articles, 1960,” Gruen AHC. 131In 1955, for example, Gruen was hired by NBC as a consultant on a special program imagining future developments in the fanciful year “1976.” Victor Gruen, “Urban Renewal,” talk at luncheon meeting of Lambda Alpha University Club, July 21, 1955, box 4, folder “Speeches – 1953-Sept. 1956,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “1976: Rough Outline of Ideas,” August 5, 1955, box 1, Speeches, Volume II, 1955, 1956, Gruen AHC.

435 ideas, and of Gruen himself. One reviewer observed that Gruen’s firm was a kind of

“junior-grade United Nations team” that included an Italian, a Swiss, and a Corsican.

The Viennese Gruen was a “plump, restless man with a decided accent” who tended to wave his hands in wild gestures as he talked. Relative to one of his elegantly dressed,

“California-bred” colleagues, Gruen was described as “dumpy and disheveled.”132 Gruen was inspired not only by his native Vienna, but also by the other great cities of Europe.

Beginning with his first return trip to the Continent in 1948, Gruen would spend two months annually in Europe to “recharge” himself, visiting dozens of cities in search of inspiration. In 1956, he toured Rome, Milan, London, and Paris to gather “impressions” as the basis for further work on city planning and architecture. On his tour, Gruen reported hearing laments about the “Americanization” of European architecture, but he reminded his interlocutors that much of the “American” style of architecture had originally come from Europe. It was imported by Gruen and other immigrants such as the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. But Gruen believed in a transnational exchange of ideas, and he thought that what was called

“American” often involved mechanization and industrialization, while what was

“European” merely referred to something “humane and spiritual.” At the same time, he acknowledged a quality to European life that was lacking in the U.S. “Life for the

European has three dimensions in contrast to the two dimensions which ours has,” said

Gruen. “We have work and home. They have work, home and their city. Their environment plays as big a part in their lives as their home and work does.” Gruen believed that the fact of millions of American tourists visiting Europe each year proved

132While Gruen had respected Oscar Webber, the man could be highly critical, and he often ridiculed Gruen for his shabby clothing. Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 140, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC.

436 that there was a strong interest in “public social life” in the U.S. as well as Europe.133

Gruen’s Hallowed Pedestrian

The Fort Worth Plan and the malls of Gruen’s shopping centers exemplified his commitment to creating spaces exclusively for the pedestrian: automobile traffic was strictly excluded and unsightly utilities were hidden away. “We will either have to keep the cars out from where we want to walk, or we’ll have to keep the pedestrians out from where the cars want to drive,” said Gruen. As a native of compact Vienna—and as a transplanted resident of sprawling, car-centric Los Angeles—he was acutely aware of the conflict. He wanted to “unscramble the melee of flesh and machines” in order to give the

“mechanical monsters” their very own “lebensraum”134 so that a natural habitat for humans and “their buildings” could be reestablished. The human race and the automobile

“race” each deserved its own reservation. Gruen wanted to create an environment where people could promenade in surroundings that provided ever-changing scenes, rest areas, and a peacefulness that made feasible the “contemplation of the interplay of architecture, arts, and landscape.” Just as freeways were the “natural habitat” for the “mechanical being,” the human being deserved its own habitat, free from the noise, odor, and danger of the machines. Gruen argued that the popularity of pedestrian spaces like New York’s

Rockefeller Center and his own shopping centers proved that American’s were “hungry”

133Harley Pershing, “Daring Plan for City Has Roots in Old World,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 11, 1956, 10; “Remarks by Mr. & Mrs. Gruen,” National Home Fashions League, Southern California Chapters, Biltmore Bowl, Los Angeles, July 11, 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume III, 1956, Gruen AHC; Jim Doyle, “Urban Life In America: Nice Houses...Shabby Cities; Fine Bathtubs...Poor Parks,” Toledo Blade, February 21, 1960; Victor Gruen, “Light and Shadow of the European Metropolis,” notes on “Vienna speech,” June 11, 1963, box 2 (Speeches), Volume XII, 1963, Gruen AHC; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments.” 134Gruen likely employed the German term (literally, “living space”), which the Nazis used to refer to their desire for Continental expansion, as an ironic way of expressing his antipathy to the total domination of the automobile.

437 for the experience. He also noted that Americans would travel thousands of miles to places like the Piazza San Marco in Venice (a city Gruen adored) simply for the chance to stroll around somewhere. There, architectural beauty counted for more than anywhere else because it could be contemplated on foot, undisturbed by “motor noises.”135

Gruen’s eloquence in describing the Fort Worth Plan and his vision for creating pedestrian spaces caught the imagination of city planners around the country, but their ability to implement his grand plans was strictly limited. In the midst of the national publicity over the Fort Worth Plan in the spring of 1957, a group of property owners and businessmen in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who incorporated as the Downtown Kalamazoo

Planning Committee, hired Gruen to plan the redevelopment of their downtown. Gruen’s firm produced a grand plan, Kalamazoo: 1980, that had many elements of the Fort Worth

Plan, but only one part of that plan was implemented: a downtown pedestrian mall called

“Burdick Mall.” Although the mall, which was the first permanent installation of its kind in the nation, was an instant success—inspiring dozens of imitators across the country, which the press dubbed “Gruenization”—Gruen was displeased that the city had failed to implement the complete plan. In fact, the pedestrian mall was the last element in the sequence of his plan, but the city elected to do it first. Gruen believed that the pedestrian

135“Future on File,” radio broadcast over WEVD, New York, 11:00 p.m., February 26, 1953, transcript for Ruder & Finn Associated by Radio Reports, Inc., New York, box 1, binder “Collected Writings, Speeches, Vol. 1,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “How to Handle This Chaos of Congestion, This Anarchy of Scatteration,” Architectural Forum, September 1956, 130-5; Victor Gruen, “The Roots, The Growth and the Consequences,” talk at the Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles, September 23, [probably 1956], box 1, Speeches, Volume III, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Main Street 1969,” speech at Hotel Marion, Little Rock, Arkansas, June 9-12, 1957, box 4, folder “Speeches – June 1957- May 1958,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Land Use and Misuse,” speech before the Women’s City Club of New York, November 25, 1958, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VII, 1958-1959, Gruen AHC; Faye Baker, “Victor Gruen: ‘maybe it is all improvisation,’” Los Angeles Magazine, November 1962, 30; Bernard Taper, “The City that Puts People First,” McCall’s, April 1966; Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 10; Rudi Baumfeld, letter to Victor Gruen, January 7, 1969, box 11, folder 13, “PARTNERS—Baumfeld, Rudolf, April 1967-Aug. 1973,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to Rudi Baumfeld, January 20, 1969, box 11, folder 13, “PARTNERS—Baumfeld, Rudolf, April 1967-Aug. 1973,” Gruen LOC.

438 mall could not function as he envisioned it when divorced from the other elements of the total redevelopment plan. Such “partial” developments that lacked associated belt highways and parking structures were “dangerous” undertakings that could do more harm than good, in Gruen’s view. They had the disadvantage of giving foot traffic exclusively to some merchants while saddling adjacent business proprietors with more car traffic.

Gruen dismissed the pedestrian mall by itself as a mere “promotional measure” that misunderstood the whole problem, and he later disclaimed “paternity” for the idea. “This is like giving a raisin to someone who asks for a raisin cake,” said Gruen, adding that the

“present rash of downtown malls” showed the desire of some downtown merchants to

“do quickly and cheaply something spectacular and to rely on patent medicines rather than a thorough treatment.”136

Yet the idea acquired a life of its own, and Gruen’s protests were largely ineffectual. He reluctantly admitted that the pedestrian mall in Kalamazoo was regarded as a success, but he continued to stress that a truly thriving pedestrian environment in the city could only be created through the application of “over-all planning.” He even avoided using term “pedestrian mall,” which had become fashionable by the early 1960s, because he felt that it suggested a superficial response to the problems of downtown.

Nevertheless, Gruen worked on other downtown pedestrian malls in places like Urbana,

136Wall, 138; Hayden Bradford, “Keep Plan Moving: Gruen,” Kalamazoo Gazette, February 14, 1960; “Will downtown malls work?” Chain Store Age, October 1959, E 19; Victor Gruen, “The Design of Urban Centers,” talk at the Urban Design Conference, Harvard University, April 12, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume V, 1957, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Save Urbia for New Urbanites,” speech presented at the 65th annual National Conference on Government of the National Municipal League, Springfield, Massachusetts, November 18, 1959, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VIII, 1959-1960, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 189, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC; Jim Doyle, “Planner Favors Ban on Automobiles In Downtown Sections of U. S. Cities,” Denver Post, February 21, 1960; “Retailing and the Automobile: Downtown Revitalization,” Architectural Record, March 1960, 207-8; Ray Herbert, “Rebirth of Nation’s Cities Owes Debt to Architect Victor Gruen,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1960; Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 222.

439 Illinois and Fresno, California, where a coalitions of business interests and government authorities hired his firm to do the job. Gruen was almost embarrassed by the lack of ambition in these projects, but contemporary accounts generally praised them as being among his most influential works. They also signaled his emergence as an urban planner who could inject new life into American cities at a time when they were experiencing a state of crisis.137

Planning in the Postwar Era

Gruen’s experience working on downtown redevelopment elevated him as a public figure, but it also exposed him to the political and ideological frustrations of working in the American system. Gruen was particularly bothered by the antipathy to the concept of planning that he so frequently encountered. Described in one account as “one of the most articulate men in his profession,” Gruen became increasingly outspoken about it. Planning was practically a dirty word in the U.S., almost as bad “as if Lenin had invented it,” he said. Gruen, an old Viennese Social Democrat, lamented that his adopted country suffered from the notion that planning was “a terrible thing, like socialism or worse, and that we have to leave everything to rugged individualism.” But Gruen argued that the success of shopping centers like Northland was proof that planning meant good business, and that some merchants seemed to know this better than politicians. He scoffed at the absurd outcomes from the obstinate idea that any kind of planning 137Victor Gruen, “The Planner’s Viewpoint,” presentation at Twelfth Annual Commercial Property Clinic, National Institute of Real Estate Brokers, Drake Hotel, Chicago, May 6-7, 1960, box 27, folder “Shopping Malls – Midtown Plaza (Rochester, NY), 1962-1963,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Downtown U.S.A.,” speech before the Inland Empire Downtown Redevelopment Conference,” January 14, 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII), Gruen AHC; “The Shopping Center Moves Back to Midtown,” Fortune, January 1965; Wolf Von Eckardt, “Fresno’s Mall I s Fine Place For a Ball,” Washington Post, May 16, 1965; Bernard Taper, “The City that Puts People First,” McCall’s, April 1966.

440 presented a threat to liberty: “How much liberty does a man have sitting in a 90-mile-an- hour car in a frozen traffic jam?138

Gruen struggled against the idea that planning was something that only an authoritarian Communist or a Stalinist would favor. While it was, indeed, easier for a totalitarian government to plan large projects like the Moscow Metro, Gruen insisted that truly good planning was only possible in a democratic society.139 What Gruen called democratic planning sought to enrich human life by producing a “physical and sociological framework” that did not force individuals to conform, but rather created the

“shapes and patterns” in which harmonious coexistence and individual expression were possible. He sought to calm the nerves of those who saw the “threat of socialism” in urban redevelopment and renewal projects by reminding them that they were constituted by a partnership of private businesses, community leaders, and federal government officials. Moreover, he noted that private enterprise and private consultants designed, constructed, and profited from those projects. The goal of planning was not to autocratically determine people’s actions, but to establish the basis for the “greatest achievable individualistic expressions” that could coexist harmoniously. By the mid-

1960s, as the role of government in building a public infrastructure and preserving the social welfare became more firmly established, Gruen witnessed a wider public

138“New City,” Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, March 17, 1956, 33-4; “How to judge a town by its planning: An interview on plant site selection with Victor Gruen, architect and urban planner,” Management Methods, 1960; Jim Doyle, “Urban Life In America: Nice Houses...Shabby Cities; Fine Bathtubs...Poor Parks,” Toledo Blade, February 21, 1960; Frank Mulcahy, “Scarcity of Land for Urban Use Stresses Need of Proper Planning,” Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1960. 139On a trip to Russia in 1964, however, Gruen expressed some disappointment that a “planned society” seemed intent on looking like a capitalist society: he hoped that it would lack that garish advertisements that marred the landscape in the U.S., but discovered that there were plenty of ugly neon signs around, but instead of advertising merchandise they advertised political slogans, events, and great enterprises. Victor Gruen, letter to Peggi, received from Vienna, October 13, 1964, box 4, folder “Speeches – Jan 1964-Nov 1965,” Gruen AHC.

441 acceptance of the idea of planning, to the point were it had even become a fashionable activity.140

Gruen’s idealistic belief in the possibilities of planning led to his firm’s involvement in two prominent public housing projects in Detroit and Boston. In Detroit,

Gruen teamed with modernist architects Minoru Yamasaki and Oskar Stonorov on the

Gratiot-Orleans redevelopment project, a “slum clearance” initiative in a neighborhood near downtown Detroit. The idea, worked out with United Automobile Workers leader

Walter Reuther (whom Gruen greatly admired), was to import suburban-style living into the city in 4,000 units of housing that would be inhabited by “people of all income classes, with people of all races, with people of varying tastes establishing a true democratic neighborhood.” The initial plan for integrated housing, which was negotiated with leaders of the local black community, went so far as to specify a racial percentage for the occupants of the housing project: sixty-percent white and thirty- to forty-percent black. Gruen insisted that, in order to keep with “our democratic ideals,” large housing projects must integrate a mix of races and classes. But VGA was eventually dropped from the project, and the famed modernist and German émigré Mies van der Rohe eventually took the reins of the development that would become Lafayette Park.141

140Victor Gruen, “Urban Planning for the Sixties,” Annual Proceedings of the United States Conference of Mayors: City Problems of 1960, Chicago, May 11-14, 1960, box 34, folder “Manuscripts, 1962-1978,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Architect’s Role in Urban Renewal,” speech at seminar of the Michigan Society of Architects, Detroit, April 7, 1961, box 2 (Speeches), Volume X, 1961, Gruen AHC; “The Economic and Social Significance of Urban Renewal,” Architectural Metals, August 1962, 10-26; Victor Gruen, “The Meaning and Value of Master Planning,” remarks at Goodyear meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, January 13, 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII, Gruen AHC. 141Victor Gruen, speech before the San Francisco Planning and Housing Commission, Commercial Club, San Francisco, January 31, 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume III, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The City in the Automobile Age,” Perspectives USA 16 (Summer 1956): 45-54; “Biographical Material – Gruen Victor, Annotated Chronology, Mar. 1975, n.d., 1951-68 (3 of 6),” box 20, folder 19, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Better Homes Need Better Towns,” talk delivered at the National Home Fashions League luncheon, Hotel Pierre, New York City, May 9, 1961, box 2 (Speeches), Volume X, 1961, Gruen AHC.

442 Gruen’s idealistic vision for integrated housing would be more completely realized in the Charles River Park development in Boston, but it would also make Gruen a target for critics of urban renewal. VGA designed several apartment buildings of varying sizes and building styles that surrounded a plaza that Gruen hoped would become

“the social meeting ground of the 478 families” living there. The plaza was designed as a restful space, much like the central courts of Gruen’s shopping centers, complete with benches, trees and flowers, fountains and ponds, and sculptures and murals. Also like

Gruen’s shopping center designs, the housing development would be on a super-block that excluded all motorized traffic, creating an zone exclusively for pedestrians and bicyclists. Schools, churches, and shopping facilities were to be placed in the development so that the fuss and dangers of automobile traffic could be avoided without interrupting the rhythm of daily life. Yet projects like Charles River Park increasingly became the targets of urban renewal critics like Herbert Gans and Jane Jacobs, who had previously praised Gruen’s Fort Worth Plan. But Jacobs’ 1961 book The Death and Life of America’s Great Cities was deeply critical of urban renewal efforts. Gans’s 1962 study

The Urban Villagers made the Charles River Park project infamous for displacing a working-class Italian-American community on Boston’s West End, disrupting the community’s way of life, and even destroying the livelihoods of its members. The visionary planner Gruen had suddenly become an autocratic modernist and ruthless developer, insensitive to the subtle variety of American cities.142

142Victor Gruen, “Charles River Park ...... A Milestone in Urban Redevelopment,” address at a luncheon celebrating the groundbreaking ceremonies for Charles River Park, Sheraton Hotel, Boston, March 8, 1960, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VIII, 1959-1960, Gruen AHC; Hardwick, 207; Wall, 163-4, 171.

443 Shopping Center Guru

Even as Gruen ventured into urban planning, he remained most famous as a planner of shopping centers. In 1956, The New Yorker referred to Gruen, with his “heavy brows” and “unruly” Viennese accent,” as one of the best-known architects in the country. The giant Northland shopping center was his “most conspicuous” work.143 The shopping center had become the nation’s “newest Institution,” according to one contemporary account, and Gruen was the most thoughtful and articulate advocate of the movement for “urban crystallization” points in the suburbs. He gave dozens of speeches, lectures, and addresses before universities, architecture students, planning groups, and laypeople. He wanted to bridge the “deep gulf” between the “thinkers” and critics who wrote about environmental problems, and those who actually worked on such problems as architects, planners, and engineers. He was not shy about touting the revolutionary success of his designs, and he often placed his own invention in a lineage that went back to the “highest flourishing of urban civilization in many European cities.” He cultivated a narrative about his own prescience, referring to the “heroic pioneering days” when the

Northland scheme appeared too radical to get financing, and Southdale was viewed by many as a “way out” idea.144

Gruen’s shopping center designs were distinguished by their attention to details like the incorporation of art into the communal, pedestrian spaces of the malls and courts.

The sculptures, fountains, mosaics, and bas reliefs became an “integrated part” of the

143“New City,” Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, March 17, 1956, 33-4. 144“for diners’ delight,” Institutions Magazine 42, no. 2 (1958); Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centers, Suburban and Urban,” 1960 Appraisal and Valuation Manual of the American Society of Appraisers (Washington, D.C., 1960): 287-94, box 31, folder, “Articles, 1960,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, memorandum to Herman Guttman on the subject of “Dayton’s Roseville,” January 19, 1967, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XV, 1966-1967, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Notes for a Talk to the Associates of VGA,” February 13, 1962, box 2 (Speeches), Volume XI, 1962), Gruen AHC.

444 shopping center, bringing together the spaces between buildings. Gruen, who wanted to

“lift the iron curtain between the fine arts and the commercial arts,” often juxtaposed

“whimsical,” decorative sculptures with more challenging abstract, modern art. Gruen believed that the architect played an essential role in opening up the fine arts to the public and incorporating them in people’s everyday lives. He loathed the strict segregation of the esoteric art world and the vulgar commercial sphere, and he believed that his shopping centers were the perfect places to bring these two worlds together.145

Gruen cemented his status as the guru of the shopping center with the 1960 publication of Shopping Towns USA: The Planning of Shopping Centers, which became a veritable bible among shopping mall planners.146 Gruen wrote the book with Larry

Smith, an economic analyst who had worked with Gruen on many projects, including

Northland. The book examined virtually every technical aspect of mall planning from the perspective of an architect and an economist, but it also advocated the idealist vision of the shopping center that Gruen had been refining for more than a decade. The term

“shopping towns” was justified, the authors felt, because shopping centers had taken on the characteristics of “urban organisms” that served myriad human needs and activities.

Gruen and Smith presented planned shopping centers as the solution to the “amorphous conglomeration” of suburbia in which merchants struggled to organize their activities.

145Victor Gruen, “Sculptor Meets Architect: An Attempt to Reintroduce Two Estranged Professions,” Architectural Products, March 1958; Robert Broner, “Eastland Shopping Center, Detroit,” Art in America, Spring 1958, 44; Victor Gruen, “Arts, Architecture and the Man-Made Environment,” speech delivered before the Architectural League of New York, September 4, 1958, box 1, Speeches, Volume VI, 1958, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “We have Driven Art Underground,” Architects’ Report, Chesapeake Bay Region, Winter 1961, 7, 26, box 39, folder “Manuscripts, 1961-1976,” Gruen AHC. 146Victor Gruen and Larry Smith, Shopping Towns USA: The Planning of Shopping Centers (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1960); Wall, 111. Even in 1968, the book was still regarded as a “handbook,” and had been translated into Japanese. Victor Gruen, “The Shape of Things to Come,” speech at Chain Store Age 14th Annual Seminar, Marriott Motor Hotel, Philadelphia, February 26, 1968, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVI, 1968, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973), x.

445 They assuaged the fears of the businessman worried about the authoritarian effects of planning, assuring him that it would create a vibrant, stimulating environment that would encourage the “pursuit of happiness.”

Gruen, who remained based in Los Angeles, continued to design large shopping centers, such as “Valley Fair” and “Bay Fair” in the Bay Area of California. Hired by developer James Rouse, Gruen’s firm designed the Cherry Hill shopping center in New

Jersey, near Philadelphia. When it opened in 1961, it was the first large enclosed mall on the East Coast. It was another of Gruen’s “introverted” centers, like Southdale, and its court and malls featured an “exotic atmosphere” of palm trees and tropical gardens and an aviary with toucans, mynas, and parrots. Its central court featured a skylight, a

Japanese garden, a bridge with running water, and a “fanciful” wooden gazebo. The

Gruen-designed Randhurst shopping center in the suburbs of northwest Chicago opened in 1962. With 1.2 million square feet of rental space in 90 stores, it was the largest enclosed and air-conditioned shopping center in the country. It was everything that

Gruen had designed in his previous centers, but more: three department stores (Carson,

Pirie, Scott & Co., Montgomery Ward, and Wieboldt’s), three shopping levels under a

160-foot-diameter central dome called the “galleria,” and six arcades leading from that central court. Economic analyst Larry Smith’s study of the “trade area” for the center showed that the large, affluent community would be more than sufficient to generate $60 million in sales during the first year of operation.147

147“Two Gruen Shopping Centers,” Progressive Architecture, October 1958, 136-45; Hardwick, 212; “New Shopping Concept at Cherry Hill,” Rohm & Hass Reporter 19, no. 6 (November-December, 1961), 15-7; “Growth-planning: a basic problem,” Shopping Center Age, January 1962, 52-5; “The Anatomy of a New Project: Randhurst Shopping Center,” Architectural & Engineering News, May 1962; “Randhurst Center: Big Pinwheel on the Prairie,” Architectural Forum, November 1962, 106-11; “Design for a Better Outdoors Indoors,” Architectural Record, June 1962.

446 Gruen took pleasure in the demise of the “miracle mile” shopping strips and the rise of “scientifically planned” shopping centers that occurred in the late 1950s and early

1960s. Many of them followed Gruen’s basic formula: a cluster of store buildings arranged around pedestrian areas consisting of courts, plazas, malls, and lanes protected from the weather by colonnades; a park-like layout of benches, flower beds, trees, fountains, and sculptures, and an atmosphere of carnival-like gaiety, often buoyed by cheery music; plentiful, free parking and a circulatory road network connected to major streets and highways; the separation of service traffic from customer car traffic by means of underground delivery areas; and a dedicated lane for bus and taxi traffic. By 1962, there were about 5,000 shopping centers in the U.S., collectively doing roughly $55 billion in business, about a quarter of all dollars spent in the retail trade, and new centers were being built at the astonishing rate of about a thousand every year.148

Midtown, Downtown, and the Doughnut

While the suburban shopping center started out as competition to the city center, it ultimately proved to have many superior environmental qualities: it was more easily reachable, for example, and the exclusion of automobiles permitted a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere that became a community gathering space. Shopping centers—in their spirited gaiety—took on many of the qualities that had been associated with downtown areas. It was only a matter of time, Gruen posited, before downtowns would begin to borrow from the lessons of the shopping center. The Fort Worth Plan offered a vision, and the proliferating downtown pedestrian malls were a concrete improvement, but a

148Victor Gruen, “The Suburban Regional Shopping Center and the Urban Core Area,” The American Review 2, no. 2 (May 1962); Dan Wharton, “Those amazing shopping centers,” Plymouth Traveler, May 1962, 14; Katherine Hamill, “The Squeeze on Shopping Centers,” Fortune, September 1963, 116.

447 shopping center-like development in Rochester, New York called Midtown Plaza signaled the closing of a “complex circle,” according to Gruen.149

Midtown Plaza was explicitly conceived as downtown’s response to the threat of retail competition from suburban shopping centers. The project was spearheaded by two department-store owners, Gilbert McCurdy and Fred Forman, who financed the $40 million project with mostly private money. It was the largest private investment in downtown retailing since the end of the war. They hired Gruen in 1956—just as his Fort

Worth Plan was receiving national publicity—to design an urban shopping center in an effort to “outglamorize” the suburban competition. Gruen seized the opportunity to participate in a downtown renewal project that had secure financing, and he engaged his partner Larry Smith to conduct an economic analysis of the region. The development would occupy ten acres of the central business district, surrounded by a loop road, and the Plaza itself would contain some sixty shops with nearly a million square feet of retail space. A two-story, enclosed pedestrian mall with all of the Gruen-esque touches— fountains, flowers, benches, sidewalk cafes, a trellised ceiling with skylights—would be lined with shops and flanked by the two department stores. It would be a “town square with urbane qualities,” according to Gruen. The plans also included an 18-story office building capped by a four-story luxury hotel, a telephone company building, an auditorium, a bus terminal, and an underground parking garage with space for nearly

2000 cars.150 149Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centers: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” speech at International Council of Shopping Centers Convention, New York Hilton Hotel, May 5, 1965, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XIV, 1965, Gruen AHC. 150“Rochester Brings Them Back From the Suburbs,” Engineering News-Record, February 16, 1961; Ogden Tanner, “Conservative Rochester, N.Y. Launches a bold, well-rounded renewal program with a $50 million civic center, and the first new downtown shopping center in the U.S.,” [unknown publication] n.d. [ca. 1959], 105, box 31, folder, “Articles, 1959,” Gruen AHC; “The Planning of Midtown Plaza,” Architectural Record, October 1961; “Center for Rochester,” Architectural Forum, n.d.

448 Unlike the Fort Worth Plan, Gruen’s vision was realized in Midtown Plaza, and it was accomplished with no federal financing. It was, Gruen said, the translation of the shopping center idea into the “urban vernacular.” When the center opened in the spring of 1962, it was an immediate success. It featured a European-style town square under glass with three air-conditioned arcades radiating from the plaza. Unlike most shopping centers, the common spaces of Midtown Plaza were publicly owned, and the parking was underground rather than on the surface. Another distinguishing characteristic was the

“Clock of Nations,” a whimsical, animatronic display featuring puppets that represented a dozen foreign nations; the figures stopped crowds every half-hour with an automated performance of folk songs and dance. The success of Midtown Plaza spurred further development in downtown Rochester: three adjacent buildings of more than fifteen stories were constructed in the years after its opening. Midtown Plaza drew national attention, and it became a model for downtown redevelopment.151

Midtown Plaza was the kind of downtown redevelopment that Gruen had long sought: it demonstrated the kind of dramatic outcomes that were possible through the cooperative efforts of downtown merchants and city planning boards. The success of the project further proved that the antipathy toward planning from “men in the business world” was misguided. Gruen believed that his shopping centers provided the “model work shop” for the salvation of downtown, and Midtown Plaza stood as proof. He worried that if downtowns were left to deteriorate as the suburbs flourished, American

[ca. 1962], 109-12, box 16, folder “Fresno,” Gruen AHC; “Rochester’s New Urban Shopping Center,” Buildings, August 1962, 32-3; William P. Larkin, “Midtown Plaza...one answer to downtown’s problem,” Chain Store Age, August 1962; Hardwick, 201. 151“A New Downtown,” Washington Star, November 3, 1963; Wall, 148; Arthur D. Postal, “The Vision That Saved a City,” Upstate Special, April 12, 1970; Victor Gruen, “The Suburban Regional Shopping Center and the Urban Core Area,” The American Review 2, no. 2 (May 1962).

449 cities would be transformed into “doughnuts with all the dough on the outside and a hole in the middle.” Gruen watched as the cores of American cities were overtaken with

“blight conditions” as only the “economically weak” segments of the populations—which often had a particular racial composition—remained living adjacent to downtown.152

Though his design for Fort Worth featured very large parking garages on the periphery of a pedestrian core, Gruen believed strongly in the value of public transportation in a thriving downtown. In fact, Gruen believed that the dominance of the automobile as a form of mass transportation was a key factor in the degradation of downtown, and he preferred to relegate these mechanical “slaves” to their proper role as mere major appliances that must perform a useful function. He deplored the way cities like Los Angeles had developed, where the urban characteristic of “compactness” had been lost as two-thirds of the land in the central district was given over to roads, highways, parking lots, and garages. Gruen saw this as a regrettable waste of land. It ran counter to the “diversity and variety” that cities ought to have, turning them into mere places of work; they became factories, not cities. Gruen wanted to integrate the residential, commercial, and business functions of the city while strictly segregating its automobile traffic from its pedestrian traffic.153

Gruen believed that Americans had concentrated their efforts on improving

152“What Makes a 1940 Store Obsolete?” Architectural Forum, August 1950; “Downtown Needs a Lesson From the Suburbs,” Business Week, October 22, 1955, 64-6; Victor Gruen, “Cities to Doughnuts,” National Civic Review, March 1961, 1-4. 153Victor Gruen, “The Will, The Ways and the Means,” talk before the N.R.D.G.A. National Convention’s General Merchandising Session, “Reversing the Down Trend of ‘Downtown’ Volume, January 8, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume IV, 1957, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, testimony before the Joint Committee on Washington Metropolitan Problems, November 12, 1959, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VIII, 1959-1960), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Land Wasters,” speech at the Symposium on Land, National Convention of the National Association of Home Builders, Chicago, January 31, 1961, box 2 (Speeches), Volume X, 1961), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Cities and Urban Growth,” INCO Magazine [published by The International Nickel Company], n.d. [reprint, ca. 1962], box 34, folder “Manuscripts, 1960-1966,” Gruen AHC.

450 private living standards while neglecting the public environment. In many was, Gruen was not a great architect of buildings: individually, his structures were inconspicuous and unremarkable. Instead, Gruen excelled as a planner of public spaces that also had a commercial component. He believed that the spaces between buildings were at least as important as the buildings themselves.154 Gruen came to regard himself as an

“environmental” architect who concerned himself with the total man-made and “man- influenced” environment. The architecture of an individual structure became

“pathetically inconsequential,” Gruen argued, when it was surrounded by the “anarchy” of industrial and commercial slums. Even when he was designing store interiors, he was interested in creating the proper atmosphere through “psychological lighting,” which could affect the mood of the shopper. Gruen had always been sensitive to the “noisiness and disorderliness” of the kind of street signs and billboards that cluttered shopping strips, each seeking to attract more attention than the next, creating a total visual cacophony. His shopping centers—with their nondescript exteriors, introverted character, and pleasant courtyards accented with modern art—were an attempt to ameliorate the environmental chaos of the commercial strip. He knew that schemes to maximize the profit potential of every bit of space—such as a plan to convert the space over the main waiting room in New York’s Grand Central Terminal into three stories of shops and bowling alleys—failed to comprehend the “psychological lift” that came from a pleasant

154While some of Gruen’s fellow architects criticized him as a purveyor of mass culture and “air- conditioned nightmares,” and derided his work as anonymous and forgettable, many of his colleagues appreciated his particular talent. Architect Philip Johnson said that Gruen went beyond creating beautiful buildings; he produced “civic art” that could play on people and suggest what they should do. His buildings were “clean,” avoiding flights of fancy, but the total effect of walking through one of his complexes was “something beyond the design.” Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; Ray Herbert, “Rebirth of Nation’s Cities Owes Debt to Architect Victor Gruen,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1960.

451 environment.155

Gruen believed that variety was essential in the urban environment, both in terms of races and classes, and in the constitution of building clusters. Gruen’s ideal development mixed residential, commercial, and business uses, and he decried the

“sterile and inhuman” single-use developments such as New York’s Lincoln Center:

“This concentration of culture in one segregated spot is in part a psychoanalytically interesting expression of the feeling that our cities are so void of culture and so hostile to it that only by putting culture behind figurative barbed wire can it be protected from the vulgarity of urban life. Besides, it robs the rest of the city of enrichment through cultural activities, and gives it the stamp of pure commercialism.” Gruen was equally critical of large public housing projects—which often became racial ghettos “where one can live only if one has too little money to live decently”—and suburban subdivisions in which

“one can afford to live only if one has too much.” Such segregated communities not only

“destroyed the natural interplay of human activities and the ease and pleasure of direct human contact,” but they also vastly increased the need for transportation. Gruen believed that a “true community” provided housing at various income levels and incorporated a blend of commercial and civic functions. Government intervention was

155Victor Gruen, “Store Designing for the ‘Feminine Touch’: Famed Store Designer Tells Interior Secrets,” West Coast Feminine Wear, April 29, 1947, 12; Victor Gruen, “Design with Light,” speech, January 31, 1950, box 4, folder “Speeches – 1943-1952,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, speech at State A.I.A. Convention, Avalon, Catalina Island, October 3, 1947, box 5, folder “Speeches, 10-3-47,” Gruen AHC; Emily Genauer, “Art and Architecture Happily Wed, New Shopping Center Exhibit Proves,” New York Herald Tribune, April 3, 1955; Victor Gruen “The Need for an Urban Planning Philosophy,” speech before the Washington, D. C. Section, Institute of Traffic Engineers, May 14, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume V, 1957, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Grand Central Terminal: Notes Concerning Proposed Changes,” 1960, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VIII, 1959-1960, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Changing City: Environmental Architecture,” Matrix 1, no. 2 (Summer 1962), box 31, folder, “Articles, 1962”), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Environmental Architecture,” The People’s Architects, ed. Harry S. Ransom, Rice University, November 1964, 55-61, box OV65, “Scrapbooks: Reprints, May 1943-Oct. 1979 (5 of 12),” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to the editor, Arts & Architecture, November 1965.

452 necessary to make such a community, Gruen said, because the private housing sector evidently could not.156

The Heart of Our Cities

The influence of the Fort Worth Plan, the spread of downtown pedestrian malls, and the success of Midtown Plaza made Gruen a national authority on the problems of downtown and the possibilities for urban renewal. He worried that the problems of downtown were only exacerbated by the rapid building of freeways in the late 1950s, which Gruen called a “murder plot” against urban areas. Drawing a biological analogy,

Gruen said that the freeways were “poisoning” the city by the “injection of foreign particles into the bloodstream in increasing doses.” The foreign particles were automobiles that could not be properly absorbed in the body of the city and, therefore, caused “serious circulatory diseases” that ultimately threatened the “heart” of the city.

Downtowns were becoming vast parking lots, made “inefficient” by the islands of buildings that remained between them, and although there were more cars downtown, there were fewer people.157

In a 1963 article in the Harvard Business Review, Gruen argued that the task of revitalizing cities could only be accomplished through a partnership of government and

“free enterprise.”158 He believed that nothing could be accomplished without the

156Victor Gruen, “New Forms of Community,” speech at Princeton University Conference on Design in America, May 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Can Your Neighborhood Survive the Suburban Sprawl?” New Homes Guide, June 16, 1965, box 9, folder “Clippings, 1960- 1965,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Future of the City and the Central Business District,” lecture for the Urban Studies Program, University of California, Riverside, National Science Symposium, May 24, 1972, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC. 157“What’s Happening to U.S. Cities,” U.S. News & World Report, June 20, 1960, 86. 158Writing in 1946, the Austrian management theorist Peter Drucker, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1930s, posited that, regardless of the prevalent political beliefs and forms of social organization in any particular country, Big Business was the “general condition of modern industrial society,” and that the

453 cooperation of business, and that merchants knew that planning was good business and could be the salvation of downtown. He had become close with many of his clients— such as department store magnates Oscar Webber and the Dayton brothers—and he sympathized with their manner of thinking. Gruen encouraged business leaders to cooperate with officials in government, because in this area of “vital self-interest,” free enterprise had proved to be “timid, passive, and defeatist.” Merchants had retreated from central business districts to suburbia where they found havens in “new, shiny, Lilliputian towns,” the shopping centers Gruen was famous for designing. A partner in Gruen’s firm suggested that he may have developed a “guilt complex” over having aggravated the problems of downtown with his shopping centers, and it does appear that Gruen felt a moral obligation to get involved in urban renewal. He believed that “enterprise” should be the animating force in such projects, but that government, as a “servant of the people,” should use its authority to implement the project. He cited Midtown Plaza as an example of the successful collaboration of government and business, and he posited that the reason the Fort Worth Plan failed was because cooperation with government was sought only after the plan had been completed.159

Gruen synthesized his ideas a book called The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban

Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure, published in the fall of 1964.160 The book, which Gruen had been working on for many years, was very well received. The architecture critic Wolf

Von Eckardt welcomed Gruen’s “cellular” urban design plan, and he said that Gruen concept of “free enterprise” did not exclude government, but saw its function as “setting the frame within which business is to be conducted.” Peter F. Drucker, Concept of the Corporation (New York: The John Day Company, 1946), 2-5. 159Victor Gruen, “Who is to Save Our Cities?” Harvard Business Review 41, no. 3 (May/June 1963): 107- 15; Guzzardi, “An Architect of Environments”; Victor Gruen, letter to Messrs. Contini, Baumfeld, Van Leuven, Tannen, Duschinsky, June 15, 1956, box 73, folder 14, Gruen LOC. 160Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964).

454 deserved to be listened to because he had met the “ruling standards” of American society: he “made out” and makes money. Stewart L. Udall, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, wrote the publisher with the prediction that the book would surely serve as “a significant catalyst for wise city planning throughout our country.” Another reviewer predicted that it could have an impact on the level of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and U.S. Senator

Joseph Tydings of Maryland said it was the first “completely satisfactory diagnosis of the maladies affecting our great metropolitan areas.” When Lady Bird Johnson, the First

Lady of the United States, was assembling her Committee for a More Beautiful Capital,

Udall suggested Gruen, and Gruen accepted her invitation.161

Gruen took on the role as a prophet and planner of the American city. As Lyndon

Johnson won the 1964 presidential election and forwarded the “positive issue campaign” of the Great Society, Gruen believed that that society would be an urban society. He had already produced a plan for Washington’s bid for the 1964 World’s Fair (which it ultimately lost to New York City) that would have been the basis for a “New City” that would have converted the fairgrounds and installations into a new satellite community near Largo, Maryland. Gruen’s firm also produced plans for the New Cities of Valencia, near Los Angeles, and Litchfield Park, near Phoenix. VGA was also hired by Secretary

Robert Weaver as a consultant on New Cities for the new U.S. Department of Housing

161Gruen would form a friendship with the First Lady, whom he admired for her personal warmth and political intelligence. He was also grateful to her for having left his book on her husband’s nightstand. Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 193, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC; Stewart L. Udall, letter to Henry W. Simon, November 3, 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII, Gruen AHC; “Victor Gruen and His Battle for the Heart of the City,” Camma News, February 1965, 3, box 32, folder, “Articles, 1965,” Gruen AHC; Joseph D. Tydings, letter to Victor Gruen, February 26, 1965, box 13, folder “Senator Joseph Tydings, 1965,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, letter to Senator Joseph D. Tydings, March 11, 1965, box 13, folder “Senator Joseph Tydings, 1965,” Gruen AHC; Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, letter to Victor Gruen, January 30, 1965, box 8, folder “Correspondence, Lady Bird Johnson, 1965- 1966,” Gruen AHC; Wolf Von Eckardt, “Escape from the Automobile,” The New Republic, January 2, 1965, 18-9.

455 and Urban Development. The firm produced a special report for the agency in which it defined New Cities as “new urban entities of metropolitan scale, located at significant distances from existing urban concentrations, established, planned, and developed by intent.” The advantage of New Cities was perceived to be their independence from existing political forces and interests, which would allow for the experimentation with forms and techniques that could not be imposed on existing cities. Because New Cities had no pre-existing population patterns, there would be no status quo to defend, and racial and economic integration could be planned from the beginning as a “taken-for- granted reality.”162

A Reorientation toward Europe

Gruen’s third wife, Lazette Van Houten, died suddenly on July 15, 1962. The shock of mortality compelled him to draw up a will, which he would periodically revise over the years, progressively reducing the share allotted to his children, Michael and

Peggy, until they were eventually written out of it altogether.163 They would soon be

162“Gruen plan for Washington dies: New York gets fair,” Architectural Forum, December 1959, 9; Ada Louise Huxtable, “Out of a Fair, A City,” Horizon 2, no. 5 (May 1960): 80-8; “Biography of the Founder,” box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; New Cities U.S.A.: A Statement of Purpose and Program, prepared for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by Victor Gruen Associates, Summer 1966, box 29, folder 3, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, talk at the Architectural Society of the University of Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts, November 16, 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII), Gruen AHC. 163Instead, Peggy and Michael would receive some artworks by the Viennese Secession artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Gruen owned one painting by Klimt, “Schloss Kammer am Attersee IV” (1910), that was particularly valuable, and which he would occasionally loan out to museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The painting was the only asset that Gruen left to his children. (However, he may have been sending “loans” to his son as a way of avoiding an inheritance tax.) He pointed out that its value had risen considerably, but he also explained that it was beloved by Kemija, and because of her “self-sacrificing manner” she encouraged Gruen to leave it to his children. Victor Gruen, letter to Peggy Gruen, April 1, 1963, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Thomass M. Messer, letter to Victor Gruen, February 28, 1964, box 69, folder 15, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to Michael and Peggy Gruen, October 1979, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letters to Michael Gruen, July 1972-June 1975, box 15, folder 2, Gruen LOC.

456 replaced by Gruen’s new wife, Kemija Salinhefendic, whom he married in 1963.164

By that time, Gruen’s firm had designed more than 40 shopping centers, and it had established satellite offices in New York and Chicago in addition to its base in

Beverly Hills. VGA also operated temporary project offices in cities where it had major clients, such as Detroit, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, and it maintained an international clientele in Australia, South America, and Europe. Its projects including not only shopping centers, but also public buildings, churches, schools, office buildings, banks, exhibitions, and New Towns. By 1966, Gruen’s six partners and staff of nearly

300—which included not only architects and engineers, but also transportation planners, merchandising analysts, graphic artists, interior designers, economists, and other specialists—began to operate more independently of him.

In response to the increasing demand for his consulting services abroad, Gruen founded Victor Gruen International (VGI), based in Vienna. Though originally conceived as a branch of VGA, Gruen would eventually dissolve his relationship with his old firm and reestablish himself in Europe. At the opening of the new VGI office in May of 1967,

Gruen promised to combine his American experience with the European tradition.

However, Gruen generally disclaimed the moniker of “American expert” when he spoke

164However, at the time of their marriage they signed an antenuptial agreement which stipulated that the marriage would produce no common property between them. Gruen first met Kemija, a Bosnian refugee, when she waited on him and his wife Lazette at a restaurant in Vienna. They adored her so much that they brought the girl to live in their Vienna apartment—where they were spending more and more time—and they employed her as a supervisor of its renovation. After Lazette died, Gruen and Salinhefendic soon married. Certificate of Death, issued for Lazette E. Gruen by the State of California, Dept. of Public Health, box 22, folder 4, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to Messrs. Gerald Kelly and Ralph Erickson, July 20, 1962, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; Last Will and Testament of Victor D. Gruen, July 26, 1962, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Antenuptial Agreement,” February 19, 1963, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Marriage Certificate,” State of California, box 22, folder 16, Gruen LOC; Gruen LOC, “Wives, February 26, 1974,” box 20, Gruen LOC; “Last Will and Testament of Victor Gruen,” June 18, 1976, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC; “Last Will and Testament of Victor Gruen,” December 3, 1965, box 22, folder 7, Gruen LOC.

457 before European audiences. He claimed to be a cosmopolitan, citing his intimate knowledge of the fundamental differences between the social and cultural conditions on both sides of the Atlantic, and referring to his work experience on several continents. He emphasized that the first thirty-five years of his life were spent in Vienna, where he was educated and had his first architectural office. While he acknowledged his role as a pioneer of regional shopping center design, he insisted that he was a generalist in the

“much wider battle area of the manmade urban environment.” He also warned his audience that America’s “urban crisis” and the disfiguration of the cityscape—Los

Angeles was the most striking example—threatened Europe, too. “During the 29 years I have spent in the United States up to now, I have seen the tragedy with my own eyes,” said Gruen, gloomily. “You as Europeans have been spectators in the audience of the great American urban tragedy.”165

Gruen’s frustration working in the American system had mounted over the years, and he was increasingly disenchanted and pessimistic about the possibilities for reform.

The postwar years in the U.S. had been a time of great technological and sociological change, but the rapid pace of change had led Americans to make “mistake after mistake” that failed to recognize the “essential supremacy of human values.” Gruen felt that his city planning designs repeatedly “ran a foul” when it came to the question of racial

165Victor Gruen, “The Regional (Shopping) Center,” Technical Bulletin 104 (June 1963), 25-9, box 27, “Shopping Malls – general, 1960-1963,” Gruen AHC; “Victor Gruen Associates: Architecture, Planning, Engineering” [brochure], n.d. [ca. 1967], box 74, folder 7, “Victor Gruen Associates; Architecture Planning Engineering, n.d., Gruen LOC; “Rough Translation of Victor Gruen’s Address at the Occasion of the Opening of the European Office,” May 18, 1967, box 5, folder “Speeches 1967- 1973,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, talk for Congresso Internazionale, “Commercio e Urbanistica,” Milano, October 14-16, 1967, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XV, 1966-1967), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, [handwritten] letter to Herman Guttman and Victor Gruen Associates, n.d. [ca. 1972], box 8, folder “Correspondence – Handwritten Letter written shortly after leaving Victor Gruen Associates, n.d.,” Gruen AHC; “Organization for Efficient Practice: Victor Gruen Associates,” Architectural Record, October 1961; “Victor Gruen: Biographical Data,” n.d. [ca. 1963], box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC.

458 integration, and he came to see the failure of U.S. society to live up to the ideal of the

Declaration of Independence that all men were created “equal.” He also detested the

“one-sided pursuit for ever more money and ever more materialistic growth” that seemed to define the American ideology. He began to resent the artificiality and unhealthiness of the “air-conditioned life” that he found himself living in Los Angeles, and he even sympathized with his children and other “hippies” as they protested against a life defined by material things. (He was even annoyed by newfangled consumer goods as cellophane, frozen food, electric auto windows, and combination washer-dryers.) The last straw, perhaps, was the “urban crisis” in the U.S., where city traditions were “weak.” The impossible situation led Gruen to view the entire country almost as a lost cause, and he began to see it as his mission to save Europe from suffering a similar fate.166

An Anti-Automobile Modern Vision

Gruen tolerated the supremacy of the automobile in American life, and he dutifully incorporated it into his shopping center designs and plans for urban renewal.

Yet the American obsession with the private motorcar would become one of his greatest frustrations, and he spoke out frequently, and with increasing candor, against its misuse as a form of public transportation that wasted precious urban space and infringed on the rights of humans “in a violent manner.” He believed that the problem rose to the level of a national emergency, making American cities unlivable. “The automobile is the one 166Victor Gruen, “Schizophrenia in Urban Planning,” speech at the Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning, Los Angeles, April 30, 1970, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1976,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The Future of the City and the Central Business District,” lecture for the Urban Studies Program, University of California, Riverside, National Science Symposium, May 24, 1972, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Two Americans in Austria: Bicentennial Reflections,” Vienna News, October 7, 1976, 4-5; Joyce Haber, “Victor Gruen: Architect, Dreamer and Doer,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1966, box 9, folder “Victor Gruen, Clippings, 1965, 1966,” Gruen AHC.

459 single factor which has contributed to the deterioration of our urban environment more than all others together,” said Gruen in 1957. It had turned compact, orderly communities into “anarchistic” sprawl. Gruen felt that the automobile ought to be confined to spaces where it did not “mingle” with people, and the separation of automobile traffic from pedestrian areas was one of the chief innovations of his shopping center designs. He believed that the automobile itself was responsible for the

“amorphous sprawl” of the suburbs, “a vast cultural desert, without physical plan or order, without community identity and meaning.” Gruen could be severe in his conclusions. “In this new suburbia with its endless reaches of identical detached houses, the inhabitants themselves have become detached from the social body,” he wrote grimly in 1956. “Fifty million Americans who have gained pride of ownership, have in doing so, all but lost civic pride and interest.”167

Gruen argued that, while the pioneers of modern architecture had torn the “false fronts” from structures, the new task was to remove the “false pattern” in urban areas that was left over from the horse-and-buggy days. The new technology confronted a

“completely outdated” urban environment. “If modern architecture is to take us anywhere, it must take us out of the present melee of machines and flesh, of automobiles and people,” said Gruen, with typical dramatic flourish. “It must reinstate man as the master and relegate the machine to its place as servant.” Gruen had a plan to end the

167Victor Gruen, speech before the San Francisco Planning and Housing Commission, Commercial Club, San Francisco, January 31, 1956, box 1, Speeches, (Volume III, 1956), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “The City in the Automobile Age,” Perspectives USA 16 (Summer 1956): 45-54; Victor Gruen, “Presentation Concerning the Desirability of Master Planning for the Central Business District of Miami,” address before the Downtown Miami Business Council, November 8, 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume III, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Renewing Cities for the Automobile Age,” Traffic Engineering, May 1957; “Cars a ‘National Emergency’ Making U. S. Cities Unlivable,” Register Republic [Rockford, Ill.], March 1, 1957; Victor Gruen, “Light and Shadow of the European Metropolis,” notes on “Vienna speech,” June 11, 1963, box 2 (Speeches), Volume XII, 1963), Gruen AHC.

460 “cold war” between automobile and man: his “cluster” or “nuclei” scheme of urban organization, described above, where developments were designed around acceptable walking distances between each unit. Traffic carriers, including automobiles, would move between planned communities and metropolitan areas, but they would never

“pierce” the areas of human activities. He wanted to create “reservations for the human race” that were separate from “reservations for the automobile race.” As prototypical examples of the “cluster” philosophy of planning, Gruen referred to his own Northland shopping center, and, ironically, to another development in suburban Detroit: the General

Motors Research Center designed by Eero Saarinen.168

As the use of mass transit plummeted in the late 1950s, Gruen went so far as to label all public expenditures on infrastructure for the automobile and subsidies for the industry as “immoral” for destroying the urban way of life. The automobile had become an astonishingly inefficient, land-hogging form of mass transportation that tore community patterns “intro shreds” and introduced “mortal dangers,” fumes, and noises.

The “space-eating monsters from Detroit” had wrecked mass transit, becoming instruments of “collective immobility.” New highways, freeways, and street widenings in urban areas amounted to a “great human sacrifice” at the alter of the auto. The automobile’s “insatiable appetite for space”—which, by Gruen’s calculations was at least equal to that of a living unit for a family—was ruining the urban fabric, transforming downtowns into tremendous parking lots. Gruen worried that the automobile industry

168“Where is Modern Architecture Taking Us?” address by Victor Gruen and Eero Saarinen before the Economic Club of Detroit, Veterans Memorial Building, November 12, 1956, box 1, Speeches, Volume III, 1956, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Renewing Cities for the Automobile Age,” speech delivered to the Potomac Chapter of the National Housing & Redevelopment Officials, National Housing Center, Washington, D.C., January 3, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume IV, 1957), Gruen AHC; “How to judge a town by its planning: An interview on plant site selection with Victor Gruen, architect and urban planner,” Management Methods, 1960.

461 was so fundamental to the American economy that nothing could be done to check its influence, and that the automobile itself had become so central to the culture that it had become a kind of mental disease that he called “autorosis”: Americans sublimated their inferiority complexes and sought ego satisfaction through their cars. Gruen, the

“controversial” city planner, lamented in 1960 that city officials had become “autocrats” motivated by “automania.”169

It was an awkward position for the “apostle of the mall” to put himself in. Gruen maintained that his shopping centers properly segregated automobile from pedestrian areas, but he pointed out that retailers had a misguided infatuation with the automobile: the proper object of their affection was not the car itself but rather the “female customer” in it. “No automobile—not even the most elegant Cadillac—ever bought a thing,” said

Gruen. Yet everyone, it seemed, had fallen under the spell of the “autocratic fanatics” who in their zeal would bankrupt public transit and “lay waste” to the centers of cities.

Downtown merchants, fearful of losing their shoppers, clamored for more parking space, not realizing that more parking spaces, if poorly designed, would only further congest downtown. “What I am asking,” Gruen implored at the peak of “autocrazity,” “is that the automobile be de-throned from its high pedestal as a symbol of divinity and that, like all the other appliances, it be put in its proper place and utilized where and when it is

169Victor Gruen, “Highways and the American City,” speech delivered at a symposium sponsored by the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, “The New Highways: Challenge to the Metropolitan Region,” Hartford, Connecticut, September 9-11, 1957, box 1, Speeches, Volume V, 1957, Gruen AHC; Edward T. Chase, “Future of the City,” The Commonweal, October 11, 1957, 39-42; Victor Gruen, “The City’s Heart,” remarks at the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials’ Eighteenth Annual Conference, Pacific Southwest Regional Council, Hacienda Motel, Fresno, California, May 19, 1959, box 2 (Speeches), Volume VII, 1958-1959, Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “No More Offstreet Parking in Congested Areas,” The American City, September 1959; Jim Doyle, “Planner Favors Ban on Automobiles In Downtown Sections of U. S. Cities,” Denver Post, February 21, 1960; Victor Gruen, “The City as Designed Structure,” speech at the Urban Design Series, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, December 6, 1961.

462 needed, without interfering with the more important rights of human beings who, at least for the time being, are still in the majority.”170

The irony of Gruen’s antipathy toward the automobile was only heightened by the fact that he lived and worked in Los Angeles, a city in which the automobile reigned supreme as a mode of transportation. Gruen believed that Los Angeles had few of the characteristics of a true city; it lacked the compactness necessary for a thriving public life in which “all types of human activities are intermingled in close proximity.” Gruen believed that it did not even deserve to be considered a city; it was an “anti-city.” When he returned later in his life, to received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from

Pepperdine University (where he would establish a center for environmental studies), he looked on the city with the “hard eye of an expert” and the “soft heart of a parent,” according to one account. The highways that divided it had torn apart communities,

170Jim Doyle, “Planner Favors Ban on Automobiles In Downtown Sections of U. S. Cities,” Denver Post, February 21, 1960; Victor Gruen, “Retailing and the Automobile: A Romance Based Upon a Case of Mistaken Identity,” Architectural Record, March 1960. Gruen’s invectives against the cherished American automobile did not go unnoticed. Gruen complained of having been “personally attacked, publicly and privately, as an enemy of the automobile and the automobile industry,” though he insisted that his critique was not against automobiles, per se, but against their misuse in the urban context. At the 1962 conference of the National Highway Users, where “freedom of automobility” was the theme, William S. Canning, an auto club director, singled out Gruen for his attacks on highways and autos. But Gruen had his supporters, too: in 1963, he was called upon by a U.S. House committee as an authority on urban problems to present testimony in support of a bill that would provide $500 million in federal grants to cities to improve their mass transit systems. In his written statement in support of the bill, Gruen expressed his deep regret over more than twenty years of public subsidies for “individualized transportation by motor car” that had made the hearts of American cities “sick.” Developers had committed “sins” in the exuberant deference to the automobile. Gruen even compared American cities, when viewed from the air, to photographs of bombed-out European cities at the end of the Second World War. “They represent a sea of moving and parked cars,” he wrote, “with only some buildings— like islands—appearing in the ocean of tin roofs.” Gruen was even critical of the land waste endemic to shopping center design. Because the space needed for parking was as much as eight times as large as the center itself, the hodgepodge or “sterile” outside was invariably surrounded by an “ocean of tin.” “Autoists Denounce Their Urban Critics,” New York Times, May 9, 1962; John E. Barriere, telegram to Victor Gruen, March 1, 1963, box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, letter to John E. Barriere, March 7, 1962, box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Without Effective Mass Transportation Our Cities Must Die,” statement for House Banking and Currency Committee, March 1963, box 5, folder “Speech File 1963,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Can We Check Urban Blight?” New York Herald Tribune, June 9, 1963; Victor Gruen, “New Forms of Community,” speech at Princeton University Conference on Design in America, May 1964, box 2 (Speeches), Vol. XIII), Gruen AHC.

463 becoming barriers “more potent than the famous Berlin wall.” In Vienna, Gruen had access to parks, three theaters, and four concert halls within a ten-minute walk from his apartment. In sprawling Los Angeles, Gruen was forced to invite people to his home if he wanted to see them, and he would put on a record rather than going to the trouble of going to a concert. “My personal feeling is that Los Angeles is neither a nice place to visit nor to live,” Gruen admitted to his friend and colleague Rudi Baumfeld in 1969. He had finally resolved to return to Vienna.171

Return to Vienna and a New Role as an Environmentalist

In the spring of 1968, Gruen founded the Victor Gruen Foundation for

Environmental Planning, with offices in Los Angeles and Vienna (where it was the

Zentrum für Umweltplanung), electing himself as president. Upon reaching his sixty- fifth birthday on July 18, 1968, Gruen formally resigned from the presidency of VGA and moved his base of operations to Vienna, where he would direct Victor Gruen

International. He also had, for a time, a separate company based in Switzerland called

Victor Gruen Planning and Architecture. He confessed to leading a “gipsy life,” going back and forth between Vienna and Los Angeles—and also working in France, Belgium

(on the new city of Louvain-la-Neuve near Ottignies), Italy, and Germany—but by

January of 1969, he had settled more permanently into the city of his birth, where he

171Ray Herbert, “L.A. Typifies World Urban Crisis, Vienna-born Architect-Planner Says,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1964; Victor Gruen, “L.A.’s Traffic Hopeless, but Not Serious?” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1965; Victor Gruen, “Outline for a Talk to Be Given at the Durini Cultural Centre in Milano,” June 7, 1967, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XV, 1966-1967), Gruen AHC; Ursula Vils, “Technology Is Villain, Says Planner Gruen,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1970; Art Seidenbaum, “Gruen Critiques ‘Old Hometown,’” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1976; Jerry Belcher, “Victor Gruen, 76; architect, creator of shopping malls,” Journal [Providence, RI], February 15, 1980; Victor Gruen, letter to Rudi Baumfeld, July 17, 1969, box 11, folder 13, “PARTNERS—Baumfeld, Rudolf, April 1967-Aug. 1973,” Gruen LOC.

464 would live and work for most of the remainder of his life.172

The aim of Gruen’s Foundation, which was directed in Los Angeles by Claudia E.

Moholy-Nagy (the daughter of Sibyl and László Moholy-Nagy, the émigré Bauhaus artist),173 was to fill the gap between the “actions and conditions” that were shaping the environment—but in “short-sighted, profit-oriented” ways—and the world of academia, which Gruen found to be sadly ineffectual. The Foundation would limit its field of activity to supporting those efforts to influence the “man-made and man-influenced environment” through conscious planning. Gruen was troubled that the term “progress” was too often applied to enterprises that were destructive to the human environment. He believed that human ingenuity ought to be redirected toward positive projects that served

“human” functions and freed them from the “tyranny of technological gadgets.” Gruen pointed out that the kind of poor planning that created segregated cities—divided not only by race and class but also by function, be it residential or commercial—destroyed the “natural interplay of human activities” and enormously increased the need for transportation, which itself was often destructive. Part of the problem, Gruen believed, was over-specialization, and he hoped to ameliorate environmental degradation by supporting the work of a “multi-disciplined team” of architects, planners, engineers,

172“Biographical Data,” Outline to Public Relations Material for Book, n.d., box 10, folder “Biographical Information, Victor Gruen 1903-1980,” Gruen AHC; “Background Information,” The Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning, n.d., box 13, folder “Professional Files, Victor Gruen Foundation, 1968,” Gruen AHC; Gaby Janoschek, letter to Arthur Lawrence, November 6, 1968, box 5, folder “Speech Requests,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, letter to Jerome Biblit, January 14, 1969, box 5, folder “Speech Requests,” Gruen AHC; Kemija Gruen, letter to John Crosby, January 17, 1969, box 5, folder “Speech Requests,” Gruen AHC; Gaby Janoschek, letter to John Nolen, January 27, 1969, box 5, folder “Speech Requests,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, letter to Stewart L. Udall, February 12, 1969, box 11, folder 4, Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, “Biographische Notizen,” April 2, 1975, p. 212, box 76, folder 8, Gruen LOC; Maggie Savoy, “Architect Plans Cities for Humans,” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1969. 173Claudia Moholy-Nagy died in September of 1971 at age 35. Victor Gruen, memorandum to the “members and friends” of the Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning,” December 1971, box 13, folder “Professional Files, Victor Gruen Foundation, 1969,” Gruen AHC.

465 social scientists, economists, and bureaucrats.174

Gruen had long thought of himself as an architect of the “environment,” but in the course of writing his book The Heart of Our Cities in the early 1960s, his consciousness as an environmentalist was heightened. The book was the catalyst for a meeting, friendship, and correspondence between Gruen and Stewart Udall. Gruen was “deeply impressed” that the Interior Secretary’s idea of conservationism was not limited to the preservation of “natural beauty,” but also extended to everything that influenced the man- made environment. Gruen believed that Udall, as a well-known conservationist, would be sympathetic to his critique of the “one-sided approach of promoting transportation by private automobile” that had resulted in such a colossal waste of land. Gruen thanked

Udall for passing a copy of his book along to the President, and he asked the Secretary to bring it to the attention of his boss that he was “willing and eager” to contribute to

Johnson’s urban renewal efforts.175

When Udall left office in 1969, he created the Overview Foundation, the mission of which was remarkably similar to Gruen’s own Foundation. Gruen worried about the competition and, at the same time, felt somewhat slighted that he was not asked to serve as an advisor for Udall’s Foundation. The mild rift was soon mended, though, and Gruen asked Udall to serve on the advisory board for his Foundation and write the introduction to his new book, Centers for the Urban Environment; Udall agreed. The book appeared

174“The Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning” [pamphlet], n.d., box 13, folder “Professional Files, Victor Gruen Foundation, 1968,” Gruen AHC; “The Victor Gruen Foundation for the Shaping of the Human Environment,” March 18, 1968, box 13, folder “Professional Files, V.G. Foundation – Formation,” Gruen AHC; “The Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning,” statement of founding and organization, March 17, 1969, box 13, folder “Professional Files, V.G. Foundation – Formation,” Gruen AHC. 175Victor Gruen, letter to Stewart L. Udall, January 6, 1965, box 11, folder 4, Gruen LOC; “Guardian of Resources: Stewart Lee Udall,” New York Times, February 2, 1967; Stewart L. Udall, letter to Victor Gruen, January 30, 1969, box 11, folder 4, Gruen LOC.

466 in 1973, and Udall flattered Gruen by calling him the foremost “environmental architect” of the time. Gruen built on the themes of his first two books, but he aimed for a more global scope, and he even acknowledged that the “unifunctional” shopping center had contributed to the sprawl of the auto-centric society. Gruen wrote an environmental book instead of updating his classic work, Shopping Towns USA, and he seemed, at times, to be atoning for past sins, reluctantly admitting that he was considered to be the “father” of the shopping center, a title that made him somewhat uneasy.176

Gruen had resolved to spend the remainder of his life working on improving the urban environment, and he devoted considerable time and resources to his Foundation.

He was pleased that consciousness of the “global environmental crisis” was rising in the early 1970s. The prophet of the shopping mall became increasingly sympathetic to John

Kenneth Galbraith’s critique of the “affluent society” and the environmental crisis that it appeared to be causing. He worried about the “shortsighted” profit motive that dominated those “materialistic times.” “Man is generally subject to the folly of believing that he is obliged to do everything which he might be capable of doing,” said Gruen before a Beverly Hills audience, “but since progressing science and technology are providing us so richly and constantly with new capabilities, this notion can only be upheld at the danger of causing irreparable environmental damage and human self- destruction.” Gruen welcomed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, but he criticized what he called the “Nixon doctrine” that, in the face of an energy crisis,

176Victor Gruen, letter to Stewart L. Udall, February 12, 1969, box 11, folder 4, “Personal—Udall, Stewart L., Jand. 1965-July 1974,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to Stewart L. Udall, April 16, 1969, box 11, folder 4, “Personal—Udall, Stewart L., Jand. 1965-July 1974,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, letter to Stewart L. Udall, July 20, 1971, box 11, folder 4, “Personal—Udall, Stewart L., Jand. 1965-July 1974,” Gruen LOC; Victor Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973).

467 continued to advocate for greater consumption and “materialistic growth.” In contrast,

Gruen advocated the conservation of natural resources and precious land by ending the

“enforced mobility” that was the result of suburban sprawl and the absolute supremacy of the automobile. Only an “infinitesimal part” of mobility was deliberate, and the rest was enforced because of poor planning. Gruen’s planned “cellular” communities would not peter out in the ragged edges of the suburbs, and the city would no longer be a

“conglomeration of ghettos and concentration camps for specific functions and social groupings.” Instead, each cell would contain a multiplicity of urban elements— residential, commercial, and civic—that would allow it to function semi-autonomously, without the “enforced mobility” of its inhabitants. Only through wise planning and conservation, Gruen argued, could mankind escape an ecological “holocaust.”177

Gruen’s concept of “environmental planning” was opposed to the idea of conservation, which had a defensive posture. Instead, Gruen advocated an offensive

“attack” directed against misguided patterns of human behavior and urban development that perverted natural ecosystems. Gruen’s concept of the “environment,” moreover, was not limited to nature; it was, rather, the “sum total of everything which surrounds us” and with which we had continuous “relations.” This included relationships between

177Victor Gruen, letter to Herman Guttman and Victor Gruen Associates, n.d. [ca. 1972], box 8, folder “Correspondence – Handwritten Letter written shortly after leaving Victor Gruen Associates, n.d.,” Gruen AHC; The Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning, Annual Report, 1972, box 35, folder “Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning – Annual Report, 1972,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Worldwide Problems and Opportunities – Cities,” speech at Beverly Hillcrest Hotel, Beverly Hills, California, September 13, 1973, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1978,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Public Planning and Land Ownership,” speech at a symposium of the Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning, “The Crisis of Controls,” September 18, 1973, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1976,” Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Dedication of the New Middle School of the American International School of Vienna,” address, October 12, 1975, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Pitfalls of Enforced Mobility,” speech at conference, “Transportation Horizons: Building Urban Environments,” Berkeley, California, September 20-25, 1973, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC.

468 individuals, between individuals and their society, and between man and “his own works”—all of his artificial creation. As the United States approached its bicentennial celebration, Gruen reminded an American audience that the ideology of infinite growth was a “utopian” proposition in a finite world. There were no more frontiers; wherever

Americans went, “we no longer find even a parking place.” In a country that used thirty to forty times as much energy as two-thirds of the world’s population in the

“undeveloped” world, Gruen called on Americans to recognize that they had reached, if they had not already transgressed, the “load-bearing capacity of nature.” “Instead of incessantly growing,” Gruen scolded, “we will finally have to grow up.”178

Gruen had, by this point, almost given up on the possibility of urban renewal of the kind he desired in the U.S. and had instead turned his attention to Europe. In 1972 he drafted a “Charter of Vienna,” based on idea of Le Corbusier’s Charte d’Athènes, a grand mission statement for architects and planners that attempted to bring that document “into context with our era.” Yet Gruen’s great ambitions had also become more parochial as he became absorbed in the project of restoring the historic charm of his native city. He said that, under no circumstances, would Vienna be “sacrificed on the altar of the automobile,” and he instead advocated the construction of the subway, or U-Bahn.

Gruen’s most potent rhetorical device in his urban planning advocacy was that, if

Vienna’s city planners did not follow his advice, their city could “go the way of its U.S. counterparts,” where the lifeblood of the city core had been “thrown out.” “We don’t want this in Vienna,” said Gruen. Gruen submitted a plan to the Vienna city council in

178Victor Gruen, “Urban Problems and Planning,” Salzburg Seminar, February 3, 1975, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, address at the American International School in Vienna, March 27, 1975, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC; Victor Gruen, “Managing the Growth of Cities,” address, San Diego, May 25, 1976, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC.

469 1973 that was much like his Fort Worth Plan: it proposed the removal of all private automobiles from the city center, to be replaced by the U-Bahn and by small buses.

Progress on the plan was slow and piecemeal, but more and more of the Innere Stadt became exclusive to the pedestrian over the years, including the famous street, the

Graben.179

Shopping Center Critique

Gruen went from being the inventor of the shopping center, to being the most enthusiastic and articulate evangelist of the idea, to being, toward the end of his life, the fiercest critic of what the shopping center had become. As he reestablished himself in

Vienna in the 1970s, he made it his mission to warn European city planners not to make the same mistakes that had been made in the U.S. over the past thirty years. He lamented the fact that the “environmental and humane” concepts which were the basis for his original vision of the shopping center had been completely forgotten in favor of arrangements that were just commercially profitable. Shopping centers were no longer the projects of the “merchant princes” like Oscar Webber and the Daytons of Minnesota, the ambitious clients who had the wherewithal to realize Gruen’s vision. Shopping centers were now planned by “anonymous” real estate enterprises that had no interest in building a legacy or strengthening a community; instead, these faceless corporations were only interested in making a “fast buck.” Gruen reluctantly admitted that suburban 179Victor Gruen, “Charter of Vienna: for the planning of the human environment,” submitted through the Victor Gruen Foundation for Environmental Planning,” 1972, box 48, folder 5, Gruen LOC; Wolf Von Eckardt, “Pioneering an American Idea,” Washington Post, January 15, 1972; “Vienna Stops the Clock,” Newsweek, March 20, 1972; Victor Gruen, “The Future of the City and the Central Business District,” lecture for the Urban Studies Program, University of California, Riverside, National Science Symposium, May 24, 1972, box 3 (Speeches, 1965-1976), Volume XVIII, 1972-), Gruen AHC; Fran P. Hosken, “Pedestrianization,” Design and Environment, Spring 1975, 40-3; Walter E. Schreier, “Old Vienna Goes Pedestrian,” Habitat 1 (1978), 21-3.

470 shopping centers had delivered the final “death blow” to the suffering central cities by driving out virtually all commercial activity.

As tragic as this history was in the U.S., Gruen felt that it would be more tragic in

Europe, because American cities were relatively young, and their downtowns never had as much “to offer” as the traditional European central city. Gruen feared that the urban character of cities like his beloved Vienna was threatened by the development of “unifunctional” shopping centers that produced a “monoculture” that compromised the essential variety of urban life. “The shopping centre is an extreme but by no means the only expression of the effort of substituting naturally and originally grown mixtures of various urban expressions by an artificial and therefore sterile order,” said Gruen in

London in 1978, speaking before an audience of shopping center owners who were probably expecting a different tone from the inventor of the shopping mall. The result was the creation of “functional ghettos” on the model of Le Corbusier. These developments served only a single use, which introduced the forced obligation of transportation between them as opposed to livability within them. Gruen said that the conventional shopping center was a thing of the past, and that the members of his audience should focus on creating “multi-functional” centers “for tomorrow.” While

Gruen regretted the way that shopping centers had developed, he stuck to the values that he had articulated in his original concept.180

Gruen did not soften his criticism after his declaration in London, and in the last two years of his life he became as well known for his antipathy toward shopping centers as for being the man who invented them. “I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard

180Victor Gruen, “Shopping Centres, Why, Where, How?” speech for Third Annual European Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centres, Hilton Hotel, London, February 28, 1978, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970-1978,” Gruen AHC.

471 developments,” he famously said of the ubiquitous malls built by “fast-buck promoters and speculators.” He felt that these developments were a perversion of his original concept.181 As he preached the values of urbanity—direct human communications, the easy and free exchange of ideas and goods, and the easy access to a multiplicity of choices—he urged audiences to forget about the “conventional” shopping center.

Shopping centers had been reduced to their standardized malls, which appeared the same whether in Detroit or in Houston; they were, with few exceptions, fully enclosed no matter what the climate. Rather than being islands of urbanity in the suburban desert, these shopping centers completely lacked identification with their surrounding communities and had no purpose other than merchandising. Gruen even supported a campaign to stop the construction of a mall near Burlington, Vermont which would have constituted “premeditated murder of a city by robbing it of practically all its retailing.”

The campaign was ultimately successful, and in the context of the energy crisis and growing environmental consciousness of the late 1970s, it cast a pall over the suburban mall that had so dominated commercial developments over the previous thirty years.182

Legacy

After a long illness, Gruen died in Vienna on February 14, 1980 at the age of 76.

He was remembered mainly as the “father” of the shopping center: his firm had designed the famous Northland and Southdale as well as more the seventy other regional centers.

181The metaphor was an intimate one to Gruen, who paid large sums in alimony to his second wife, Elsie, and had a relationship with their two children—who were virtually written out of his will—that was poor, at best. 182Ian Menzies, “His love for shopping malls is turning sour,” Boston Sunday Globe, April 23, 1978; William Severini Kowinski, “The Malling of America,” New Times, May 1, 1978, 30-55; Neal R. Peirce, “The Shopping Center and One Man’s Shame,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1978; “A Pall Over the Suburban Mall,” Time, November 13, 1978, 72.

472 Gruen was also remembered as a crusader against the automobile who cherished pedestrian spaces, and as an outspoken critic of what the shopping center had become—a perversion of his original vision. Architecture critic Wolf Von Eckardt said that Gruen was “among the most important architect-planners of our time,” even though he was

“lousy” when it came to designing buildings. Gruen’s strength was, rather, in designing environments, and according to Von Eckardt he deserved to be put in the company of his fellow refugee architects Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius—though he never achieved their fame.183

Gruen himself had an expansive view of the role of the architect. His was a socially crucial profession that incorporated many others:

He is an artist, creating and enjoying, sometimes more and sometimes less, his creations. He is a builder with the urge of every builder, to impress the proof of his existence on the surface of this planet. He is an engineer, calculating the structural forces of a building. He is a business man, at least he should be if he does not want to starve. He is a lawyer, writing contracts, studying building ordinances, concluding agreements. He is a psychologist, holding the hand of his client and trying to analyze the psychological effect of every feature of his work on the public. He is a publicity man, promoter, public speaker, and very often a nervous wreck.184

Yet Gruen knew that he was not Ayn Rand’s perverted vision of an architect; he realized that he could not permit himself the “luxury” of serving only his own tastes or preferences, or even his desire for self expression. Ultimately, Gruen acknowledged his

183“Report of the Death of an American Citizen Abroad,” issued for Victor David Gruen by the American Embassy, Austria, February 26, 1980, box 22, folder 4, Gruen LOC; Kemija Theresa Gruen, death announcement, box 10, folder, “Biographical Information,” Gruen AHC; Jerry Belcher, “Victor Gruen, 76; architect, creator of shopping malls,” Journal [Providence, RI], February 15, 1980; Paul Goldberger, “Victor Gruen, 76, Architect, Is Dead,” New York Times, February 16, 1980; “Victor Gruen, Developer of U.S. Malls,” International Herald Tribune, February 16-17; Wolf Von Eckardt, “The Urban Liberator: Victor Gruen and the Pedestrian Oasis,” Washington Post, February 23, 1980; “Father of Mall Fought for Downtown,” Miami Herald, February 24, 1980; “Pioneer architect Victor Gruen dies at 76,” Shopping Centers Today, March 1980. 184Victor Gruen, “How to Live with Your Architect,” speech at Store Modernization Show, New York, June 14, 1948, box 4, folder “Speeches – 1943-1952,” Gruen AHC.

473 social role: “I have to serve the interests of the society for which a city or any human environment has to be created.”185 185Victor Gruen, “Remarks for Louvain Meetings,” January 16-17, 1970, box 5, folder “Speeches, 1970- 1978,” Gruen AHC.

474 Conclusion

This dissertation has synthesized the biographies of four very successful twentieth-century Jewish émigrés who made their careers in the United States: Paul

Lazarsfeld, the Viennese sociologist; Ernest Dichter, the Viennese psychologist; Victor

Gruen, the Viennese architect; and Walter Landor, the Munich-born, London-trained industrial designer and graphic artist. I have considered them as a cohort because of their common experience emigrating from Central Europe to the U.S. in the 1930s—as Nazism gripped the Continent and forced them out—and because they all contributed their unique talents to creating the intellectual, aesthetic, and material foundations for the postwar consumer culture that has indelibly marked American culture writ large up to the present day. I have called them scientists of the quotidian because each one, in his own particular work, either directly used or was informed by the methods and insights of the modern social science of consumer behavior. The petty, day-to-day prejudices, proclivities, and neuroses of ordinary Americans—in all of their demographic and psychographic diversity

—were not inconsequential frivolities but rather the deep and abiding interest of these professional consultants to marketers and businessmen. To answer the questions of why consumers behaved as they did and how they interacted with and experienced the everyday world of commercial commodities, these figures acted as social scientists who probed the unconscious of the consumer psyche. They both created and critiqued the the real-life consumer fantasy worlds that postwar consumers inhabited: the commercially- sponsored radio serials, or “soap operas,” that occupied many hours in the daily conscious lives of mid-century housewives; the advertisements that were the constant backdrop and intermittent foreground of the commercial mass media; the park-like

475 shopping malls that gave suburban families pleasant, car-free places to meet, stroll, and shop; and the vibrant packages that projected personalities onto commodities and, when multiplied on display, produced a colorful atmosphere of mass-produced abundance and optimism that would inspire pop artists like Andy Warhol. The paradoxical professional lives of these European émigrés—who espoused the politics of social democracy, the philosophy of Gestalt, and the aesthetic principles of the Bauhaus—has been the common theme in this dissertation.

Unexplored Arcades as Projects for a New Historiography

In March of 1939, at the request of his friend Max Horkheimer of the Institute of

Social Research, the philosopher-historian Walter Benjamin revised an essay he had written in 1935, “Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” which was a kind of a theoretical synopsis of an epic research project that had occupied him, on and off, since

1927. Horkheimer, who was exiled in New York with his fellow Frankfurt School scholars—including Benjamin’s close friend Theodor W. Adorno—was trying to enlist a potential backer for Benjamin’s grand project, and he needed the author to provide a defense and explanation for it. Describing his project in an in an exposé, Benjamin said that the world was “an endless series of facts congealed in the form of things.” He further suggested that, “as a consequence of this reifying representation of civilization, the new forms of behavior and the new economically and technologically based creations that we owe to the nineteenth century enter the universe of phantasmagoria.”1 What

Benjamin meant by phantasmagoria was probably something close to the Marxian

1 Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century” in Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin Mclaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 14.

476 concept of commodity fetishism, which Benjamin scholar Rolf Tiedemann describes as use-value hidden in exchange-value, or “the whole capitalist production process, which constitutes itself as a natural force against the people who carry it out.”2

Benjamin was not interested in documenting the acts of great men or the big events of traditional historiography; instead, he focused on the detritus of the past left in its objects and ephemera that would provide an Urgeschichte or primal history of the collective. He wanted to know how the global economic system of capitalism left its mark on the most intimate, ordinary aspects of modern, urban life. The project began as a newspaper article about the arcades of Paris—the very commercial corridors that would inspire Gruen’s shopping malls—but over the course of more than a decade it grew into great mass of research loosely organized into sundry topical sheaves of which the Paris arcades were but one. When Benjamin fled Paris in 1940 he was forced to abandon the work, and his tragic fate ensured that it would never be completed. But his trove of research materials was hidden in the Bibliotèque Nationale de France by Georges

Batailles and later recovered by Adorno after the war. It was finally published as Das

Passagen–Werk in 1982 and finally translated into English in 1999 as The Arcades

Project.3 It is a massive collection of meticulous notes and primary documents—the raw materials for what would have surely been a fascinating book.

My project has also sought to heighten the relief of political economy in the traces

2 Rolf Tiedemann, “Dialectics at a Standstill: Approaches to the Passagen-Werk,” in The Arcades Project, 938. For Marx, the mystery of commodities could be explained by the fact that they had assumed the “social characteristics of men’s own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things.” Commodities themselves thus acquired a quasi-religious character, which Marx called fetishism, whereby the real social relations between humans instead took on the “fantastic form of a relation between things.” In the finished world of commodities, their value was measured not in use but in exchange—in the form of money which further concealed social relations and the conditions of production. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 164-5; 168-9. 3 Howard Eiland and Kevin Mclaughlin, “Translators’ Foreword” in The Arcades Project, ix-xiv.

477 of the quotidian—the commodities, the packages, the brands, the ads, the shops, and indeed, the shopping arcades. The stuff of American consumer culture is laden with political content working on the micro-level of individuals, and it has been the goal of this dissertation to examine the intellectual and material labor that went into the production of the objects, environments, images, and media that constituted the world of consumption. The four figures which I have grouped as an émigré cohort—Lazarsfeld,

Dichter, Landor, and Gruen—led semi-public lives and produced a large body of work that remains documented in archival collections in the U.S. and in Europe. My initial interest in them was utilitarian: I needed an organizing theme and a collection of primary sources with which to examine the political economy of the consumer culture. In the course of my research, however, their individual biographies—and particularly their common experience as Jewish émigrés—became central to my project, which has become as much a story of anti-Semitic persecution, forced emigration, and entrepreneurial success in America as it is a story about the politics of consumption. My most important discoveries about the business of stoking consumer desire in America are also essential to this immigrant story: that the empirical social science of Austro-Marxism and its emphasis on character differences in social classes would have practical application, through the influence of Paul Lazarsfeld, as a method of market research; that a sensationalized version of psychoanalysis, as practiced by Ernest Dichter, would serve as the foundation for the motivational research that attracted so much critical attention in the 1950s and became the basis for the segmented and “psychographic” marketing practices of the 1960s; that, through the work of Walter Landor, the modernist ideals of the German Bauhaus and Werkbund schools of architecture and design became

478 central to the look and feel of many mass-produced packages and brand labels; and that a belief in urban planning and organized community spaces—so important to the Social

Democrats of “Red Vienna”—would become the main organizing idea of the modern suburban shopping center as realized by Victor Gruen. The mystery of commodities is indeed in the social relations—and complicated labor histories—that they conceal.

The years considered in this dissertation span a discrete period beginning in 1933, the year of Lazarsfeld’s arrival in the United States, to 1976, to the year of his death.

1933 also marks the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, a political development that would eventually force the permanent emigration of the Jewish members of this cohort; in the U.S., it marked the beginning of the New Deal under

Roosevelt. These were the peak professional years of these émigré scientists of the quotidian, when new experiments in government were complemented by new experiments in business. By 1976, however, Dichter’s business had waned, and Gruen was in Vienna in semi-retirement; only Landor’s firm continued to thrive—indeed, it exists up to the present day.

1976 may be viewed as the beginning of the end of that New Deal period, when the conservative former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, very nearly defeated the sitting U.S. President, Gerald Ford, in the campaign for the Republican Party’s nomination for president. In the wake of the Vietnam War fiasco and the Watergate scandal that collapsed the public trust, Reagan’s brand of conservatism signaled a new wave of anti-government ideology that would come to dominate U.S. politics. It was also the moment when the neoliberal economic philosophy of Milton Friedman—the direct heir of Friedrich Hayek and the “Austrian” school of economics that was so distinct from

479 the ideals of social democracy that motivated Lazarsfeld and Gruen—was incorporated into the mainstream of American politics.4 Gruen’s final pronouncement in 1978 on his creation, the shopping center—“I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments”—was an appropriately bitter sentiment for an idealistic socialist planner whose urban reform efforts were either blocked by private interests or perverted by crass commercialism. At that moment, the potential for a hybrid American economy that incorporated elements of social democracy into the capitalist system seemed lost, belonging no longer to the present but to a more hopeful, past age. The communitarian, social ideals of Gruen and Lazarsfeld were, perhaps, less enduring than the relentless segmentation of consumer markets that was aided by the psychological probing and commodity branding of Dichter and Landor. The atomization of the social has continued apace, aided by digital technologies and computer algorithms, progressively reducing consumer types to the irreducible, the individual: the one.

4 Historian Angus Burgin argues: “The rhetorical strategy that Friedman advocated—with its emphasis on human freedom, its disparagement of government intervention, and its relentlessly optimistic valence— had become, via Reagan, the message of the [Republican] party itself. It was an extraordinary demonstration of the capacity of radical opinion to become, over time and in concert with circumstance, accepted as the norm.” Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 207.

480 Bibliography: Primary Sources

Manuscript and Archival Collections

American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie: Victor Gruen Papers.

Archives Center, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.: Landor Associates Collection, Freda Diamond Collection, N.W. Ayer Advertising Agency Collection.

Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware: Ernest Dichter Papers, Lippincott & Margulies, Inc. Records, Raymond Loewy Archives, U.S. Chamber of Commerce records.

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: Frank Stanton, Raymond Loewy, and Victor Gruen papers.

Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Duke University: J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, Leo Bogart Papers.

Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University: Bureau of Applied Social Research Archive, Paul Felix Lazarsfeld Collection, Robert K. Merton Papers.

Special Collections, Alexander Library, Rutgers University: Consumers’ Research, Inc. General Files.

University of Vienna: Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archiv, Institut für Soziologie; Ernest Dichter Archiv, Fachbereichsbibliothek Publizistik-und Kommunikationswissenschaft und Informatik.

Published Primary Sources

Bauer, Raymond A. and Stephen A. Greyser. Advertising in America: The Consumer View. Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1968.

Bell, Daniel. Work and Its Discontents. Boston: Beacon Press, 1956.

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Berle, Adolf A. and Gardiner C. Means. The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.

481 Berelson, Bernard. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954.

Bernays, Edward L. The Engineering of Consent. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.

–——. Propaganda. Horace Liveright, Inc., 1928.

Bogart, Leo. Current Controversies in Marketing Research. Chicago: Markham Publishing Co., 1969.

–——. Strategy in Advertising. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1967.

Bogart, Leo, ed. Psychology in Media Strategy: Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the Media Research Committee of the American Marketing Association. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1966.

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