Earnest Elmo Calkins
Encyclopedia
Earnest Elmo Calkins was an American advertising executive who co-founded the Calkins and Holden advertising agency. He pioneered the use of art in advertising, of fictional characters, the soft sell
, and the idea of "consumer engineering". He has been called the "Dean of Advertising Men".
, where his father became the city attorney for a short while. At age 6, a bout of measles
left him “almost completely deaf”, although it was not recognized until he was 10. His teachers told him he could hear if he paid more attention. By age 14 he was fully deaf. His mother was a Baptist who forbade him to read fiction, even Arabian Nights and Jules Verne
, but he read widely on a variety of subjects, devouring books with enthusiasm. He was exposed to printing at an early age, and was determined to become a printer himself.
After high school, his father secured him a position in a local printshop as a Printer's devil
, and he worked 12 hours day for six months for no pay. When he finished his chores, he was allowed to set type for the patent medicine
readers.
He attended Knox College and established a mediocre academic record, unable to hear almost anything in his classes. He did well at writing however, and in his senior year was elected editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, Coup d'État. He was then made editor of the college news published in the local paper every Thursday. He learned to master lip reading
, although he said he got more from reading than from the classes. He barely graduated in 1891, after the faculty failed him in Geology, but the Trustees overruled them and allowed him to graduate.
Calkins married Angie C. Higgins (1863–1950) in 1904. They had no children.
carpet sweeper
as a Christmas present. He submitted an ad, one of 1,433 entries, and won the contest. One of the three judges for the Bissell carpet sweeper advertising contest was Charles Austin Bates, an important early copywriter and New York ad agency founder and owner. Calkin's winning ad impressed Bates. In the fall of 1891, against his parents' wishes, Calkins set out for New York the first time at age 23. He found work writing copy for a small print shop for a while, but returned home after less than a year, unsuccessful. He moved back into his parents' home where he worked various jobs as a printer, reporter, columnist, advertising man, and publisher. Unable to make a living, he finally secured a job as an advertising manager in a department store in Peoria, Illinois for $USD19.50 (or about $ today), per week.
, he began to think hard about typography and design in advertising. He saw that form, visualization, color and design could be used to strengthen the visual appeal of advertising. As soon as he was able, he enrolled in a night course in applied design.
"Calkins and Holden". They opened the agency with a capital investment of $USD2000 (or about $ in today's dollars). Holden brought in the clients and Calkins developed the ads. Calkins' agency pioneered the use of artwork in advertising.
In 1905, he wrote what is considered the first textbook about contemporary advertising, Modern Advertising. In 1908, George Rowell asked him to write a column for the same periodical he had gleaned ideas from some years before, Printers Ink. He used it to assail "the hard-faced, mechanical, lifeless dummies that appear in magazine pages and upon posters." He said ad agencies should hire illustrators like James Montgomery Flagg
and Edward Penfield
, who created editorial content for periodicals.
After visiting Europe, he became an advocate for Modernism
which he thought "offered the opportunity of expressing the inexpressible, of suggesting not so much a motor car as speed, not so much a gown as style, not so much a compact but beauty."
at Calkins and Holden, where he encouraged the hiring of talented artists and illustrators. Calkins wanted to make advertising akin to fine art
, and elevate billboard
s into “the poor man’s picture gallery”. They developed displays, packaging, and complete ad campaigns.
In 1920, he encouraged Louis Pedlar to form the Art Directors Club in New York. In 1921, to “dignify the field of business art in the eyes of artists” and communicate the message that “artistic excellence is vitally necessary to successful advertising,” Calkins organized the first juried exhibition of advertising art.
The agency became very successful. Its clients including a roster of high-profile companies including Beech-Nut
, Thomas A. Edison Industries
, H.J. Heinz, Pierce-Arrow
, E. R. Squibb
and Ingersoll Watch
. He worked with magazines like McCall's
, McClure's
, The Saturday Evening Post
and Woman's Home Companion
. The success of the agency stemmed largely from its emphasis on design. The agency attracted many outstanding individuals, including Walter Whitehead, Myron Perley, Jack Sheridan
, René Clark, Walter Dorwin Teague
, and Egmont Arens. The last two are among the founders of American industrial design
profession.
One of the earliest ad campaigns by Calkins that gained notice was for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad
. Calkins created the fictional character
of Phoebe Snow. Beginning in 1900, the character was used to feature the clean-burning anthracite coal used by the railroad, which left patrons' clothes much cleaner than the coal used in competitor's locomotives. The advertising campaign, based on a live model, using impressionistic techniques and a fictional character, was one of the first of its kind.
Another important campaign Calkins worked on while with Bates was for the R&G Corset company. It became a series of ads on the back cover of the Ladies' Home Journal
, starting in 1898. R&G had relied on the then-traditional method of "drummers" who curried local retailers with sales talk, display stands, posters, booklets and promotional items to encourage them to carry the company's products. In 1898, the company joined with many others in experimenting with marketing through the new periodical mass media. Bates persuaded the firm to devote almost its entire promotional budget to occasional, full-page, back-cover ads in Ladies' Home Journal which cost the astronomical sum of $4000 (or about $ today). Calkins was given the assignment to create the ads, each costing many times his annual salary. The use of photography was just starting to become more prevalent in periodicals, and his ads led the way in their use in advertising, emphasizing art over text. R&G was rewarded with continually growing sales, and the number of dealers carrying their goods jumped from 6,000 to 10,000.
Calkins also developed a successful campaign for Force breakfast cereal. It depicted the change in character of Jim Dumps to Sunny Jim after eating Force cereal. The ad campaign appeared on billboards and street cars, and in magazines and newspapers.
's Edward Bok
Gold Medal for distinguished personal service in advertising. Steven Heller in Advertising: the Mother of Graphic Design in Graphic Design History described him as "arguably the single most important figure in early twentieth century graphic design. He has been called the "Dean of Advertising Men", as the man who created the contemporary advertising industry, and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.
,” or the artificial creation
of demand for a product using design and advertising. He described the situation in 1929 that the speed of production had “outstripped consumption”. His answer to this problem is not to slow production, for “that would be backward.” He instead suggested manufacturing demand for product through planned obsolescence
. He wrote,
In other words, he said, "Why would you want last year’s hand bag when this year’s hand bag is so much more attractive?" He asked, "Does there seem to be a sad waste in this process? Not at all. Wearing things out does not produce prosperity. Buying things does." He pioneered the concept of the "soft sell," or impressionistic advertising, which stresses less immediate results, and focuses on building goodwill and creating a brand, relying more on the "creative process" to produce an advertising message.
Calkins retired from Calkins and Holden in 1931, five years after Holden died, when his deafness became too great a problem in contributing to the burgeoning radio advertising industry. Still vigorous at age 64, he wrote extensively and contributed many pieces to magazines and newspapers including the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times among others. He wrote a history of Galesburg, They Broke the Prairie, published by Scribners in 1937, an autobiography, Louder, Please!, and several other books.
Calkins & Holden merged with Fletcher Richards in 1959 to become Fletcher Richards, Calkins & Holden. Calkins died October 4, 1964 in New York City. When he died, his agency was merged into the Interpublic Group of Companies
.
Soft sell
In advertising, a soft sell is an advertisement or campaign that uses a more subtle, casual, or friendly sales message. This approach works in opposition to a hard sell....
, and the idea of "consumer engineering". He has been called the "Dean of Advertising Men".
Early and family life
Earnest Calkins was born to Mary Manville and William Clinton Calkins in Geneseo, Illinois. They moved soon after a few miles south to GalesburgGalesburg, Illinois
Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County....
, where his father became the city attorney for a short while. At age 6, a bout of measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
left him “almost completely deaf”, although it was not recognized until he was 10. His teachers told him he could hear if he paid more attention. By age 14 he was fully deaf. His mother was a Baptist who forbade him to read fiction, even Arabian Nights and Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, but he read widely on a variety of subjects, devouring books with enthusiasm. He was exposed to printing at an early age, and was determined to become a printer himself.
After high school, his father secured him a position in a local printshop as a Printer's devil
Printer's devil
A printer's devil was an apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type...
, and he worked 12 hours day for six months for no pay. When he finished his chores, he was allowed to set type for the patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
readers.
He attended Knox College and established a mediocre academic record, unable to hear almost anything in his classes. He did well at writing however, and in his senior year was elected editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, Coup d'État. He was then made editor of the college news published in the local paper every Thursday. He learned to master lip reading
Lip reading
Lip reading, also known as lipreading or speechreading, is a technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face and tongue with information provided by the context, language, and any residual hearing....
, although he said he got more from reading than from the classes. He barely graduated in 1891, after the faculty failed him in Geology, but the Trustees overruled them and allowed him to graduate.
Calkins married Angie C. Higgins (1863–1950) in 1904. They had no children.
Professional career
Once he finished college, he became a typesetter at the local paper, earning $USD10 (or about $ in current dollars) per week. It was supposed to be his life's vocation. He was stimulated by the first publication devoted to advertising, a small periodical named Printers' Ink. Calkins gleaned ideas from the magazine, reinforcing his notion that the design of typography was important, He mustered up the courage to suggest a few of his ideas to the local merchants up and down Main Street in Galesburg, who welcomed his input. He experimented with type and layout in those local advertisements.Wins ad contest
He learned from the hardware store owner of a contest offering $USD50 (or about $ in today's dollars) to the winner who designed the best ad for a BissellBissell Inc.
Bissell Inc., also known as Bissell Homecare, is a privately owned vacuum cleaner and floor care product manufacturing corporation headquartered in Walker, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids...
carpet sweeper
Carpet sweeper
A carpet sweeper is a mechanical device for the cleaning of carpets. These were popular before the introduction of the vacuum cleaner and have been largely superseded by them....
as a Christmas present. He submitted an ad, one of 1,433 entries, and won the contest. One of the three judges for the Bissell carpet sweeper advertising contest was Charles Austin Bates, an important early copywriter and New York ad agency founder and owner. Calkin's winning ad impressed Bates. In the fall of 1891, against his parents' wishes, Calkins set out for New York the first time at age 23. He found work writing copy for a small print shop for a while, but returned home after less than a year, unsuccessful. He moved back into his parents' home where he worked various jobs as a printer, reporter, columnist, advertising man, and publisher. Unable to make a living, he finally secured a job as an advertising manager in a department store in Peoria, Illinois for $USD19.50 (or about $ today), per week.
Joins New York ad firm
Calkins continued to send copies of his ads to Bates in New York, who finally offered him a job in New York at the rate of $USD15 (or about $ in today's dollars) per week. Calkins went to work for Bates as a copywriter. Inspired by a visit to an exhibit of the Pratt Institute School of DesignPratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
, he began to think hard about typography and design in advertising. He saw that form, visualization, color and design could be used to strengthen the visual appeal of advertising. As soon as he was able, he enrolled in a night course in applied design.
Forms own agency
Calkins stayed with Bates through 1902, when creative differences motivated him to go out on his own. He joined with Ralph Holden, who was in charge of new accounts at Bates, to found the advertising agencyAdvertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
"Calkins and Holden". They opened the agency with a capital investment of $USD2000 (or about $ in today's dollars). Holden brought in the clients and Calkins developed the ads. Calkins' agency pioneered the use of artwork in advertising.
In 1905, he wrote what is considered the first textbook about contemporary advertising, Modern Advertising. In 1908, George Rowell asked him to write a column for the same periodical he had gleaned ideas from some years before, Printers Ink. He used it to assail "the hard-faced, mechanical, lifeless dummies that appear in magazine pages and upon posters." He said ad agencies should hire illustrators like James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his political posters....
and Edward Penfield
Edward Penfield
Edward Penfield was a leading American illustrator in the era known as the "Golden Age of American Illustration" and he is considered the father of the American Poster. His work has been included in almost every major book on American Illustration or the history of the poster...
, who created editorial content for periodicals.
After visiting Europe, he became an advocate for Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
which he thought "offered the opportunity of expressing the inexpressible, of suggesting not so much a motor car as speed, not so much a gown as style, not so much a compact but beauty."
Focus on use of art
One of his early contributions to the field of advertising was to improve the quality of art used. Newspapers had their own in-house typographers, but Calkins wanted to improve the overall product-related advertising and marketing effort. Mainstream artists refused to work on advertising at the time, and he started a high quality art departmentArt department
Art department in movie terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overall look of the film as desired by the film director...
at Calkins and Holden, where he encouraged the hiring of talented artists and illustrators. Calkins wanted to make advertising akin to fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
, and elevate billboard
Billboard
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s into “the poor man’s picture gallery”. They developed displays, packaging, and complete ad campaigns.
In 1920, he encouraged Louis Pedlar to form the Art Directors Club in New York. In 1921, to “dignify the field of business art in the eyes of artists” and communicate the message that “artistic excellence is vitally necessary to successful advertising,” Calkins organized the first juried exhibition of advertising art.
The agency became very successful. Its clients including a roster of high-profile companies including Beech-Nut
Beech-Nut
Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation is a baby food company that is currently owned by the Swiss branded consumer-goods firm Hero Group.- History :...
, Thomas A. Edison Industries
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, H.J. Heinz, Pierce-Arrow
Pierce-Arrow
Pierce-Arrow was an American automobile manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active from 1901-1938. Although best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial trucks, fire trucks, camp trailers, motorcycles, and bicycles.-Early history:The forerunner...
, E. R. Squibb
E. R. Squibb
Edward Robinson Squibb was a leading American inventor and manufacturer of pharmaceutics who founded E. R. Squibb and Sons, which eventually became part of the modern pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb....
and Ingersoll Watch
Ingersoll Watch Company
The Ingersoll Watch Company grew out of a mail order business started in New York City in 1882 by 21-year-old Robert Hawley Ingersoll and his brother Charles Henry. The company initially sold low-cost items such as rubber stamps...
. He worked with magazines like McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...
, McClure's
McClure's
McClure's or McClure's Magazine was an American illustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th century. The magazine is credited with creating muckraking journalism. Ida Tarbell's series in 1902 exposing the monopoly abuses of John D...
, The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
and Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly publication, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s....
. The success of the agency stemmed largely from its emphasis on design. The agency attracted many outstanding individuals, including Walter Whitehead, Myron Perley, Jack Sheridan
Jack Sheridan
John F. Sheridan was an American umpire in Major League Baseball. In his 30-year career as an official, he worked 18 seasons between 1890 and 1914 in three major leagues....
, René Clark, Walter Dorwin Teague
Walter Dorwin Teague
Walter Dorwin Teague was an American architect, designer and one of the most prolific American industrial designers in terms of volume of completed work. Teague's name and vision lives on through the legacy of his company....
, and Egmont Arens. The last two are among the founders of American industrial design
Industrial design
Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...
profession.
Notable ad campaigns
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company was a railroad connecting Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley, rich in anthracite coal, to Hoboken, New Jersey, , Buffalo and Oswego, New York...
. Calkins created the fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
of Phoebe Snow. Beginning in 1900, the character was used to feature the clean-burning anthracite coal used by the railroad, which left patrons' clothes much cleaner than the coal used in competitor's locomotives. The advertising campaign, based on a live model, using impressionistic techniques and a fictional character, was one of the first of its kind.
Another important campaign Calkins worked on while with Bates was for the R&G Corset company. It became a series of ads on the back cover of the Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
, starting in 1898. R&G had relied on the then-traditional method of "drummers" who curried local retailers with sales talk, display stands, posters, booklets and promotional items to encourage them to carry the company's products. In 1898, the company joined with many others in experimenting with marketing through the new periodical mass media. Bates persuaded the firm to devote almost its entire promotional budget to occasional, full-page, back-cover ads in Ladies' Home Journal which cost the astronomical sum of $4000 (or about $ today). Calkins was given the assignment to create the ads, each costing many times his annual salary. The use of photography was just starting to become more prevalent in periodicals, and his ads led the way in their use in advertising, emphasizing art over text. R&G was rewarded with continually growing sales, and the number of dealers carrying their goods jumped from 6,000 to 10,000.
Calkins also developed a successful campaign for Force breakfast cereal. It depicted the change in character of Jim Dumps to Sunny Jim after eating Force cereal. The ad campaign appeared on billboards and street cars, and in magazines and newspapers.
Tributes and recognition
In 1925, Calkins was the first recipient of Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Edward Bok
Edward W. Bok
Edward William Bok was a Dutch born American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of the Ladies Home Journal for thirty years...
Gold Medal for distinguished personal service in advertising. Steven Heller in Advertising: the Mother of Graphic Design in Graphic Design History described him as "arguably the single most important figure in early twentieth century graphic design. He has been called the "Dean of Advertising Men", as the man who created the contemporary advertising industry, and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.
Promotes consumerism
One of his theories featured in the book of the same name was that of “consumer engineeringConsumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
,” or the artificial creation
Artificial creation
Artificial Creation is a field of research that studies the primary synthesis of complex life-like structures from primordial lifeless origins....
of demand for a product using design and advertising. He described the situation in 1929 that the speed of production had “outstripped consumption”. His answer to this problem is not to slow production, for “that would be backward.” He instead suggested manufacturing demand for product through planned obsolescence
Planned obsolescence
Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period of time...
. He wrote,
In other words, he said, "Why would you want last year’s hand bag when this year’s hand bag is so much more attractive?" He asked, "Does there seem to be a sad waste in this process? Not at all. Wearing things out does not produce prosperity. Buying things does." He pioneered the concept of the "soft sell," or impressionistic advertising, which stresses less immediate results, and focuses on building goodwill and creating a brand, relying more on the "creative process" to produce an advertising message.
Retirement and death
Calkins received an honorary degree from Knox College in 1921 and served as an honorary trustee from 1950 until his death. On June 11, 1944, he founded the Knox College Fifty Year Club for alumni who had graduated 50 years or more earlier.Calkins retired from Calkins and Holden in 1931, five years after Holden died, when his deafness became too great a problem in contributing to the burgeoning radio advertising industry. Still vigorous at age 64, he wrote extensively and contributed many pieces to magazines and newspapers including the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times among others. He wrote a history of Galesburg, They Broke the Prairie, published by Scribners in 1937, an autobiography, Louder, Please!, and several other books.
Calkins & Holden merged with Fletcher Richards in 1959 to become Fletcher Richards, Calkins & Holden. Calkins died October 4, 1964 in New York City. When he died, his agency was merged into the Interpublic Group of Companies
Interpublic Group of Companies
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. is one of the "big four" global advertising holding companies . Headquartered in New York City, it has 41,000 employees and reported full−year revenues of US$6.5 billion for 2010...
.