Earnest Elmo Calkins

Earnest Elmo Calkins (March 15, 1868 – October 4, 1964) 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. 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 barely graduated in 1891, after the faculty failed him in Geology, but the Trustees overruled them and allowed him to graduate.

Professional career

Calkins won a national contest with this design for Bissell Carpet Sweepers. Within a few months, he left his hometown to pursue a career in advertising. From Galesburg Evening Mail, Dec. 9, 1895, p. 8. 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.

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 agency "Calkins & 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.

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." Calkins wanted to make advertising akin to fine art, and elevate billboards 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. 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. 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 engineering,” or the artificial demand creation 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 "artificial" or planned obsolescence.

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,"

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.

Selected publications The Business of Advertising. D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1915. Modern Advertising. D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1916. (With Ralph Holden) "Louder Please!" The Autobiography of a Deaf Man. Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston, 1924. "A Medieval Craftsman and his Types, A Great Advertiser Comments on the Goudy Types," in Monotype, a journal of composing room efficiency, May 1924, number 70, pp. 8–10. "Beauty the New Business Tool", Atlantic Monthly, August 1927, pp. 145–156. "What Consumer Engineering Really Is" in The Industrial Design Reader, edited by Carma Gorman, Allworth Press, New York, 2003. pp. 129–132 (originally published 1932) "And hearing not—": Annals of an Adman. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1946.