American ad spending grew roughly fortyfold between 1914 and 1929.

Evidence

No longer peddling primitive space ads in penny papers, the advertising executive was now deftly marrying word and image across the spectrum of print media on behalf of burgeoning giants of manufacture and service, wielding the power of life and death over consumer products. As the 1920s closed, advertising had grown itself from a dubious activity and negligible industry into a major part of the economy. American companies went from spending an estimated 700 million in 1914 to almost 30 billion a year by 1929, then about 3 percent of gross domestic product. Advertising was now as big as many of the industries it served. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 245

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: US advertising spending grew tenfold between 1918 and 1930, birthing a global industry — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 177; Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204; Advertising techniques originated in the 1800s but matured institutionally in the 1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1219 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Advertising techniques originated in the 1800s but matured institutionally in the 1920s #expands (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1219
• Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion #expands (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204
• By 1930 print advertising had already peaked despite its grandest claims #complicates (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 251
• Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s #expands (0.70) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24