The History of the American Marketing Association

Abstract

HE FIRST MEETING of what has since grown into the American Marketing Association took place in Chicago in I9I5, where the delegates to the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World had gathered for their annualconvention. Who proposed this meeting is one of many facts which the present historian has been unable to discover. It was George Burton Hotchkiss, who had charge of the advertising courses at New York University, who sent out the letter announcing a meeting. Professor Hotchkiss does not know just how he made up his list, but it came in part from news items in Printers' Ink and Associated Advertising. The latter publication, which was the organ of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, also carried a notice of the meeting of the teachers of advertising. An accurate record was kept of those who attended, thanks to the new secretary. There were twenty-eight at the meeting, among whom were: Walter Dill Scott, Ralph Starr Butler, George Burton Hotchkiss, J. W. Piercy, Harry Tipper, Harry D. Kitson, J. B. Powell, Mac Martin, W. E. Hotchkiss, Herbert W. Hess, E. E. Troxell, Nat W. Barnes and Hugh E. Agnew. This comprises a list of those still living and more or less active. The group decided to have a permanent organization, elected officers and a board of directors, and so laid the foundation to perpetuate their activities as a group. The discussion at the first meeting