Volney Palmer opened an ad agency in 1841, but he worked for the newspapers, not the advertisers.
In 1841, Volney B. Palmer opened what is considered the first advertising agency in Philadelphia.1 Palmer's business model was not what the modern term "agency" implies. He worked as a broker for newspapers, selling advertising space to businesses on commission. He represented the publications, not the advertisers. The creative work of writing and designing the advertisements fell to the businesses themselves.
The shift toward representing the advertiser came later. In the 1870s and 1880s, agencies like N.W. Ayer and Son in Philadelphia began offering to write advertisements for their clients, moving from space brokerage to creative services.2 Francis Wayland Ayer founded the firm in 1869, naming it after his father to give the impression of seniority. N.W. Ayer was among the first to introduce the "open contract," disclosing the actual cost of newspaper space to advertisers rather than marking it up invisibly.
The profession crystallized in the early twentieth century alongside the rise of mass-circulation magazines and branded consumer goods. Albert Lasker, who led the Lord and Thomas agency from 1898 to 1942, is often credited with defining modern advertising as "salesmanship in print."3 Under Lasker, the agency created campaigns for Pepsodent toothpaste, Palmolive soap, and Lucky Strike cigarettes.
By the 1960s, the "creative revolution" led by figures such as Bill Bernbach at Doyle Dane Bernbach elevated the advertising professional from salesman to cultural arbiter.4 Bernbach's Volkswagen "Think Small" campaign, launched in 1959, is frequently cited as one of the most influential advertisements of the twentieth century.