| French advertising grew in the course of the nineteenth century from a modest set of commercial tools and a myriad of practices into a major consolidated industry by 1900. This study analyzes the cultural impact of advertising and the development of its institutions, strategies and techniques. Even as spaces for political posters dwindled until the 1870s, commercial advertising flourished, evolving into complex multimedia campaigns that employed newspapers, posters, theater curtains, sandwichmen, advertising vehicles and giveaways. Uniquely French trends included the emphasis on elegant, picturesque forms and on the entertainment value of advertising which partly accounted for the widespread preference for surreptitious publicity disguised as newspaper articles. Aesthetics, morality and traffic problems were the major issues concerning street advertising. Advertisers targeted specific classes by analyzing geographical divisions and the readership of different papers.;A major institutional grounding of advertising took place in the Second Empire, underscoring its internal logic as a commercial and institutional force that then exploded in the Third Republic with countless colorful posters vaunting consumer goods. This study revises the view of Haussmman's urban planning as a radical rupture in urban culture, by emphasizing the continuous cultural importance of the old Boulevards, even as it traces to Haussmannization some origins of French advertising practices, such as the use of street furnishings. The old Boulevards, the locus of experimental and mobile advertising, became saturated with spectacles that led to severe traffic congestion and a sensory overload.;The last section of the dissertation closely examines the various critiques of advertising voiced by men of letters and popular journalism. As early as during the July Monarchy such critiques evolved into cultural criticism that resonated in spheres far wider than advertising throughout the century, expressing anxieties over industrialization, the commercialization of culture and the destabilization of identities. Later the strategy of inducing an obsession through repetition reinforced the view of advertising as a dangerous and seductive imposition that undermined rationality. The emergence of the figure "Advertising" as a subject of fine art accompanied both the efforts to turn consumption into art and the resistance against advertising as a modern power. |
