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This paper aims to examine how women working in the advertising industry during the 1920s and 1930s encouraged and resisted stereotypes about women to establish a professional identity. This seemingly paradoxical approach provided women with opportunities for professional development and network building. Dorothy Dignam is presented as a case study of one such advertising woman. She was a market researcher, a teacher, an advocate for women’s employment in advertising, a historian of women’s advertising clubs and a supporter of and a contributor to women’s professional networking.

Archival material is drawn from the N. W. Ayer and Son archives at the Smithsonian Institute, the Advertising Women of New York archives and the Dorothy Dignam Papers at the Schlesinger Library, the Philadelphia Club of Advertising Women papers at Bryn Mawr, the Dignam Collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Women’s Advertising Club of Chicago (WACC) archives at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A close reading method of analysis places the material in a historical context. Additionally, it provides a narrative structure to demonstrate the complementary relationship between advertising club work and professional identity.

Dignam’s career strategies helped her to construct a professional identity that situated her as a guide, teacher and role model for other women who worked in advertising. She supported and created an attitude that enabled aspiring career women to embark on their careers, and she assisted in creating a coalition of women who empowered each other through their advertising club work.

Dignam’s published work about careers for women in advertising, her own career and its advancement and her involvement with women’s advertising clubs all served a rhetorical purpose. Her professional life sought to change both men’s and women’s attitudes about the impact of women in professional roles. In turn, the influence of attitudes helped to create space for women in business, especially those seeking advertising careers.

This paper illustrates how Dignam’s career, accomplishments and publications coalesce to provide evidence of how women negotiated professional identities and claimed space for themselves in the business world and in the advertising industry.

This paper uses archival documents to begin to recover a history of women’s leadership in the advertising industry. In particular, this paper aims to identify the leadership styles of the first five presidents of the New York League of Advertising Women’s (NYLAW) club. Their leadership from 1912 to 1926 set the course for and influenced the culture of the New York League. These five women laid the foundations of a social club that would also contribute to the professionalization of women in advertising, building industry networks for women, forging leadership and mentorship links among women, providing advertising education exclusively for women and, finally, bolstering women’s status in all avenues of advertising. The first five presidents were, of course, different characters, but each exhibited the traits associated with “transformational leaders,” leaders who prepare the “demos” for their own leadership roles. The women’s styles converged with their situational context to give birth to a women’s advertising club that, like most clubs, did charity work and hosted social events, but which was developed by the first five presidents to give women the same kinds of professional opportunities as the advertising men’s clubs provided their membership. The first five presidents of the Advertising League had strong prior professional credibility because of the careers they had constructed for themselves among the men who dominated the advertising field in the first decade of the 20th century. As presidents of the NYLAW, they advocated for better jobs, equal rights at work and better pay for women working in the advertising industry.

This paper draws on women’s advertising archival material from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe and Wisconsin Historical Society to argue that the five founding mothers of the NYLAW provided what can best be described as transformational feminist leadership, which resulted in building an effective club for their members and setting it on a trajectory of advocacy and education that would benefit women in the advertising industry for the next several decades. These women did not refer to themselves as “leaders,” they probably would not have considered their work in organizing the New York club an exercise in leadership, nor might they have called themselves feminists or seen their club as a haven for feminist work. However, by using modern leadership theories, the study can gain insight into how these women instantiated feminist ideals through a transformational leadership paradigm. Thus, the historical documents provide insight into the leadership roles and styles of some of the first women working in American advertising in the early parts of the 20th century.

Archival documents from the women’s advertising clubs can help us to understand women’s leadership practices and to reconstruct a history of women’s leadership in the advertising industry. Eight years before women in America could vote, the first five presidents shared with the club their wealth of collective experience – over two decades worth – as advertising managers, copywriters and space buyers. The first league presidents oversaw the growth of an organization would benefit both women and the advertising industry when they proclaimed that the women’s clubs would “improve the level of taste, ethics and knowledge throughout the communications industry by example, education and dissemination of information” (Dignam, 1952, p. 9). In addition, the club structure gave ad-women a collective voice which emerged through its members’ participation in building the club and through the rallying efforts of transformational leaders.

Historically, the advertising industry in the USA has been “pioneered” by male industry leaders such as Claude Hopkins, Albert Lasker and David Ogilvy. However, when the authors look to archival documents, it was found that women have played leadership roles in the industry too. Drawing on historical methodology, this study reconstructs a history of women’s leadership in the advertising and marketing industries.

This paper helps to understand how women participated in leadership roles in the advertising industry, which, in turn, enabled other women to build careers in the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to present a biographical review of the career of the late Caroline Robinson Jones (1942‐2001) in order to understand her challenges and contributions to the advertising profession. Prior to her death, she was considered the foremost African‐American woman in the advertising business. She was the first black woman to serve as a vice president of a major mainstream advertising agency and also established a respected agency bearing her own name. This paper focuses on Jones' contributions to marketing practice and her experiences as a woman of color in the advertising industry.

This paper uses a traditional historical narrative approach largely based on archival materials housed in the Caroline Jones Collection at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. Relevant secondary literature was also employed to provide appropriate context.

While the advertising industry has historically been noted for its lack of diversity among its professional ranks, Jones made significant contributions to the industry. Yet, despite her trailblazing accomplishments, findings suggest her efforts were constrained by structural oppression in the industry concerning gender and race.

Scholarly literature reflecting the contributions and experiences of women of color in the advertising business is nearly non‐existent. This paper provides an analysis using sources which are valuable in understanding career opportunities and challenges for women of color in advertising professions.

In the male-dominant creative industries, do men and women have access to the same resources for career learning and development? The purpose of this paper is to examine women’s perspectives of their career trajectories in advertising creative departments.

Situated learning theory views learning as produced through interaction with and increasing participation in a community of practice. Interviews were conducted with 19 female creatives to examine two research questions: first, how do women develop identities as creative practitioners within the male dominated advertising creative department? and second, how are women’s learning trajectories influenced by their gender?

Gendered expectations affected the type of work women were supposed to produce, their ability to sell work, and the types of assignments they received. Women lacked legitimacy and experienced difficulties developing an identity as a master practitioner. They instead emphasized parts of their identity unrelated to the profession.

Women were unable to develop identities as full members of the community of practice. The identity formed in conjunction with work was that of a person with lesser talents, fewer opportunities, and less valued contributions, causing them to exit the field or seek positive identity from places other than work.

This study was the first study that the authors are aware of to examine empirically the relationship between situated learning theory and gender. It provided evidence from women’s perspectives that gender restricted access to material for forming a positive work-identity, which impeded learning as women realized and accepted they were on a different trajectory than similarly-situated males.

Reports on the results of a questionnaire distributed to the staff of a Careers Service regarding the provision of information. Examines the role of the Careers Service and the staff’s knowledge of the material. Concludes that there should be a clear philosophy of the role of information, better communication between management and staff and improved advertising and marketing strategies.

The Youth Employment Service is to be extended to cover students in colleges of further education, colleges of education and polytechnics, under a modernization plan announced by the Department of Employment.

Each of Britain's 12,000 secondary schools has been sent a copy of a new 20 page booklet entitled ‘Careers in the Rubber and Plastics Industries’.

This paper uses a Difference Approach and Bourdieu's habitus theory to analyse the experiences of women working in the advertising industry with a particular focus on employee relations such as social interactions in advertising offices, banter and career barriers.

Thirty-eight qualitative interviews were conducted with women from the advertising industry in England, exploring both the employee and managerial perspectives on social interactions. Women were asked about their office culture, including networking expectations, dress code, banter, social interactions and potential career barriers such as exclusion from business decisions and having to work harder to succeed. Thematic analysis has been used to analyse data.

Thematic analysis revealed two themes, patriarchal culture in advertising offices and gendered social interactions and banter. Women believe they are excluded from business decisions and perceive career barriers in office culture grounded in masculine banter and masculine social interactions. Similar themes emerged regardless of women's length of experience or role within the organisation suggesting a problem with the masculine work culture in the advertising industry in England. Besides, women tend to prefer different social interactions to men, but find masculine interactions domineering advertising offices.

Employers should consider implementing new internal policies on communication and behaviour in offices to create a more inclusive and respectful culture. More consciousness-raising is needed to make women aware that inequality is more than just a pay gap and glass ceiling, but also the structure of the organisation and the office culture.

The paper contributes towards a better understanding of the impact of social interactions in the office on the work culture with a case study from the advertising industry. The paper points towards differences in communication and social interactions between men and women and the fact the masculine form of social interactions and banter dominate advertising offices.

To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first paper tackling office culture in the advertising industry in England using the Difference Approach and Bourdieu's habitus theory.

A career in advertising presents opportunities for all types and backgrounds. Age is no barrier to progress; promotion seldom depends on filling dead men's shoes, and it is not unknown for someone to be appointed Advertising Manager of an important company, or Director of an agency, whilst in their late twenties or early thirties.