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Written in the Skies: Advertising, Technology, and Modernity in Britain since 1885

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

James Taylor
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Abstract

New technologies significantly increased the reach of advertising from the late nineteenth century. Some aspects of this phenomenon, such as advances in printing methods, are well known. Others, in particular its controversial leap into the sky, have received far less attention. Though no longer seen as the home of divine portents, the sky did not become “empty space” in the modern era: it was still freighted with significance. This meant that the various attempts made by entrepreneurs from the 1880s to bring advertising to the skies were often met with hostility, even panic. In exploring these responses, this article resists depicting opponents of aerial advertising as oversensitive aesthetes or technophobes. Rather, it explores the ways in which urbanization and commercial development imbued the sky with new meanings. The sky was imagined as man's most valuable connection to nature in an urban society, a precious but endangered part of the nation's heritage, and an essential counterweight to consumer society. Aerial advertising therefore represented an unjustifiable commercialization of a priceless public space. The rejection of this form of advertising did not involve denying modernity, but achieving an accommodation with it.

Keywords

Advertisingmodernitytechnologypublic spacelandscapethe skyurban historyconsumer societyaviationnational identitysecularization
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 750 - 780
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2016 

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166 Lane, Landscapes of the Sacred, 15, 59, 37.

167 Peter Mandler, “Against ‘Englishness’: English Culture and the Limits to Rural Nostalgia, 1850–1940,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 7 (December 1997): 155–75.

168 Readman, “Landscape Preservation,” 66.

169 Banner, Stuart, Who Owns the Sky? The Struggle to Control Airspace from the Wright Brothers on (Cambridge, MA, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Banner only briefly touches on aerial advertising: 26.

170 J. B. Hilditch, letter to the editor, Times, 6 September 1890, 4; idem, letter to the editor, Times, 27 August 1890, 7. See also Editorial, Times, 3 September 1890, 7.

171 G. M. Trevelyan, letter to the editor, Times, 13 January 1932, 13.

172 Edward Jenks, letter to the editor, Times, 12 January 1932, 8.

173 “Conservative Vandalism,” Funny Folks, 22 May 1886, 161.

174 For a similar image, see “Illustrated London Letter,” Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 17 September 1890, 5.

175 Miss Agnes Mure Mackenzie, letter to the editor, Times, 14 January 1932, 13; W. Foxley Norris, letter to the editor, Times, 15 January 1932, 13; Editorial, Times, 3 February 1932, 13.

176 L. Curtis, letter to the editor, Times, 6 January 1932, 11.

177 Herbert Baker, letter to the editor, Times, 13 January 1932, 13; George Clausen, letter to the editor, Times, 13 January 1932, 13; W. Foxley Dean, letter to the editor, Times, 15 January 1932, 13.

178 David Holbrook, letter to the editor, Times, 3 August 1982, 9.

179 Quoted in Lavin, Deborah, From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis (Oxford, 1995), 264 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

180 J. B. Hilditch, letter to the editor, Times, 6 September 1890, 4.

181 “A Retrospect, February 1893–February 1903,” A Beautiful World, 9 (May 1903): 7 Google Scholar.

182 Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Speech to the House of Lords, 24 June 1920, Parliamentary Debates, Lords, 5th series, vol. 40 (1920), cols. 786–87.

183 Scannell, Paddy and Cardiff, David, A Social History of British Broadcasting: Volume One 1922–1939 (Oxford, 1991), 230 Google Scholar; Crisell, Andrew, An Introductory History of British Broadcasting, 2nd ed. (1997; repr., London, 2002), 84–85 Google Scholar.

184 Savage, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 5, q. 4; Thomas V. Church, letter to the editor, Times, 19 January 1932, 8.

185 This subject is covered at length in Stefan Schwarzkopf, “Respectable Persuaders: The Advertising Industry and British Society, 1900–1939” (PhD diss., University of London, 2008).

186 Alfred H. Angus, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 140, q. 1491.

187 Savage, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 14, q. 78.

188 S. Pearce-Smith, letter to the editor, Flight, 22 July 1955, 142.

189 Lord Newton claimed that many advertisers supported a skywriting ban because it was “desperately expensive.” Parliamentary Debates, Lords, 5th series, vol. 54 (15 May 1923), col. 161.

190 Angus, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 140, q. 1491; C. R. Vail, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 128, q. 1363.

191 Around this time, Shell established itself as an enlightened company by working closely with preservationist groups to remove its “unsightly” enamel signs and boards from the countryside, a policy which proved very lucrative: Hewitt, John, “The ‘Nature’ and ‘Art’ of Shell Advertising in the Early 1930s,” Journal of Design History 5, no. 2 (April 1992): 121–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

192 Richardson Evans, letter to the editor, Times, 18 April 1900, 11.

193 Editorial, Times, 22 March 1900, 9.

194 Owen Williams, letter to the editor, Times, 17 December 1954, 9; E. Owen Williams, letter to the editor, Times, 28 December 1954, 7.

195 Chicago was an exception, regulating sky signs from 1905, and outlawing rooftop-mounted electric signs in 1911: Treu, Martin, Signs, Streets, and Storefronts: A History of Architecture and Graphics along America's Commercial Corridors (Baltimore, 2012), 74 Google Scholar.

196 But restrictions were introduced in 1929: Leach, William R., Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (London, 1994), 343 Google Scholar.

197 “Eiffel Tower Night Sign,” Manchester Guardian, 3 July 1925, 11; “Eiffel Tower Anniversary,” Times, 4 May 1929, 11; “Georges-Marie Haardt: Publicity, Adventure, Knowledge,” Times, 3 July 1972, 13.

198 “Our London Correspondence,” Manchester Guardian, 3 May 1928, 10.

199 TNA, AIR 2/636, Major J. C. Savage, “Sky-Writing by Day,” 1; “Speaking of Pictures … Skywriters Ply their Trade High in Summer Heavens,” Life, 19 August 1940, 6–8. Pepsi's rival Coca-Cola was soured on the new technology, however: when deploying it in a Cuban campaign, its message “Tome Coca-Cola” (“Drink Coca-Cola”) was blurred by the wind so that it read “Teme Coca-Cola” (“Fear Coca-Cola”). Pendergrast, Mark, For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the World's Most Popular Soft Drink (London, 2000), 169 Google Scholar.

200 Sivulka, Juliann, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (London, 1998), 182 Google Scholar.

201 Editorial, Manchester Guardian, 14 October 1927, 10.

202 TNA, AIR 2/636, Savage, “Sky-Writing by Day,” 3–4 and appendix 5.

203 Skywriting scenes occur in Wings in the Dark (1935), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Reunion in France (1942). The Bat Signal, used to summon Batman and Robin to Gotham City Police headquarters, made its first comic-book appearance in 1942: Reinhart, Mark S., The Batman Filmography, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, 2013), 13 Google Scholar.

204 David Holbrook, letter to the editor, Times, 3 August 1982, 9.

205 Savage was exasperated that few of his critics had even witnessed his skywriting: Savage, Select Committee on Sky-Writing, 21, q. 177; J. C. Savage, letter to the editor, Times, 23 January 1932, 6.

206 Burchardt, Paradise Lost, 9, 158.

207 For more on “real and imagined” space, see Stock, Paul, “The Real-and-Imagined Spaces of Philhellenic Travel,” European Review of History 20, no. 4 (August 2013): 523–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 527.

208 Walsham, “Sermons in the Sky,” 57–58.

209 For a recent example, see Anna Franklin, review of Under Electric Clouds, 11 February 2015, Film New Europe Association, http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/region/item/110213-fne-at-berlinale-2015-competition-under-electric-clouds.

210 Campion, Nicholas, “The Moral Philosophy of Space Travel: A Historical Review,” in Commercial Space Exploration: Ethics, Policy and Governance, ed. Galliott, Jai (Farnham, 2015), 9–22 Google Scholar, at 11.

211 Karl Grossman, “Disgrace into Space,” Ecologist, March 2001, online ed., http://www.space4peace.org/articles/ecologist.htm. For a fuller discussion of the legal ramifications, see Zeldine O'Brien, “Advertising in Space: Sales at the Outer Limits,” in Galliott, Commercial Space Exploration, 91–106.