Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell

This capable biography by Chambers (Madison Avenue and the Color Line), an advertising professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, traces the career of ad man Tom Burrell, a “pioneer” whose “work helped shape perceptions of black middle-class life in America.” Born on Chicago’s South Side in 1939, Burrell’s career began in 1960 when Wade Advertising became the first Chicago agency to hire a Black employee. Starting as a mail room attendant, Burrell quickly worked his way up to the copywriting team. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Chambers notes, pushed many agencies to hire their first nonwhite employees and opened opportunities for Burrell, who moved to the more prestigious Leo Burnett agency in 1964. Seven years later, Burrell started his own firm, which specialized in marketing to Black consumers. Chambers credits the naturalistic portrayals of Black people in Burrell’s ads with providing more positive and accurate representation than the stereotypes that had previously dominated. The matter-of-fact accounting of the ins and outs of the advertising industry from the 1960s through Burrell’s retirement in 2004 is somewhat niche, but Chambers’s extensive interviews with his subject illuminate how a corporate trailblazer navigated the changing mores of the post–civil rights era. Business historians and advertising professionals will want to take a look. (Feb.)