Acknowledgments

First, we owe special thanks to the many libraries, archives, museums, and repositories that gave us access to their collections, as detailed in our “Note on Sources.” Books like this are not possible without resources like theirs. We are also indebted to the many people who forwarded Lasker-related materials to coauthor Schultz over the years, including his colleagues at Foote, Cone & Belding (today’s Draftfcb).

David Sicilia, Chloe Kline, and Lauren Schug all made major contributions to one or more chapters. Chloe, in particular, dug deep to make this book happen, organizing our primary and secondary materials into an accessible collection and regularly engaging in spirited arguments with the noisy ghost of Albert Lasker. Liza Rogerson investigated several archives and pulled together decades’ worth of newspaper clippings.

We thank the many, many individuals—including several members of the Lasker family—who looked at chapters in progress and made suggestions as to how to improve them. The late Francie Lasker Brody, Albert’s younger daughter, gave us an interview in March 2004; we’re happy to have had that opportunity.

We thank the companies that permitted us to reprint their ads, logos, and other copyrighted materials. There is no better way to understand Lasker’s contributions to advertising than to look at ads before and after Lasker.

There are too many great people at the Harvard Business Review Press to thank individually, but Jeff Kehoe—our editor—is in a class by himself. Nearly a decade ago, he said that he hoped the Press could do more high-quality business biographies aimed at a broader audience. That is what we tried to deliver.

We end with our agent, Helen Rees, who one day, way back at the turn of the century, said, “Why don’t you try a biography? That might play to your strengths.”