VANCE OAKLEY PACKARD
b. Granville Summit, Pennsylvania
May 22, 1914-December 12, 1996
VANCE PACKARD
Author, THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS
THE STATUS SEEKERS, THE WASTE MAKERS
THE PYRAMID CLIMBERS, THE NAKED SOCIETY
THE SEXUAL WILDERNESS
A NATION OF STRANGERS
OUR ENDANGERED CHILDREN
THE PEOPLE SHAPERS
ULTRA RICH: HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH
Could the man pick titles, or what? A "journalist turned social critic," the New York Times obituary called Packard. It also credits him with helping to "lay the ground for the muckraking works of the more turbulent 1960's, like Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' in 1962 and Ralph Nader's 'Unsafe at Any Speed' in 1965." More of a formal general summary of his life work can be found here.
In 2007 Mark Greif celebrated Vance Packard's enduring legacy in a personal essay on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS, here. "Packard traced how products like gasoline and detergent, so standardized and reliable in the 1050s, needed to develop 'personalities' to survive," Greif wrote. And the same techniques were applied to political campaigns. Packard saw it in the 1956 race: "Presidents would be elected on 'personality'"; "professional advertisers were hired to 'swing crucial voters' in 'the undecided or listless mass,'' who could switch votes "'for some snotty little reason such as not liking the candidate's wife.'"
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