Dartmouth in New York
JUST HOW MANY Dartmouth men there are in New York connected with the advertising business we won't attempt to guess. The latest Manhattan Classified Directory contains no less than seven columns of advertising agencies, and even a complete survey of this field wouldn't turn up all the Dartmouth graduates doing advertising work, for, of course, there are many others in the newspaper and magazine offices, in department stores and publishing houses, and in sundry other business.
It's not, however, much of a problem to get the names of ex-Hanoverians who are associated with the larger and more widely known agencies in the city. All these bigagencies are concentrated in the Grand Central District, and, being statistically meticulous as advertising concerns are, most of them keep employee lists, broken down as to colleges attended, etc. Dartmouth men, it seems, are well represented in that powerful group who help direct the consumptive habits of the country, and from the large number of recent graduates in the field it appears that advertising is becoming more and more attractive to the job hunters coming down from Hanover.
The House of Young & Rubicam, at 285 Madison Avenue, is everything but overrun with Dartmouth-bred talent. There are ten Dartmouth graduates working there, more than any of the other agencies can show. The executive vice president in charge of Y. 8c R.'s new business is Sigurd S. Larmon 'l4, who is also chairman of the Alumni Fund, past president of the Dartmouth Club, and brother of Professor "Cotty" Larmon 'l9 of the Dartmouth faculty. Sylvester ("Pat") Weaver '3O is manager of Y. & R.'s radio department, and Tom Lane '35 is one of their radio publicity men. Harry Ackerman '35 had his apprenticeship in the firm's New York office, but he's now out in Detroit producing their "Lone Ranger" radio show. "Heigh p{o, Silver," they're calling Harry these days. Two other '35 men working for the concern are Bob Ferry, who's in the traffic department, and Bob Smith, who handles publicity for the General Foods' account. Ralph Butler '36 is "assistant to the director of station relations." (Young & Rubicam, it will be noticed, is giving a lot of its attention to radio advertising.) Also in this agency there is Harry Enders '29, of the accounting department, Fred Robbe '34, in traffic, and Fred Hackett '36, in the mail room.
Over at the Lord & Thomas agency (in the same building, 247 Park Avenue, where the beautiful John Powers' models come to work) there are five Dartmouth men. Two of them are top ranking copywriters in the advertising field: Bill Griffin '25, who does many of the Lucky Strike ads and who first worked out the "4 out of 5 gallons" ad idea for Shell gasoline, and Stanley Jones 'lB, who in addition to his copy writing also does considerable freelance writing for Scribner's, the SaturdayEvening Post, and other magazines. One of Lord & Thomas' art directors is Jim Balch 'l9, of the same family for whom Balch Hill near Hanover was named. Also associated with this agency are Gail Raphael and Bud Yallalee, both copywriters and both members of the Class of '34.
The J. M. Mathes agency, in the Chanin Building, isn't so large a concern as the two just mentioned, but it's particularly well known to Dartmouth men in advertising for its energetic president, Jim Mathes '11. Mr. Mathes was formerly head of the New York office of N. W. Ayer & Sons, but in 1933, when this eminent and conservative agency decided to turn down liquor advertising, he left them to start his own firm, drawing the Canada Dry and other big accounts along with him. In his fast growing agency Mr. Mathes has three other Dartmouth men: Carle Rollins '12, an account executive, Ted Okie '33, also an account executive, and Charlie Stern '36, who's in the production department.
With N. W. Ayer at present there is only one Dartmouth graduate—Rufus Choate '27, an account executive who is a descendant of the famed Rufus Choate of U. S. political history.
Associated with the Benton & Bowles agency at 444 Madison Avenue are Sheldon Stark '3O, who writes radio commercial programs; Fitz Donnell '35, media department; and Herb Hoffman '36, who works in the traffic department.
At the J. Walter Thompson agency Winfield Taylor '2B and Bill Adams '34 are both copywriters, and Frank Stockman 35> former Jacko cartoonist, is a member °f the art department. All of these agencies, we'll state for the benefit of readers who've never gotten around to their offices, are quite sizeable businesses; they employ hundreds of people, have branch offices scattered about in London, Buenos Aires, Hollywood, Pittsburgh, and other cities, and carry on their negotiations amidst much plush and marble. The J. Walter Thompson offices probably present a more impressive front than those of most of the other agencies, but they're fairly indicative of the affluence of the advertising business. Spread over three or four floors of the Graybar Building, they remind one somewhat of the U. S. Capitol, and on your first visit there you're liable to lose your way wandering through the various reception rooms and the miles of carpeted corridors.
Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (the famed "B. B. D. & O." which recently established a new branch in the House of Representatives) is another agency which needs three floors and several hundred feet of office space to transact its New York business, but the only Dartmouth graduate we could find there was Leßoy H. Dreher '27, a copywriter. At Ruthrauff 8c Ryan, 405 Lexington Avenue, there are two ex-Hanoverians: Walter Smith '27, in the media department, and S. Heagan Bayles '33, who does radio production work. With Cecil, Warwick & Legler at 230 Park Avenue is Jack Warwick '3l, former business manager of the Daily Dartmouth.
With summer now here and everyone looking for a cottage in Connecticut or a cabin on the Long Island shore, the activities at the Dartmouth Club have slowed up a bit. Beginning on June Ist luncheons will be served only from Monday to Friday in the dining room, and there will be no regular dinners. The summer lunches, announces Joe Weitzell, manager of the Club, will be of the buffet type, with 65 cents buying you all you can eat for the noon-day meal.
A major Club activity this past month was the golf outing at the Canoe Brook Country Club near Summit, N. J., on May igth. This is being written several days before the tournament, so we don't have the names of the winnahs who carried off President Knibbs' Club trophy and the various other prizes offered, but last reports from Jack Hubbard '29 and Randy Burns '12, who were arranging the tournament, was that they expected some 50 Dartmouth golfers out for the contest. The scores rung up at this tournament will be used to help pick the fifteen man Green team to enter this month's annual golf meet run by the College Club Golf League of New York. During the past several years the Dartmouth golf team has usually ended up in second place behind Yale or Princeton, but the Green players are hoping to take this year's title.
One very worthy service now being offered through the Dartmouth Club is to help find employment for Dartmouth men out of work. Two Dartmouth graduates who are in the employment business are doing this service gratuitously—Herbert Howe '27, of the New York State Employment Service, and Joe Waters '35, of the Position Securing Bureau. Howe and Waters' idea is to provide a contact between the Dartmouth men looking for jobs and the Dartmouth men who have jobs to give out. They meet at the Club once a week to talk with men looking for work, and during the past winter they've placed quite a few of them. Fortunately very few of the 800,000 unemployed in New York City are Dartmouth men, but still, there are more Dartmouths without jobs than Dartmouth men with jobs to offer, and Howe and Waters would be glad to hear from any Dartmouth executives who are at present faced with a unique problem of a bulging budget and an understaffed force.
The Dartmouth Club guest ledger listed, this past month, two visitors who were travelling far afield from their homes: Dr. Arthur W. Duryea 'si, from Honolulu, and General Benjamin C. Knox 'OB, of the Pullman Standard Car Export Corporation, who came up from Rio de Janeiro for his usual once-in-three-years visit.
