Abstract
During the first half of the 20th century the Swedish advertising industry evolved from a small group of entrepreneurial companies selling ads on behalf of newspapers, to a profession, modelled on the American experience, providing a full range of advertising services and marketing research.
The study is based on recently discovered, rich archival sources and covers how the industry made their first attempts to organize; how the industry eventually became organized, and cartelized; Covered are also how the advertising industry, though their trade organisations, tried to make themselves part of, and contributor to, society by building educational organisations and funding academic research as well as taking part in public service advertising and by contributing to the Swedish defence efforts during the Second World War.