The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-05-12
SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISERS
AVER g. SONS s5th BIRTHDAY
Great Advertising Firm Started in One
Room with $3.50 Capital.

The firm Of N. w. Aver & Son Of
Philadelphia, one of the largest adj
vert1sing agencies in the United States,
has just celebrated the thirty-fifth an
n1versary Of a business whose success
and growth can be measured only by
the progress of advertising itself in
this country.
Starting at time when the i'm
mense resource and power Of modern
advertising were unknown, N. w.
Aver and his son. F. w. Aver, entered
the field with the idea of making it
business and conducting that bust
ness along Philadelphia methods.
They started, father and son, in a
room only twenty feet square, on April
l., 1859. Their capital was $3.50, and,
as Mr.. +. W. Aver, the present head
Of the firm, laughingly says: Father
was the head, I was the office boy, and
we were equal partners
With this capital the firm proceeded
to develop newspaper advertising, and
In the first year did business of
$4,000. In the thirty-four years since
they have furnished to the newspa-
pers of the United States a total Of
more than $35,OO0,o00 of advertising.
To-day they are dealing with $4,000
publications and their payments to
these average $4,000 a day, or,
roughly speaking, S3,6OO,00O a year.
This enormous business enterprise
was started with the settled convic-
ton that Philadelphia was the city in
which it could be made a success, and
that Philadelphia business methods
room on SAMSON street, father and son
adopted the now wel1-known Phila-
delphia motto, Keeping everlastingly
at it brings success" On the walls
Of the two entire floors Of the Mariner
& Merchant building, at Third and
Chestnut streets, and the two floors
Of press and work rooms in the rear,
the motto is to-day engraved for the
i 229 employees Of the big firm to read.
+ In 1873 N. w. Aver passed to his
+ rest and left the business and the
name to his son, F. w. Aver, who then
took into his partnership an employe
named George o. Wallace, who died
in 1887. Before Wallace's death an
other employe, Henry N. Mckinney,
had been taken into the firm in 1875,
and finally Albert G. Bradford and
Jarvis A. Wood were made partners
in 1898. they also having come up
through the business. These last
/ Aver, conduct the business to-day.
:. Speaking Of the immense growth Of
4 advertising, F. w. Aver says:
Z. There was hardly such a thing as
advertising until after the civil war.
Then the country began to feel it's
| muscle and to stretch out into new
lines. We have seen a great evolu-:
| ton in journalism. When we started
it was in the days Of the weekly news
/ paper, which was great power. But
/ now increased postal facilities have
rendered the daily paper the vehicle
Of news in every part Of the country.
The farmer $50 miles from the city
! gets 1t the same day it is issued.
| Eyes, this is the day Of the daily,
! and more and more is the pllb1ic de-
pending upon it for an account Of
what it cannot personally see and
hear; and more and more the adver-aa
i tiser is depending upon 1t to tell the
! people that he cannot meet person.
ally Of the goods he has to sell.