Progressive Stuff
TRUTH AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE PROFESSIONS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF `TRUTH IN ADVERTISING' AND `TRUE AND FAIR' FINANCIAL STATEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA DURING THE PROGRESSIVE ERABoth advertisers and auditors wrestled with the truth of their text during the Progressive Era (1880-1940). Although in North America, advertisers adopted "truth in advertising" as a theme, auditors rejected "true and fair" as a description of financial statements. Auditors instead adopted the weaker statement that financial statements were "consistent with accepted accounting principles." It is paradoxical that auditors compared with advertisers made the greatest progress toward professionalization during this era. This article documents debates about the concept of "truth" in each profession during the Progressive Era and examines the professional and legal consequences of each profession's engagement with truth. The Progressive Era, roughly the period from the depression of the late 1880s through to the late 1930s, represents a period of institutional, technical, and social innovation. During this period, most developed economies made the transition from rural to urban and from agrarian to manufacturing economies. It is a period when sectional interes
Such a state of affairs would make the advertising man a sort of auditor or expert accountant, whose one object is to present the truth of the case to his employer, who is not so much the man who pays the salary as the people at large whose buying power makes that salary possible. The difficulty was that while a check of the consistency of the balance sheet to the books was possible, two further issues arose: (1) were the entries in the books "real"? and (2) were the results reflective of the expectations of the public regarding their use of the statements? While the auditors of the day could reject the suggestion that "figures should be fictions" (Whinney 1894, 962), they also argued that the need to use estimates of asset values, the useful lives of assets, and probability of successful sales of inventories meant that any auditor's certificate was an opinion and not necessarily "true. Canadian Chartered Accountant 9:105-6. states in implementing a watered-down version of legislation requiring proof of intent to deceive. Scientific knowledge held much promise for advertising's professional aspirations. Nevertheless, all false advertising was considered by most in the truth movement to be harmful to their aspirations of professional status. For coherentists, it is coherence with accepted belief. Although the coherence version of the truth in accounting was enshrined in the U. This conjunction provides the setting in which "truth" is seen as an achievable state. Although the original purpose of the local clubs may have been social, the AACA was formed "to advance the advertising profession through such activities as teaching professional skills, correcting abuses, exposing fraudulent advertising, and maintaining a bureau for the registration of advertising men" (Schultze 1982, 196). In 1915, a delegation of six officials from the association met with the FTC in Washington to see if the new federal legislation could be used against fraudulent advertisers. It is legal because the law holds that "reasonable" people will automatically distrust it and therefore not be deceived by it. In 1906, they were successful as the U. They are relied upon by millions of investors.
Common topics in this essay:
Progressive Era,
North America,
Wheeler-Lea Act,
Authors Parton,
Chartered Accountant,
Truth Criteria,
Advertising Club,
Charybdis Gregory,
Bradley Blanshard,
James Dewey,
financial statements,
truth advertising,
advertising industry,
version truth,
progressive era,
truth claims,
book desk,
false advertising,
truth criteria,
professional status,
canadian chartered accountant,
pi model statute,
true book desk,
independent object world,
associated advertising clubs,
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Acceptance Essays
