M e d i c i n e A v e n u e Harry P hibbs and the AMA The first purely medical advertising agency appears to have heen founded in Chicago by Harry C. Phibbs in 1921. Phibbs had emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. via Canada. He was a multitalented man, having been an actor, artist, newspaper photographer and salesman for the drug firm Burroughs Wellcome where he advanced to middle management. He was working at an advertising agency in Chicago when, according to the family legend, he was approached by his friend Dr. Morris Fishbein (later a powerful force at the American Medical Association, but then in an editorial position on JAMA) who suggested he go out on his own targeting ethical drug accounts. Fishbein told Phibbs, according to son Roderick Phibbs, that the AMA would open doors for him because they were looking for an agency to provide "respectable scientific" advertising for their publications. Pliibbs started out with $200 working capital and his wife as his secretary/assistant. One of the first accounts of Harry C. Phibbs Advertising Co. was his former employer, Burroughs Wellcome. Other family members confirm that it was acknowledged fact at the Phibbs agency that "the AMA put Harry in business." To anyone familiar with Morris Fishbein's career—he was an energetic, self-confident activist of strong opinions—the idea that Fishbein could have helped Phibbs, a friend, by referring clients to him is extremely plausible. Phibbs and Fishbein remained close over the years. In a 1958 note to Fishbein from Phibbs, retained in the Fishbein archive at the University of Chicago, Phibbs notes their common membership in the "old pioneers party" and refers to their long association.2 Fishbein was on the front line in the AMA offensive in the 1920's against patent medicines and quackery. In an August 19, 1926, article in Printers' Ink, he displays attitudes consistent with his 14
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDMwNDAx