Page 25 - 1912 May - To Dragma

144 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

and heart with enthusiasm and make it your own, marshaling a l l
your powers and ideas to its furtherance. I f you can combine this
quality with f a i t h f u l performance of daily routine, success is assured.

E L I Z A B E T H I . TOMS, A, 1906.

ADVERTISEMENT MAKING AS A FIELD FOR WOMEN

The Editor of T o DRAGMA asks me for advice to girls who think
of engaging in the business of making advertisements.

Though, for a number of years, I have not been actively so en-
gaged myself,—having been enabled by bettered fortunes to devote
myself to the less remunerative forms of literature,—I still keep i n
touch with the work. I am now related to it, I may say, by marriage.
For my lord and master is recognized as a master of the advertising
business too.

My first word must be one of warning. Be sure that you have
the natural fitness for this work before undertaking it. Do not look
upon it as a mere semi-literary pursuit. The path is strewn with
the disappointed; and nearly all of them are clever, good writers
and pretty generally capable. I know of no other field in which the
unsuccessful are so intelligent, interesting and worthy.

What the natural requirements are and why they are significant
will become clear as the work is outlined below.

The process of making advertisements is by no means a simple
matter to describe. I t is highly specialized and may be roughly di-
vided into the following departments:

1. The writers of advertisements,—the "copy" makers.
2. The planners of "layouts" and type-effects and of "dummies
for booklets and circulars, car-cards, etc.
3. The "manufacturers" and estimators of cost of booklet, cat-
alogue and circular printing.
4. The advertising artists with pencil, brush and camera.
5. The experts in newspaper and magazine space, cost, quality
and circulation.
6. The keepers of advertising statistics and accounts.
7. The advertising director and manager of sales,—the maker of
business campaigns, the "boss" of the others.
1 and 2 are often,—I might say usually,—merged in the same
person. 1, 2 and 3 are sometimes so merged, as are frequently 2 and 3.
Many women are successful makers of copy,—advertisement-
writers under the direction of a chief. Many women are advertise-
ment artists. Some women make successful layouts or plans for the