Dartmouth Events

The Emergence of Brand Name Capitalism in Late Colonial India 

Advertising and the Making of Middle-Class Conjugality 

Chaired by Sarah Carson (History Department, Dartmouth College)

Speakers include Douglas E Haynes (Professor of History, Dartmouth College), Abigail McGowan (Professor of History and Associate Dean of the Social Sciences, University of Vermont), Nikhil Rao (History Department, Wellesley University).

This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a “brand-name capitalism” among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a time when advertising was first introduced in India as a profession and underwent critical transformations. Analyzing the cultural strategies, both verbal and visual, used by foreign businesses in their advertisements to capture urban consumers, Haynes argues that the promoters of various commodities crystalized their campaigns around principles of modern conjugality.