ABSTRACT
Of the advertising media available around 1900, direct-mail marketing held the greatest promise for precise targeting. Because of the intense information-processing demands, it also featured the highest unit costs, despite new information technologies. Direct mail developed as an advertising medium within the institutional space afforded it by the US Post Office. A direct-mail advertising campaign depended on a mailing list – names, addresses, and pertinent personal information on perhaps thousands of people. Some advertisers constructed their own mailing lists and treated them as business assets; other businesses constructed mailing lists to sell to advertisers as commodities.
