Jerry Mander | |
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| Born | Jerry Irwin Mander (1936-05-01)May 1, 1936 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | April 11, 2023(2023-04-11) (aged 86) Kukuihaele, Hawaii, U.S. |
| Education | Lincoln High School University of Pennsylvania (BS) Columbia University (MS) |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
Jerry Irwin Mander (May 1, 1936 – April 11, 2023)[1][2] was an American activist and author inSan Francisco, known for his use ofadvertising for progressive and ecological causes and for his 1978 book,Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.
Mander was born inthe Bronx, New York City, and raised inYonkers,[3] one of two children of Harry Mander, a garment worker who later started a company manufacturing clothing linings, and his wife Eva. Both of his parents were Jewish immigrants who had left Poland and Romania, respectively, to escape persecution.[1][2][4]
Mander originally aspired to be aprofessional golfer.[5] He graduated fromLincoln High School in 1953, and then earned a B.S. in economics from theWharton School at theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1957, and an M.S. ininternational economics fromColumbia University in 1959.[1][2][6]
After working for a short time inpublic relations forWorthington Corporation inNewark, New Jersey, in 1960 Mander moved toSan Francisco, where he was hired as a publicist for theSan Francisco International Film Festival.[2] He also co-promoted the psychedelicTrips Festival in 1966; worked for the modern dancerAnna Halprin, accompanying her on a European tour as her manager; and withErnest Callenbach, founded the first art-house cinema in San Francisco.[7] In 1966, he joinedHoward Gossage's advertising agency, which became Freeman, Mander & Gossage after Mander became a partner. Clients included the comedy troupesthe Committee, for whom Mander ran a full-page ad in theSan Francisco Chronicle announcing a competition to donate war toys to be air-dropped on thePentagon,[2][7] andFiresign Theater. After Gossage's death in 1969, the firm broke up and Mander became independent.[1] He co-founded Public Interest Communications to assist individuals and nonprofits, then joined the Public Media Center, where he remained for 20 years as a senior fellow.[1][2]
In 1966, while at Freeman & Gossage, Mander created an ad campaign for theSierra Club that is largely credited with stopping a U.S. Government plan to dam theColorado River in theGrand Canyon in order to raise the level of the river and to generatehydropower. Mander's newspaper ads, with headlines like "Should We Also Flood the Sistine Chapel So Tourists Can Get Nearer the Ceiling?"[1][8] and "Now Only You Can Save Grand Canyon From Being Flooded ... For Profit", included coupons for readers to clip and mail to the President and the Secretary of the Interior.[2] The Sierra Club remained a client; another wasPlanned Parenthood, for whom he created a 1985 abortion rights campaign that also included coupons for readers to mail to officials, in addition to photos of two women with their accounts of obtaining illegal abortions, and of a firebombed abortion clinic.[2] His last major campaign, theTurning Point Project for theFoundation for Deep Ecology, encompassed 25 weekly full-page ads in theNew York Times on a range of ecological topics.[1] TheWall Street Journal called him "theRalph Nader of advertising.[8]
Mander was program director at the Foundation for Deep Ecology,[2] and in 1994 founded theInternational Forum on Globalization, a multi-national think tank in counterpoint to theWorld Trade Organization and theNorth American Free Trade Agreement that held sold-out teach-ins and launched the anti-corporatist movement.[1][2][8] He served as its executive director until 2009, when he became a Distinguished Fellow. In 2007, he appeared in the documentary filmWhat a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire.[9]
Mander published eight non-fiction books, the best known beingFour Arguments for the Elimination of Television in 1978,[8] in which he argued that television paves the way for autocracy by isolating viewers and dulling their minds.[2] In 2022 he published a memoir through the prism of his advertising work for transformative causes,70 Ads to Save the World.[1][2][8]
In 1965, Mander married feminist author Anica Vesel. They had two sons, Kai and Yari. They divorced in 1982; she died in 2002.[10] He remarried in 1987 to Elizabeth Garsonnin, a filmmaker and colleague at the Public Media Center, from whom he was also divorced, and in 2009 to Koohan Paik, also a filmmaker. They split their time between his longtime home inBolinas, California, and her home in Hawaii.[1]
Mander died at home inKukuihaele, Hawaii, on April 11, 2023, at the age of 86. According to family, the cause wasprostate cancer.[1][2]
I was born in the Bronx. I grew up in Yonkers, New York.
My parents carried the immigrants' fears. Security was their primary value: all else was secondary. Both of them had escaped pogroms in Eastern Europe. My father's career had followed the path familiar to so many New York immigrants. Lower East Side. Scant schooling. Street hustling. Hard work at anything to keep life together. Early marriage. Struggling out of poverty. ... [My father] founded what later became Harry Mander and Company, a small service business to the garment industry, manufacturing pipings, waistbands, pocketing and collar canvas.
I was a golf star throughout my youth and that was what I wanted to be, a professional golfer when I was very young.
He holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Business School in International Economics.
