"Prescriptive literature" refers to books, pamphlets, or manuals that present advice or instruction in some way. These rare books held by our libraries offered advice for women seeking to break into the advertising business.
The following rare books present fictional accounts of women in advertising in the twentieth century.
Rena Bartos published The Moving Target: What Every Marketer Should Know About Women in 1974.
Helen Landsdown Resor (1886-1964) ran J. Walter Thompson alongside her husband in the early 20th century. She is famous for her 1910 Woodbury Soap ad campaign ("the skin you love to touch") which is credited as the first campaign to rely on sex appeal to sell products. She and her husband were both inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.