Mad Men and Mirror Makers

Matthew Weiner, creator of the AMC series “Mad Men,” was interviewed in the April 27 issue of the New York Times Book Review.

Asked if he had any favorites among the advertising memoirs of the 20th century Weiner listed Stephen Fox’s anecdotal history of advertising The Mirror Makers as an influence.

In fact, Weiner referred to The Mirror Makers as an “academic masterpiece.”

“I had wondered if Weiner and his cohorts had used my book,” Fox says. “A real adman named Draper Daniels figures largely in my chapters on the 1950s and 1960s—the era of the show—and his name is quite similar to Donald Draper, the antihero of the show.”

Fox has praise for the work that Weiner and his collaborators have done on the cable tv hit.

“As a historian of the ad biz, I must say that show gets the historical details right,” Fox says. “In some ways it’s less about advertising and more about how different things were for women, gays, and blacks back then.”


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